At the beginning of the Pacific War, the Southern Army made rapid progress and fought in four directions, with Yamashita Fumi's 25th Army along the Malay Peninsula-Singapore direction, Honma Masaharu's 14th Army along the Philippines direction, Iida Shojiro's 15th Army along the Burma-Thailand-India direction, and Imamura's 16th Army along the Java direction. In less than half a year, the Southern Army invaded Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and many islands in the South Pacific, and captured a large area of land 10 times the size of the Japanese mainland, rich in natural resources, and 150 million people. At the same time, the Japanese side suffered very few losses, including the navy, with only 15,000 casualties, 380 aircraft and 4 destroyers.

After two years, because of repeated defeats in the war, Japan strengthened the strength of the southern dispatch army after last year. Before Wang Hanzhang attacked Thailand, the Japanese army evacuated Thailand.

7th Front Army (Headquarters in Singapore, Commander Kenji Dohihara): 29th Army (37th, 94th Division, 37th, 70th Brigade), 16th Army (48th Division, 28th Brigade), 37th Army (56th and 71st Brigades), 46th Division, 26th Brigade, 100,000 men, the main task is to prevent Allied forces from advancing in Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, Java and Sumatra.

14th Front (headquarters in Luzon): 35th Army (1st, 16th, 26th, 30th, 100th, 102nd Divisions, 54th, 55th Brigades, 68th Infantry Brigade), 41st Army (8th Division), 10th, 19th, 23rd, 103rd, 105th, 2nd Tank Division, 1st Advance Group, 58th Brigade and 4th Flying Division.

In November 1941, the 14th Army was established under the Southern Army, and the operational area was deployed on the Philippine side. In October 1942, it was reorganized and upgraded to the 14th Front Army, with Commander Masaharu Honma and 200,000 troops.

The 18th Front Army (headquarters in Bangkok, Commander Akito Nakamura): 15th Army (4th Division), 15th and 22nd Divisions directly under the Central Government, independent mixed 29th Brigade, Bangkok Defense Force, a total of 50,000 people.

Under the direct jurisdiction of the Southern Army: 14th Division (49th and 53rd Brigades and Regiments of Independent Mixed Brigades), 2nd Army (5th, 32nd, 35th, 36th Divisions, 57th and 128th Brigades of Independent Mixed Divisions), 18th Army (20th, 41st, 51st Divisions), 38th Army (2nd, 21st, 55th Brigades, 34th Brigade of Independent Mixed Brigades), 3rd Air Army (5th, 9th Flying Divisions, 55th Aviation Divisions. The 250,000-strong personnel were commanded by the commander of the Dispatch Army, Toshiichi Terauchi, and the area of operation was in the Pacific Islands.

In terms of troops, the Japanese army's southern dispatch army is strong, and it is the most elite unit of the Japanese army, if it were not for the fierce attack of the United States in the Pacific, Wang Hanzhang would definitely face an unprecedented war, of course, Wang Hanzhang can go to this day is also related to the strategic pattern of the Japanese army, the Japanese army did not care very much at first, they think that the first defeat of the United States, the Chinese expeditionary force is not to worry, but he is defeated again and again in the hands of the United States, and the expeditionary force, Wang Hanzhang has grown up rapidly, As a result, Japan missed the best time to attack.

After the outbreak of the plague, the Seventh Front Army stationed in Indonesia and Malay was powerless to stop the surging plague, they only had 100,000 people, but they had to stabilize 5 or 60 million Indonesian natives, even with the assistance of indigenous soldiers, their manpower was still insufficient, and they didn't know where to start if they wanted to kill, and at the same time, they couldn't kill them, and the seemingly healthy people might have an attack tomorrow.

In the end, Kenji Dohihara could only defend the Japanese army and the diaspora, and Shiro Ishihara arrived in Singapore quickly.

According to the report of the military doctor stationed in the area, Shiro Ishihara looked at the patient's symptoms and quickly realized that it was his research that the natives must have come to Indonesia and Singapore to infect the people here.

"According to the following inspection report and the personal examination of my subordinates, I can already confirm that the virus of this plague is a new type of bacteria that I have researched. However, I only used it in Thailand and Cambodia, and I was supposed to cooperate with the base camp to eliminate the Chinese expeditionary force, but I didn't expect them to run faster than rabbits, which made the plan fall through. ”

"According to my own observation of half a month there, the speed of the plague spread very fast, faster than the outbreak in the laboratory in China, I synthesized it, one is that the environment here is more suitable for the breeding of bacteria, but the population here is dense and unhygienic, and now the plague has broken out in full force, although we have medicine to treat it, but sorry, the cost of medicine is expensive, I don't have the ability to save tens of millions of people," Shiro Ishihara said.

"Ishihara-kun should know that Indonesia, Malaya and Vietnam are equally important, there are the most urgently needed resources for the empire, the most important is oil resources, and it can also provide military rations for hundreds of thousands of troops, if the plague is allowed to break out here, then the economy will be seriously damaged, not only will there be no food, but the normal production of oil and other minerals will also be affected." ”

"Ishihara-kun, I don't care how many natives die, but what I care about is the interests of the empire here, especially the materials that the empire urgently needs, no matter what method you use, it is extremely guaranteed to produce normally." Dohihara's words were very harsh, which made Shiro Ishihara a little afraid.

Shiro Ishihara thought for a while and said: "I understand this, but I'm afraid it's too late to treat it, I think it's going to be a key treatment, let's disinfect important places first, and carry out key disinfection to ensure the safety of these places, what do you think, in short, I declare that even if you fully support the production of drugs, it is impossible to produce so many drugs." ”

Shiro Dohihara looked at Shiro Ishihara with a sincere face, and he said, "Okay, you go and arrange, and as soon as possible, don't let the plague spread to the expatriates and the army." ”

Shiro Ishihara quickly cleaned up Singapore and important cities and raw material production areas according to Tohihara's orders, while the Malay Peninsula is a key area, which is relatively small and strategically advantageous, and Tohihara does not want anything big to happen.

The Malay natives suffered from it, and the general natives did not dare to treat them if they had a cold and fever, and for such people, once the Japanese found it, they were directly treated as plague patients, they were not treated, but burned after being eliminated, and it was a dead end if they were found by the Japanese.

The Indonesians are not so lucky, the population of the Malay Peninsula is only a few million, which is relatively easy to prevent, but the three large islands of Indonesia concentrate 90% of Indonesia's population, one to at least 10 million, and Java Island has more than 20 million people, which cannot be prevented at all, the plague has spread everywhere, and now no one knows who is infected and who is not.

Waiting for the Indonesians is only the same fate as the Thais, and most of the local Chinese are concentrated in important cities, and the Japanese have carried out prevention and control here, so most of them have escaped this catastrophe, but because of the plague in other places, the income of the Japanese army has been greatly reduced, so the Japanese have exploited them even more, basically just to let them live, but this is already good, before the Japanese in Indonesia, The Malayan Japanese not only slaughtered the Chinese themselves, but also instigated the natives to kill the Chinese.

While the plague occurred in Indonesia and Malay, the Philippines also broke out in the following days. Because of the news of the Japanese blockade, the things that the natives knew were all reports that were beneficial to Japan, and most people did not know about the outside world, let alone the great plague in Southeast Asia.

Although Masaharu Honma in Manila, Philippines, knew about the plague in Thailand, he did not remind him to pay attention to the prevention and control of the plague, and he himself never thought that the plague could spread to the Philippines across the vast South China Sea.

However, there are relatively few Thai people in the Philippines, after all, the distance is too far, so there is no outbreak everywhere, but the main island with the largest population has not been spared, and because the indigenous people dare not report the disease, so a large number of people have been infected, some have a quick attack, some people have a virus latent in the body, at any time, and even some people will not attack, but will always be latent, but others will contact him will be infected, and then attack, I don't know that this kind of person is one in ten thousand.

The plague spread rapidly in the Philippines, and there were many Japanese troops stationed in the Philippines, and soon there were some infected people in the army, and for a while, everyone in the Japanese army was in danger, and they could no longer care about what plague to prevent, and soon they separated themselves from the natives of the outside world, and at the same time they had to let Shiro Ishii come over to prevent the plague, at least to protect the Japanese army.

Wang Hanzhang finally knew that the plague was caused by the Japanese, so he strongly complained about the behavior of the Japanese army in the international community, and at the same time sent people to take a large number of photos, and for a time the allies rushed to report, and even Germany and other Axis powers also condemned Japan's actions.

And Japan also accused Qin of doing it, but after Qin cited a lot of evidence, no one believed that Qin did it, first of all, Japan's escape from Thailand without a fight is the most obvious thing, the Japanese could not do this, in addition, Japan's use of poison gas bombs and bacteriological bombs in China has long been reported countless times.

Britain, the United States, and other countries are very worried when they see that the power of Japan's bacteriological weapons is so amazing, and they have accelerated the development of medicines. At the same time, the U.S. operational plan for landing in the Philippines was forced to shelve.

On the Japanese side, the plague has broken out in full swing, and there is no way to prevent it, unless he stops fighting and will have energy.

By the time the Qin army counterattacked Indonesia and the Philippines, there were more than 20 million of the original 70 million people in Indonesia, and more than 6 million people in the Philippines were scattered on various islands because of their special status, and more than 6 million were later killed because of illness or suspected by the Japanese army, leaving more than 9 million people. This greatly reduced the resistance to the inclusion of these places in the Chinese civilization circle in the future.

At the same time, the plague was rampant, and Japan's tax revenue in this place was seriously impressed, some people died of the plague, and some people died of starvation, and at the same time, in order to ensure the production of mineral resources, Japan recruited a large number of natives and oppressed them to death.