"Overwhelming victory?" Ugaki asked, "Commander, what is a landslide victory?" ”

Yamamoto Fifty-six was silent for a moment and said his thoughts, "The so-called overwhelming victory is naturally the occupation of Oahu!" ”

Yamamoto had been hesitant to occupy Oahu. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 On the one hand, I would like to take Oahu, a key point in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as a frontier fortress in Japan's "absolute defense circle." On the other hand, he felt that a fortress like Oahu could not be taken down in a short period of time, and that in order to destroy Williston Fortress, he had to risk the "Yamato Hotel".

Therefore, Yamamoto has been preparing for two things, and if the battle in Hawaii goes well, then Oahu will be easily captured. If Hawaii doesn't go well, then leaving the oil depot will be enough for Japan to build an absolute defense ring as long as Oahu does not play the role of the Pacific Fleet's home port for the next 12 months.

As for the defeat of the United States, it is mainly up to Germany to contribute......

However, as soon as the "B-17 bombing incident in Tokyo" came out, as well as the attitude of the Soviet Union on this matter, Yamamoto 56 saw the danger of the United States and the Soviet Union fighting against Japan!

The bombing of Tokyo by the American B-17 from Guam can only be a "one-off event", and the symbolism is far greater than the actual significance. But if the B-17 had taken off from Vladivostok, it would have only been 1,000 kilometers to drop the bomb on Tokyo. With the strong national power of the United States and the Soviet Union, even the mobilization of several thousand B-17s is not a problem. By then, it will only take a few months to bomb large and medium-sized cities in mainland Japan to the ground.

If Japan could not win an overwhelming victory in the "Hawaii Operation," then the possibility of the Soviet Union and the United States working together to defeat Japan first and then concentrate their forces on Germany could not be ruled out.

And the capture of Oahu was undoubtedly an overwhelming victory that allowed Stalin to see the strength and invincibility of the Japanese Navy!

Moreover, after the capture of Oahu, the Japanese submarine fleet sent from Oahu could even cut off communication between the West Coast of the United States and Australia. This will make it much more difficult for the United States to counterattack, and as long as the Hawaiian Islands are held, Japan will not pose any major threat in the southeast and southeast. If the Soviet Union dares to join forces with the United States, then Japan will be able to deal with it with most of its strength, and perhaps it will be able to join Germany to eliminate the Soviet Union, so that the hegemony of the Japanese Empire in the East will be unshakable.

Yamamoto Fifty-six seemed to have made a great determination, and suddenly said loudly: "Send a telegram to the Military Command Department and request the start of the second phase of the 'Z Battle Plan'...... Aim to capture Oahu and start your Hawaiian strategy now! ”

……

"What? Now is it time to start your Hawaii strategy? ”

"But several aircraft carriers of the U.S. Pacific Fleet are still unscathed, and there are three battleships that can be used."

At an emergency meeting at the base camp on the evening of December 9 (Tokyo time), the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Shumi Nagano, raised Yamamoto's request. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and Chief of Staff Headquarters Motosugi Sugiyama, who were present, were taken aback when they heard this.

"Nagano-kun," Hideki Tojo said to Nagano with a frown, "the first issue now is to seize Guam and the Philippines to prevent the possibility of American planes invading Tokyo again!" ”

Fool Yuan also chimed in: "The Prime Minister is right, the top priority now is not to let American planes come to Tokyo to disturb His Majesty the Emperor!" ”

Although the bombing of the Imperial Palace in the afternoon did not kill Emperor Hirohito, everyone could see that "Tsuruyan" was already quite unhappy. Hideki Tojo, Shusei Nagano, and Motomoto Sugiyama even knelt down to the emperor to plead guilty after the American plane swaggered away, and repeatedly promised that the same thing would not happen again.

The current emergency meeting in the base camp is to discuss how to keep the American B-17 out of the way. And before the meeting began, Hideki Tojo and Fool Moto already knew that the B-17 that bombed Tokyo was flying from Guam. Therefore, the two have privately agreed that they must occupy Guam and the Philippines, and must not allow American planes to come to Tokyo to drop bombs again.

Listening to Hideki Tojo's words, Nagano Shushen couldn't cry or laugh in his heart. The two big fools, Tojo and Sugiyama, only know that "headaches cure heads, and foot pains cure feet". U.S. planes coming from Guam are about to occupy Guam immediately? How many B-17s did they think there were in Guam? Will there be a second such bombardment?

"Prime Minister, Sugiyama-kun," said Nagano Shuseki, shaking his head, "the American B-17s will no longer come from the Philippines and Guam, because there are no more B-17s there...... But in Vladivostok, there are probably many B-17 bombers there! If you want to put an end to the possibility of American planes coming to Tokyo, you must occupy Vladivostok! ”

Occupy Vladivostok? Isn't this looking for death?

"Vladivostok is naturally to be occupied!" Fool Moto glanced at Nagano, and then said in a very affirmative tone, "But not now...... It is necessary to wait until the Pacific side has established absolute superiority before launching westward and northward operations to solve the northern problem. ”

The northern problem is, to put it mildly, the Manchurian problem. It was nominally occupied by warlords from the East Asian continent, but in reality it was an "independent kingdom" controlled by Japan. But this "independent kingdom" is in quotation marks after all. And removing this quotation mark has always been the greatest wish of the Japanese Army.

In the case of the North, Mongolia and the Soviet Far East should be added. Only by holding both of these territories can Japan's hegemony in Greater East Asia be considered rock-solid.

But the Soviet Union has always been the biggest obstacle to Japan's solution to the northern problem!

Therefore, the Japanese Army has always had the idea of joining forces with Germany to defeat the Soviet Union and completely solve the northern problem.

"That's it!" Although Nagano Shusei was not in favor of a war with the Soviet Union, there was no need to contradict the army people now. "The goal at this stage should be to establish the absolute superiority of the empire in the Pacific. And the quickest, and most likely way to do that, is to take Oahu now! ”

Nagano shares his views on the war between the United States and Japan as Hirschmann. He analyzed this issue on the basis of the speed of ship construction in Japan and the United States. In his view, now is the peak of the Japanese Navy's troop comparison with the United States. Because the United States has already begun a large-scale shipbuilding project, and there is also sufficient national strength to further increase shipbuilding. Therefore, the naval power of the United States will eventually overwhelm Japan!

Therefore, Japan must fight a decisive battle with the United States when the United States has not yet completed its shipbuilding program, and the greater the stakes and the scale of the decisive battle, the more favorable it will be to Japan -- because the current advantage is after all on Japan's side, and Japan has a relatively large chance of winning, so the more you gamble, the more you will naturally win.

"As long as Hawaii is captured, it is equivalent to closing the door to the entire western Pacific!" "When the time comes, we can rely on the army, shore-based aircraft, and fortifications to keep the Americans out of the country." ”

For the United States, Hawaii is an inextricable fortress in the Pacific Ocean, once this fortress is seized by Japan. Even if the U.S. route to the western Pacific is cut off, there is no attempt to threaten the Japanese mainland until the Hawaiian Islands are recaptured. As far as Japan is concerned, once it takes Hawaii, it is possible to implement a land-to-sea strategy. Take advantage of the strategic window period before the launch of a large number of American battleships and aircraft carriers, and invest enough manpower and material resources to build Hawaiian forts.

Because the territory of the Hawaiian Islands is not small, with 16,759 square kilometers, and the island's agriculture and fishing are relatively developed, it is completely possible to achieve food self-sufficiency of 200,000 or even more garrisons, which is very beneficial to the Japanese army and navy to hold Hawaii for a long time.

Once Japan deploys 200,000 or 300,000 ground troops, more than 1,000 commonly used aircraft, and sets up a large number of security batteries in the Hawaiian Islands. If the United States wants to retake Hawaii, it will not be so simple.

Since the west coast of the United States is too far from the Hawaiian Islands, it is impossible to use shore-based aircraft to support the Hawaiian operation. Therefore, it can only rely on carrier-based aircraft on aircraft carriers, and in order to suppress Japan's more than 1,000 shore-based aircraft, the United States must invest at least 15 large fleet aircraft carriers.

In order to defeat the 200,000 or 300,000 Japanese troops on the Hawaiian Islands, the United States would have to commit at least 400,000 landing troops. To transport 400,000 people across 2,000 nautical miles to Hawaii, the combined number of transport ships, landing ships, escort ships, and battleships responsible for shelling the islands is a terrible astronomical amount.

"The Navy has repeatedly deduced," said Nagano Shuse, "if we seize the Hawaiian Islands and hold on to them, then if the forces we put into defense are one, then the forces that the United States must invest in capturing it will be 20-30!" The unfavorable situation caused by the power gap between Japan and the United States will be completely reversed by the Hawaiian Fortress. As long as we take Hawaii, our empire will be invincible. ”

Nagano is absolutely right, just think of the power that Britain and the United States have exerted in history to cross the English Channel, which has an average width of only 180 kilometers -- more than 3,000 kilometers from the mainland of the United States to Hawaii. The Americans had to exert several times more effort than Operation Overlord to make it possible to send hundreds of thousands of landing troops to Hawaii.

"But do we have enough strength to take the Hawaiian Islands now?" Hideki Tojo asked with some hesitation.

Nagano nodded heavily and replied, "The airfields and oil depots on Oahu have now been destroyed, and the shore-based planes have also been lost. The Pacific Fleet suffered even heavier losses, and the superiority in the sea and air was in our hands. The only thing the United States could fear was the defenders of 2 divisions. I wonder how many troops the army needs to defeat 2 American divisions? (To be continued.) )