None of the ministers objected to the emperor's order, and when the head of the Navy Command Department and Kawako Shiro were about to convey the order, Admiral Nagano Shusui, who had served as the head of the Navy Command Department (equivalent to the Chief of the Naval Staff) during the Taisho era, suddenly spoke:

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that this matter must not be rushed!"

Hirohito, who was very excited just now, glared at him, but still gave him a chance to speak.

"What do you think?"

In the face of the emperor's fierce eyes, Nagano Xiu leaned down and said unhurriedly:

"Your Majesty, our country has been at war with the Germans for nearly 10 months, the 1st Fleet of our Imperial Navy is stationed in Sasebo, and the 2nd Fleet of the German Pacific Ocean is also safely stationed in Qingdao, the two fleets have rarely had contact with each other across the sea, the advantage of the strength of our 1st Fleet is one of them, and the second is that German submarines are all over the waters around our country, destroying our ships, cutting off our shipping routes, spying on our military situation, and ambushing our warships, our army has been suffering from this, on the other hand, the Germans, the main ships stationed in Qingdao have never entered the waters east of Kyushu to harass!"

"We all know what you said, but the Rande ship did enter the waters east of our Kyushu today, and if it sails to the northeast again, it is very likely to threaten our Tokyo Bay from the sea!" Admiral Minister Keisuke Okada interjected, "If we don't eliminate it as soon as possible, how can Honshu and Shikoku be peaceful?" ”

Hirohito nodded in agreement.

"Dare to ask Your Excellency the Minister of the Navy, how many German submarines are lurking in the waters east of Kyushu and south of Shikoku?" Nagano asked rhetorically.

"Uh...... Not to mention fifty people! Although reluctant, Keisuke Okada had to admit that the strength of Germany's underwater power was unmatched by the Japanese navy, and although the waters east of Japan belonged to Japan, the sea below the surface was the world of German submarines.

"Your Excellency the Admiralty, do you remember the defeat of Vice Admiral Tachino and the 3rd Fleet in the past?" Nagano's words were light, but they made everyone in the audience, including Hirohito, fall into deep thought.

Suddenly, a few beads of sweat appeared on Keisuke Okada's forehead.

The first to speak was Emperor Hirohito, who was on the throne.

"You have a point! The Germans have a plan for this! Hirohito immediately expressed his support for the latest and most correct opinion.

"Your Majesty is wise!" The sound of sycophants arrived immediately.

A look of disdain flashed across Nagano's face, and he continued:

"Therefore, His Majesty thought that it was not appropriate to mobilize Admiral Eisuke Yamamoto's 1st Fleet at this time. Instead, it was ordered to continue to monitor the German 2nd Pacific Fleet, which was active in the Yellow Sea, and cut off the fleet's attempt to go north to reinforce Kuye Island! ”

"Well, what Qing said is very true, but how to deal with the German ships operating east of my Kyushu?" Hirohito, who is usually assertive, does not seem to have much to do at this time, after all, he studied under Field Marshal Nogi Noshinori in his early years, and then served in the Japanese Army.

Nagano Shushen looked at Keisuke Okada, this person was his boss after all, and it was not a good thing to be too showy in front of him. And although Okada's face was displeased, he was an old fritter who had been in the military and political circles for many years, and after receiving Naganoji's eyes, he said generously:

"Nagano-kun must have a countermeasure, you might as well say it and listen to it, as long as you can repel the current virtue, Nagano-kun should take the first credit!"

"Yes!" Nagano thought as he spoke: "The Germans attacked our port with carrier-based aircraft, and their motherships would not be thousands of miles away from the coast!" Therefore, our army can send coastal ships, airships, and aircraft units to search for the enemy. When concentrating a large number of torpedo boats for a powerful raid! ”

Hirohito pondered for a moment. Nodding, while the sycophants were preparing to act, they heard Keisuke Okada's lukewarm voice.

"Nagano-kun. The size of this German fleet is unknown, in case it is the main force of the German Pacific First Inkstone and is preparing to go north......"

"Your Excellency, has you forgotten the German fleet that our army discovered in the waters south of Dalian two days ago? Even if we take a step back, if this force is really the main force of the German Pacific Inkstone, our army can immediately attack Jiaozhou Bay by sea and land! ”

Nagano shocked the four with a word.

At the beginning of the war, Jiaozhou Bay, Vladivostok, and Kuye Island were the three thorns in the emperor's throat, and the Japanese generals all wanted to get rid of them quickly, and the battle to capture Vladivostok was quite smooth, but at present, Kuye Island has been fighting from the expected month to more than three months now, and although the Kwantung Army in the south has broken through the defense line of the Great Wall and Beiping and Tianjin, it has been stubbornly resisted by the squadron on the line from Shijiazhuang to Jinan.

"Even if the Navy sends the 1st Fleet to attack Jiaozhou Bay. However, the vanguard of the Kwantung Army has been stagnant since the capture of Tianjin two months ago, so how can it advance by sea and land? A sneer of disdain appeared on the corner of Keisuke Okada's mouth, and at the same time, the faces of several people in the audience wearing army generals' uniforms became extremely ugly.

Since this was a meeting to discuss naval affairs, there were not many army generals attending the meeting, but one of them was Eitaro Tada, who was known for his violent personality, and although the other party was the Minister of the Navy, the Japanese Vice Admiral was still very unkind and said:

"Compared with the total annihilation of the Navy's fleet, the Kwantung Army has saved a lot of face for the empire!"

"You...... Licentious! Keisuke Okada wasn't in a good mood. Hearing the other party's unkind words, he jumped up directly from his position, and Tian Eitaro did not show weakness, seeing that a fierce confrontation between land and sea was about to break out, the cabinet ministers present rose up to admonish. Hirohito was accustomed to this situation, but he didn't like to take sides, so he simply pretended not to see it.

After a while, the two men who looked at each other angrily sat back in their seats.

"Can the Kwantung Army be sure to break through to the outskirts of Qingdao in a short period of time?" Hirohito diverted the topic at the right time, because it had not been in the Kansai for a long time, and the army units that had entered the Kannai at this time were still subordinate to the Kwantung Army.

It was the Minister of War Shirakawa Yoshinori who came out to answer the question, and he was also very unhappy with the ridicule of the Admiralty, but he could not hide the truth in front of the emperor, so he had to report in 1510:

"Back to Your Majesty! According to reliable information, the Chinese army stationed on the front line of Shijiazhuang and Jinan has a total of 43 infantry divisions of four group armies, with a strength of more than 300,000 troops, of which 56 are the main divisions of all-German armament, and one is a light armored division, in addition to the heavy artillery and guns provided by the Germans, and are supported by the German aviation units stationed in Qingdao, and at present, our Kwantung Army has assembled nearly 200,000 people in seven divisions and one tank brigade in the vicinity of Tianjin, and most of the aviation units have been transferred to Hokkaido to participate in the Battle of Kuye Island. Therefore, it is not easy for our army to break through the defense line of the Chinese army in a short period of time! ”

"What if we have a large increase in troops in a short period of time and naval support?" When it came to army affairs, Hirohito knew significantly more.

"Hope!" Bai Chuan Yi lost no time in answering.

After thinking about it. Hirohito stood up, "Today is July 24, 1929 in the Western calendar, and in three days, the army should capture the Korsakov fortress; Within seven days, the Kwantung Army sent four more divisions from Guanwai and Korea to rush to the front line, and conducted close reconnaissance and infiltration of the Shina army in front of it; From now on, the airship corps and the coastal defense fleets began to search the waters east of Kyushu and south of Honshu on a large scale, and it was necessary to find out the traces of the German ships and find out the size of the other side.

Concentrate torpedo boats in the main ports of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu on standby! ”

Everyone stood up in unison, "Hey! ”

Just three hours after Emperor Hirohito's decision, the port of Kochi in Shikoku was suddenly attacked by a group of German planes, and although the losses were not large, the attack caused a lot of panic among the local population.

The Japanese Army Aviation Unit stationed in Shikoku then sent a group of fighters in pursuit, but because the better fighters were transferred to Hokkaido, all of these old fighters returned in vain.

By the evening of the same day, two more small attacks had been carried out: Mube, in the southeastern part of Shikoku, and Kushimoto, on the Kii Peninsula in Honshu, where German warplanes moved quickly and came and went, and because they were attacking non-military targets with weak air defenses. The Japanese ground air defense forces and the few aviation units did nothing.

From the afternoon of the same day. The Japanese Navy sent a large number of ships into the area designated by the Emperor to search, but not only did they not find any trace of the opposing fleet, but they lost one coastal defense ship converted from an old cruiser, one new destroyer, and several medium patrol ships due to an attack by German submarines. Of course, this also heightened suspicions about the motives of the German fleet, and the capital ships stationed in Sasebo and Yokosuka were not dispatched for the next few days.

Two days later, the German fleet appeared near the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, and a large number of Japanese torpedo boats gathered outside Tokyo Bay pounced on their targets like piranhas smelling blood, but after arriving at the designated area, they found nothing except some mines laid by the Germans, but were frightened by the torpedoes that appeared from time to time and fled in all directions.

On July 27, the last day of the Emperor's time, the Japanese finally captured the Korsakov fortress at the cost of 170,000 dead and 220,000 wounded. To their great surprise, the remnants of the German 1st Pacific Fleet were not blown up by the Germans as expected, but ran aground in the harbor one by one, the battleship "Caesar Barbarossa", the battlecruiser "Thessaloniki", the heavy aircraft carrier "Georg", and the heavy cruiser "Scharnhorst". , the ship's ammunition depot was also empty.

The Japanese army, who had won the "Great Victory of Korsakov", immediately took advantage of the victory to advance to the central part of Kuye Island, not wanting to run into a new German defense line when they reached the narrow strip near Atmouth, a "hedgehog line" built on a hilly area with various commanding heights as the core, where the Germans not only dug a large number of trenches and trenches, but also a staggering number of mushroom-like reinforced concrete pillboxes. At this moment, the Japanese commander finally understood that the Germans were ready to abandon Korsakov, and that it would not be easier for the Japanese to pass through the central and southern part of this narrow Kuye Island than to capture the fortress of Korsakov, and the only hope for a quick victory at the moment was to open a new landing ground behind the narrow strip where the Germans had concentrated their forces.

The "wise report" was quickly transmitted from the Japanese front command to the army headquarters, and a few hours later it was placed before Emperor Hirohito and his senior staff elsewhere.

"The eastern part of Kuye is the most suitable for landing, but we must first defeat the German fleet stationed in the northern part of the Kuril Islands! So far, we don't know exactly what fleet it is, and it's not even clear how many warships the other side has! Moreover, there are still an unknown number of mines and submarines in the Sea of Hortsk, and the previous operation "poison darts" took a huge risk, and now the Germans are bound to strengthen their vigilance on this side! ”

The aging Shuzo Matsuoka was a vice admiral who had reached retirement age, but his strong sense of duty made him determined to continue serving his country until the end of the war.

"There are quite a few beaches on the west coast of Kuye Island that can be landed, but a few hundred meters from the coastline are rolling mountains, even if our troops successfully land, it will be very difficult to expand and march to the target location, and Germany's air superiority will greatly deplete our landing force on the way!"

Another veteran Saito Hanroku, who has reached retirement age, also analyzed on the side, whether this Japanese vice admiral is a descendant of the swordsman Saito Yakuro We have no way of knowing, but in the face of the dazzling tactical arrangements of the German army, this old man is more pessimistic about the prospects of the Japanese army.

Hirohito looked down at the large battlefield sand table that simulated the terrain of Kuya Island, his brows furrowed in displeasure, what he needed at the moment was obviously not a frustrating word that would not work or that, he needed a proposal that could change the current unfavorable occupation, a proposal to completely drive the Germans out of Kuya Island.

"Paratroopers cooperate with the marines, this is a common tactic used by the Germans!"

The speaker's voice was not loud, but it attracted the attention of almost the entire war room, and when people found out that this guy was just an officer with the rank of big sa, their eyes became strange again.

Hirohito looked up and saw a dark, rough, and vibrant face.

"Presumptuous!" The Minister of Konoe whispered, but he didn't continue, because he saw Hirohito's gesture to stop him.

"This is Hidera Obata Osa! I know you, you just took over as Chief of Staff of the 1st Flying Division of the Imperial Army! ”

At this moment, everyone's eyes were not only full of surprise, but also flattering, and it was a great honor to be remembered by the emperor, and it was just around the corner.

"Your Majesty, I thought that the previous airborne operation had failed, and the defeat was defeated by the Germans one by one due to the dispersion of troops, and now the Germans are concentrating their forces on the Atmouth Line, and our army can choose to land on the coast west of the island, and at the same time the airborne brigade on the east of the island far from the landing point, so that the Germans cannot care about each other!"

Judging from Hidera Obata's smooth words, this was a countermeasure he had already thought of, and Hirohito's approval of this strategy, which was equally risky and rewarding.

Recommendation: If you are interested, you can use Google Earth to see the topography of Kuye Island or other places mentioned in this book, which is much better than an electronic map, but most of the place names and notes are in English.