At 1:45 a.m. on December 25, 1926, Emperor Taisho, who had been bedridden for a long time, died, and the emperor, who was said to have suffered from severe encephalopathy, had a 15-year reign that was significantly inferior to his predecessor, Emperor Meiji.

Although it has been called "unfortunate", the Taisho era was actually a short and relatively stable period in modern Japan, since the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan's monopoly capital developed rapidly, and grew into the only imperialist country in Asia. In the early years of Emperor Taisho's reign, after the Meiji Restoration, the German-British and German-American wars caused many foreign businessmen who were willing to take risks to invest in Japan, resulting in a prosperous scene in New Japan, and in the process of capitalist development, a new middle class, that is, the middle class, was gradually formed in both the cities and the countryside. Politically, this stratum opposed the warlords and bureaucrats of the time, demanded the realization of party politics and the implementation of universal suffrage, and the atmosphere of democracy and freedom was very strong.

Another thing that had a profound impact on the political situation during the Taisho era was that someone dared to assassinate the prime minister. Hara Kei was the first civilian prime minister according to historians, but he was also the first current prime minister to be assassinated, and in the later Toranomon Incident1, someone dared to assassinate the regent Prince Hirohito, all of which made the radicals think of using more drastic means to achieve their goals.

It's a pity that the Taisho era passed away in a hurry before it could begin, and the short-lived Taisho culture also came to an end.

About two hours after the death of Emperor Taisho, the 25-year-old crown prince Hirohito officially succeeded to the throne as the 124th emperor, changing the Yuan Showa with the phrase "the people are clear, and the people are in harmony."

With the accession to the throne by the healthy and energetic emperor, all of Japan, from top to bottom, is hopeful for the new era to come. Two years ago, the United States suffered defeat in the war with Germany and Mexico, and the Treaty of Atlanta turned the United States, which was first-class in economy and industry, into a country with an economy controlled by others and industrial decadence. It is bordered by the Chiba Islands to the north, the Indian Ocean to the south, the coast of China to the west, and Hawaii and the Polynesian islands to the east. As far as the eye can see, the vast area has become the sphere of influence of this empire.

Emperor Showa, who served as regent for many years, had actually been in power for many years, and his accession to the throne was just a change of status to continue ruling the country. After the ambitious Hirohito set the goal for Japan to intensify its economic aggression against the United States and East Asian countries and to seize Australia militarily, there was only one country left around Japan with a vast territory, rich resources, and a large population, but weak national strength and slaughter, which was the ultimate goal of the first 20 years of the Showa era.

In response to the ambition of the new emperor, both the cabinet members and the top generals of the armed forces expressed their willingness to contribute everything they had without reservation. And he devoted his life to assisting the emperor in accomplishing this great ideal.

But Hirohito's ambition was shot before it could be implemented – a global economic crisis broke out!

The source of the economic crisis is not the newly defeated United States or the economically backward Russia, not to mention the outbreak of Japan, a major player in East Asia, beyond everyone's expectations, the crisis caused by overproduction has swept Europe with an unstoppable momentum, especially in Germany, which has just experienced a decade of golden development, the influx of a large number of African workers has provided abundant labor for the development of various economic industries, but it has also inevitably brought many negative effects, such as employers prefer to hire cheap African labor, and the unemployment rate of native citizens has increased; On the other hand, cartels in all walks of life have amassed a large amount of wealth and means of production in society, and industrial growth and the redistribution of social wealth have become less balanced than before. Industrial growth was concentrated in a few of the more profitable sectors. The local mineral mining and leather industries are under-employed, and industry mergers are prevalent; Cheap crops in France, Poland and Africa were reduced by local agricultural incomes in Germany, and the land-clinging Junkers had to face the disadvantages of falling crop prices. Many farmers choose to go to Africa to pan for gold, and the rural areas are showing a recession, and rural purchasing power is declining year by year.

In response to the menacing economic crisis, the German government promulgated a series of "New Deal measures", first of all, raising the tariff rate on various goods imported from Africa, and setting a minimum purchase price for local crops, which is subsidized by the government for anything below this price, which to a large extent guarantees the rights and interests of Juncker landlords and small farmers; In the financial system, bank capital is still highly concentrated in a small number of oligarchs in order to solve the problem of unequal industrial development. The German government has taken semi-coercive measures to unite with the banking giants to create a well-funded "industrial auxiliary fund" to provide low-interest or interest-free loans to industries with relatively low profits, and to reduce tax rates in these industries in order to achieve the goal of equalizing profits.

For German citizens, it is very important that the German government announces a new paid reserve system, and has set up a series of women's workshops in the form of 30% government funding and 70% corporate funding, so that all unemployed people who are physically qualified and qualified as reservists can receive a salary equivalent to 213 ordinary soldiers, and paid reservists must go to a nearby barracks for training five days a week, and the training content and intensity are the same as those of the regular army. On weekends, they can freely return home or choose to stay in the barracks, and the food and lodging are completely provided by the government, and unemployed women with German citizenship and good health can sign up for women's workshops, and the salary is calculated at the minimum hourly wage stipulated by the government, and all the materials needed for paid reservists are specially produced - military uniforms, weapons, ammunition, food, etc., forming an industrial system dominated by quasi-professional soldiers such as paid reservists, for which the German ** team has increased 3.2 million soldiers who can be used at any time and more than 6 million female workers. Although the government's financial pressure has increased, it has greatly eased the local employment situation, and the unemployment rate has also been reduced from 19 percent at the beginning of the economic crisis to less than 5 percent.

After acquiring a large number of colonies in Southeast Asia, Japan's economic development was far more deformed than that of Europe - the peasants were not valued in Japan, and the backward agriculture was not suitable for economic development and foreign expansion soon after the Russo-Japanese War, and the influx of rice from Thailand, Vietnam, India and other places exacerbated the turmoil of the Japanese peasant class, and the continued low price of rice made the peasants dare not expect expensive salt, oil, cloth, the poor peasants were often unclothed; Heavy industry and shipbuilding have been the targets of government support since the Meiji era. The large amount of resources looted from Southeast Asia also supports the continued development of these industries, but the Southeast Asian countries in Japan's sphere of influence do not need to buy a large number of Japanese heavy industry products, in the Americas and Oceania, Japan's heavy industry products are basically not competitive in front of the Germans, and the shipbuilding industry is the same, so Japan's heavy industry and shipbuilding industry basically rely on their own countries, especially their own navy, to have the current "prosperity"; Japan's economy has continued to develop in recent years, but the speed of development is far from comparable to the growth of military spending. The Eighth Fleet case "already put tremendous pressure on the already modest finances." After sending an inspection delegation to inspect the German-American naval battle on the spot, the senior admirals of the Admiralty realized that their battleships and battle cruisers had tactically lagged behind Germany's three-dimensional naval and air tactics, and therefore urgently needed to build a number of new aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft that would be sufficient to ensure Japan's status as a great naval power, and that it was as soon as possible. As a result, a large amount of additional budget has been softened and softened from the government. As a result, from 1924 to 1926, the end of the war did not reduce Japan's military spending, and the Japanese government's poor financial situation did not have the emergency response capability of the German government in the face of the wave of economic crisis......

At the beginning of his ascension, he encountered such an economic crisis. Hirohito, of course, did not want to inherit the "unfortunate" title of Emperor Taisho at the same time as he inherited the throne. As we all know, the economic crisis and war of capitalism are almost a joint infant, and the tide of economic crisis has not yet receded. The use of war to distract people proved to be very effective, and the countries most affected by the economic crisis began to stir up.

It is undeniable that a country with a large land and a large population, but in a state of warlord secession, is very tempting for any neighboring country with strength and ambition, let alone the Yamato people, who think themselves to be supreme. As early as the German-American war was in full swing, Japan expanded its garrison in China to 80,000 troops (including Taiwan, Lushun, Dalian and Northeast China) by increasing its troops, which was close to the limit on the total number of troops stationed in China by the subsidiary clauses of the Eurasian Alliance Treaty signed by Germany, Japan and Russia in 1916, and the two Japanese divisions stationed in Korea also transferred a considerable part of their troops to the border areas near China and North Korea.

In 1926, the Chinese National Revolutionary Army launched the Northern Expedition against the Beiyang government, and as an opportunity, Japan once again increased its troops to China under the slogan of "protecting overseas Chinese". As a result, the total strength of the Japanese Kwantung Army reached more than 70,000 men in four divisions and regiments, and it was equipped with tanks, heavy artillery, and all kinds of combat aircraft, while the capital ships of the 1st Squadron of the 2nd Fleet were eyeing the coast of China.

This time, however, Japan did not turn the spearhead of the war to China. After Germany eliminated the United States in 1924, Japan could rest easy in the Pacific and East Asia, and seeing the strength of Germany's navy, land, and air forces, Japan began to regard Germany as its greatest potential competitor. However, it was impossible to provoke Germany, which was also affected by the economic crisis, so they set their sights on Australia, the "orphan" of the British after the fall of the United Kingdom, which was the resource-rich prey and the weakest of all targets in the Japanese government.

When comparing the strength of the two countries with their objectives, one would definitely think that the Japanese were a necessity this time, while the Germans' labor expedition was somewhat worrying. With this in mind, the Japanese watched the departure of the powerful Japanese fleet and troop carriers at the port of Yokohama at the end of March 1927, and although the battleships were overshadowed by the aircraft carriers, in the eyes of the Japanese, it was just the right time to play such a small role against Australia, but they did not know that Australia had secretly purchased a number of combat submarines and a large number of weapons from the Kingdom of Britain, but if you ask whether the Australians would like to be ruled by the Japanese or exist as a British state, the answer is obvious.

While the Japanese Combined Fleet and 50,000 Army soldiers were on the march, the Germans were still busy revising and refining their "Barbarossa" plan. Since 1924, when they swept through Canada with the remnants of the slaughter, the Germans seemed to have no enemies, but their grievances with the eastern serf owners had not yet been settled, and the Germans finally sharpened their knives again when they were invincible in the south, west, and north.

The generals believed that the war should begin in the summer and end in the autumn, so as to avoid the impact of the severe Russian cold on the march and combat of the army, and in terms of the number of troops invested, the generals believed that the current 1 million standing army, 2 million African colonial troops, and 3 million paid reservists could solve the problem of the Russians, and the size of the navy and air force would not need to be expanded, and the assistance to the Russian revolutionary armed forces could be appropriately increased, so that they could stab the Russian government in the back with a small dagger.

In the "Barbarossa" plan, Chen Tian seemed to be more cautious than the generals for the first time, and the experience of the giants made him understand that even if Russia is a bear or a panda, he should not underestimate it at any time.

Therefore, he believed that the number of troops should be as large as possible under the condition that the logistics could be guaranteed, and that they needed to be prepared to spend the winter in Russia, that the air force and navy needed to be appropriately increased in the present base, and that the Turks must participate in this war, and that it would be best if the Japanese could contain a part of the Russian forces from the east.

In addition, Chen Tian also felt that the combat ability of the Russian ** team should not be underestimated, after all, the powerful empress has been on the throne for 10 years, and several "bloodbaths" of the army command show its iron fist and determination to transform the army, although the economy and industry are still developing slowly, but as long as the reasonable distribution can still create a well-equipped army.

In this case, it is particularly important to find out the details of the Russians in detail.

On the other hand, the Russian Revolutionary Party led by Stalin was still struggling in the remote areas under the condition that the revolutionary situation continued to be sluggish, and the guerrilla warfare retrained them with a number of excellent combat commanders, and these people were more determined and flexible in their combat methods, and these people were the only force in the whole of Russia that dared to arm against the iron rule of the empress.