In the early morning of May 21, 1943, in the southwest of Australia, a fleet of two light cruisers, four destroyers, and eight transport ships slowly advanced at a speed of less than 10 knots toward Perth, the largest port in southwest Australia. Pen %Fun Cabinet www.biquge.info The top of the flagpole of these ships all hung a sky-blue flag of the League of Nations peacekeeping forces, under which were their respective nationalities - 9 of the 14 ships were German, 2 Irish, 2 Spanish, and 1 French, and for well-known reasons, Italy and Austria-Hungary did not send a single soldier to participate in the League of Nations peacekeeping operation against the white Australian population.

In this fleet, the command ship was the German Navy light cruiser "Holstein", and the entire fleet was under the full responsibility of the famous Rear Admiral Leo Hard von Helingen, and after the peacekeeping troops landed, the German Army Rear Admiral Gerhardt von Bello, who also came from a famous family, took over the command.

About 50 nautical miles off the coast of Australia, the Holstein's warning radar suddenly spotted an aircraft in the northeast and sent a first-class alert signal to the entire fleet. It didn't take long for a white-painted seaplane to appear in the fleet's field of vision. According to the visual observation of the lookouts, the light seaplane was not loaded with bombs or torpedoes, so Rear Admiral Heilingen did not give the order to sound the battle alarm, and the white plane then showed very obvious reconnaissance intentions, it flew straight above the fleet, circled several times at an altitude of five or six hundred meters before leaving, during which did not make any unkind moves, but the pair of scarlet sunburst badges under the wings made most of the people in the fleet nervous.

As the fleet continued to sail forward to about 20 nautical miles off the coast of Australia, the gray coastline was already in sight, when four surface ships sped in from a north-easterly direction. The "Holstein" immediately issued a second-level alert order, and the escort ships sounded the combat alarm and quickly entered a combat state.

At the same time, the "Holstein" radioed to the other side on public frequencies to indicate its identity and intentions. Even so, the four lead-gray painted warships continued to face each other until they were less than 10 nautical miles away before changing course and slowing down slightly.

None of the four ships flying the sixteen flags of the rising sun in front of them are up to the destroyer level, but this does not mean that they are not a threat to the ships escorting the peacekeeping forces. On the contrary, these large Japanese torpedo boats have extremely strong combat effectiveness in coastal waters, and they are equipped with unique oxygen torpedoes, which have the ability to kill medium and light warships in one hit, let alone devour transport ships.

The fact that the opposing ships were slow to identify themselves and their intentions, and that they were in positions ready to attack, made Rear Admiral Heilingen and his men very uneasy. As everyone knows, the Japanese Government was forced to accept the League of Nations to carry out peacekeeping operations in the white areas of Australia, and the reckless and arrogant Japanese military often made moves that violated the government's directives. Because of these concerns, the Heilingen fleet only carried 1,600 soldiers of the peacekeeping force and the necessary military supplies for this unit, and in the event of an accident, the German Navy's 5th Fleet, which was on standby more than 200 kilometers away, would rush to support as quickly as possible.

Although the "Holstein" is a light cruiser, its combat effectiveness has been greatly improved compared with that of the previous light cruisers due to the use of fire control radar and automatic loading technology. At this moment, its fire control radar has firmly locked on the leading Japanese lightning strike ship, as long as the commander gives an order, 12 152-mm naval guns will tilt a dense and accurate rain of bullets towards the target thousands of meters away, and it is a matter of minutes to kill the target.

The strange atmosphere of war and non-war continued to hang over the sea, and the soldiers who participated in the League of Nations peacekeeping force came to the decks of their respective transport ships, leaning on the railings to watch the Japanese ships that behaved strangely, on the other hand, they were getting closer and closer to the coast of Australia, and even if there was a shipwreck at this time, many people could still swim to the shore, after all, most of them were from the German Royal Marines......

The controversy over resistance or concession is not only over the four Japanese mine-striking ships facing the League of Nations peacekeeping fleet, but also in Tokyo, Japan, thousands of miles away.

Early this morning, while Hirohito and Empress Yoshiko were enjoying breakfast as usual, the voice of Interior Minister Eiji Yasui came from outside the door.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty had the audacity to disturb His Majesty's meal, but the situation was urgent, and I hope Your Majesty will forgive me! ”

"Oh, it's Yasui Qing's family, come in and talk!" Hirohito said as he put down the milk cup in his hand, then picked up a napkin and gently wiped his mouth. When he finished these small actions, the attendant kneeling outside the door also pulled the door open in due time. Hirohito waved his hand and motioned for the attendants to remove the table, and the queen quickly exited the room after owing to Hirohito.

After Hirohito sat down, the Minister of the Interior walked in with his head bowed, and there were four other people kneeling outside the door, led by Prime Minister Fumihiro Konoe Fumi, who had just formed a cabinet and came to power a few years ago, and the other three were Foreign Minister Yoyoshi Matsuoka, Minister of War Hideki Tojo, and Minister of the Navy Yoshida Zengo.

The visit of the cabinet ministers in the early morning was unusual. Hirohito beckoned to them: "The four members of the family will also come in together!" ”

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" After Fumiro Konoe answered, the four of them also came to a place three steps away from Hirohito in the same position, and then sat down on the cushions brought by the attendants.

"The Zhuqing family is here for an emergency military situation at this time!" Hirohito calmly said that with the tempering of the series of defeats in the Pacific War, and the nirvana that quickly restored the national strength after the war, he has grown from a young man to a steady and deep monarch.

"That's right, Your Majesty! At 6:30 a.m. today, the 3rd Lightning Strike Detachment of the Australian Navy's Australian Dispatch Fleet discovered the League of Nations peacekeeping force in the southwest waters of Australia, and the ship they were carrying was heading for Perth Harbor, and we currently have four torpedo boats monitoring the scene, and the officers and men hope to be able to resist the unreasonable decision of the League of Nations by force, but if Your Majesty decides to accept the peacekeeping force to land in Australia as originally planned, they will faithfully carry out the order to ensure that the League of Nations peacekeeping force lands in Australia in the agreed manner. ”

The Minister of the Navy, Zengo Yoshida, was in charge of the story. Prime Minister Fumihiro Konoe is the "second to enter the palace", and Yoshida Zengo has served as the Minister of the Navy in three consecutive cabinets, and his qualifications are not old. However, the admiral's personality is somewhat eccentric, he is very picky about everything, and the most disgusted is that people who do things in an unorganized way, and whenever they have free time, they go to ask about trivial matters. He was not at ease about anything, such as the documents drafted by his staff, which he had to revise word by word every time, and even the auxiliary words used in the messages had to be revised one by one. He often rebuked his staff officers for trivial matters, so much so that his staff members wondered if he was "a little neurotic." Yoshida also rarely ate with his officers and soldiers. He never drank alcohol and never ate dried fish because he thought it was unhygienic, which was quite unusual among the Japanese.

The expression on Hirohito's face didn't change, just a slight frown. Allowing the League of Nations peacekeepers to land in Australia in exchange for the partial lifting of the League of Nations' comprehensive sanctions against Japan was agreed upon earlier at the Imperial Cabinet meeting, and the fact that a written document was signed between the diplomatic representative and the League of Nations.

Hirohito was not in a hurry to take a stand, but asked Prime Minister Fumiro Konoe's opinion.

The prime minister was born into a wealthy Japanese family second only to the Emperor, the Konoe clan, one of the five families. After the death of his father Atsuri Konoe in 1904, he was given the title of duke, graduated from Kyoto University in 1917, and then devoted himself to politics, serving as prime minister twice in the late '30s and early '40s. During his tenure, he initiated the establishment of the Daisei Wing Zankai, a political organization that directly assisted the emperor, and launched a full-scale war of aggression against China. He was particularly ingenious in establishing and strengthening the domestic fascist system, and he created and implemented political languages such as the general mobilization of the national spirit, the holding and non-owning countries, the new system, the praise of the great political wings, the practice of the courtiers, the eight Hong Yiyu, the new order in East Asia, and the co-prosperity sphere in Greater East Asia. He played a role that the fascists in the military could not do, and he built the Japanese war machine with his own hands and made it run wild like a fiery horse. His weakness was that he failed to stop the arbitrariness of the military department, and the "peace movement" was a compromise with the military department, and his so-called "peaceful act" was also to serve the implementation of Japan's aggressive policy.

Hearing Hirohito's question, Konoe bowed down respectfully: "The minister thinks that the request of the League of Nations is really unreasonable, after the Germans forcibly occupied the Persian Gulf and African regions, suppressed the resistance of the local residents, and caused a lot of bloodshed, and did not see the League of Nations condemn it." Our occupation and control of Australia has been much more restrained than that of China and Indochina, and we have even treated Australians as friends, and if we unconditionally implement the peacekeeping resolution of the League of Nations, the military will not be convinced, and the people will not be convinced, and we may damage the prestige of the empire and the morale of the army and the people for a long time, but if we want to overturn the agreement reached earlier, we may attract more severe sanctions from the League of Nations, which is not conducive to the long-term development of our country. Therefore, Your Majesty, my suggestion is to neither obey nor disobey, and find ways to frustrate the League of Nations' peacekeeping operations, so that European countries will spend their military and manpower in Australia in vain. ”

(End of chapter)