readx;

Chapter 1736 Merit and Benefit

Muscat, located in the Persian Gulf leading to the Indian Ocean, borders the Arabian Sea in the southeast and the Gulf of Oman in the northeast. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Fort Mirani, the combined command of the Japanese Navy and Army.

Admiral Nagumo Tadaichi, commander of the Navy's aircraft carrier task force, and Admiral Kotaro Nakamura, commander of the Indian Ocean Front of the Southern Army, sat opposite each other at each end of a long Euclidean-style table, with Navy and Army generals sitting on either side.

Nagumo Tadaichi annihilated the British Eastern Fleet in the Battle of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, creating a myth for his naval career, and Emperor Hirohito, under the excitement of Emperor Hirohito, asked the headquarters camp, the Military Command Department and the Ministry of the Navy to promote his military rank exceptionally, and the promotion ceremony was held in mid-May, so Nagumo Tadaichi became the only squadron commander within the Combined Fleet who could compete with Commander Yamamoto Isoroku.

Although Kotaro Nakamura fought in the Battle of West Siberia, he turned the tide and made the troops retreat safely, and he worked hard. However, the base camp had already decided to take a defensive position in Northeast Asia, bringing the Far East and Korea under the administration of the Kwantung Army.

After the commander of the Kwantung Army, Terauchi Shouichi, was transferred south to serve as the commander of the Southern Army, with the support of Sugiyama Moto, Nishio Shouzo, Koiso Kuniaki, Tojo Hideki and others, plus the meritorious service of the Su Army after the Umezu Mijiro 226 Incident, and the "Hemei Agreement" created conditions for the invasion of North China, and was appointed as the commander of the Kwantung Army by Emperor Hirohito.

The Kwantung Army was immediately organized into three front armies, among which Yamashita Fumi, who had made a contribution to the attack on Malaysia, was transferred to the post of commander of the First Front, the commander of the First Army, Kiyoji Kazuki, was the commander of the Second Front, and the commander of the Fifth Army, Yamada Otsuzo, was the commander of the Third Front.

The former commander of the Third Army of the Siberian Front, Shunroku Hatata, was promoted to commander of the Shina Dispatch Army, and the former commander of the Army, Toshizo Nishio, was transferred back to Tokyo as a military counselor.

Nakamura Kotaro did not want to serve under his junior Umezu Mijiro (Umezu Mijiro had replaced Nakamura Kotaro as the commander of the Chinese garrison), so he took the initiative to apply for transfer to the Southern Army, Terauchi Shouichi was worried that he could not find a respected general to lead the army west to attack the Indian Ocean, and immediately appointed him as the commander of the Indian Ocean Front, and the chief of staff was Lieutenant General Anda 23, the adjutant of Terauchi Shouichi.

The Front Army was under the command of the 2nd, 45th, 67th, and 100th Divisions, as well as the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th Divisions of the Lanyin Army.

Since the decisive German victory in Europe in June, the capture of the Persian Gulf, the LinkedIn-owned oil fields have become the next target of the Japanese base camp.

Originally, the aircraft carrier task force was supposed to be dispatched in late June, but Nagumo Zhongyi had always acted cautiously, and the fleet insisted on delaying until mid-July, when the fleet's ships had arrived and the ammunition and supplies were sufficient, before departing from the ports of Sin Chau, Malaya, and Lanyin.

At this stage, the government was unwilling to get into too much trouble with the Soviets, so it asked Nagumo Zhong to transfer the foothold of the task force to Muscat in the southeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula, preparing to occupy the oil fields in southwestern Persia and open up the Eurasian railway bridge through Iraq and Syria, and then attack the very southeastern region one by one, so as to create a solid absolute defense circle for the country.

In the future, these defensive rings will be defended by the Lanyin Army, the Malayan Army, the Burmese Army and the Indian Army, supplemented by a small number of *** troops. Even if Britain and France want to attack India, Burma, Malaya, and Lanyin in the future, they must first remove these nails on the way forward, which gives the Japanese army enough time to give early warning and preparation.

On the night of 2 August, after the three wings of the 45th Division occupied Trusir, the Bahrain Islands, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other places on the western coast of the Persian Gulf and carried out inhumane massacres, the fourth wing of the 2nd Division also landed in the Shatt al-Arab estuary area and occupied the port of Faw on the west bank of the estuary.

On 3 August, the 4th Wing marched north at full speed, capturing Maiamir, Kutepdullah, Shumai and Sibai, ensuring the safety of water traffic along the way, and immediately escorted two light cruisers and eight destroyers to escort the troop transports from the Shatt al-Arab River into the long drive, and the 16th, 29th, and 30th Wings of the 2nd Division successfully routed a regiment of British troops defending the city, and occupied the important oil port city of Abadan in southwestern Persia.

On the 4th of August, the Japanese troops continued along the Shatt al-Arab in two routes, and on the 6th of August they captured Basra, where they again went on a rampage of plundering and massacre, and then they were to advance along the railway to the city of Vesiriyah until they reached Baghdad.

The other followed the Persian Railway's longitudinal line northward, and yesterday captured Ahvaz.

From the moment the Japanese army conquered Muscat, the British army began to destroy the oil fields and facilities in Persia, explode oil refineries and oil wells, and dismantle oil pipelines, leaving the entire Khuzestan region in shambles.

In this way, the Japanese army had already gained a firm foothold in the Persian Gulf region, and just when Kotaro Nakamura was full of ambition and was ready to show his strength, this morning the base camp, the General Staff, the Military Command Department, the Army Ministry, the Navy Ministry, the Combined Fleet Command, and the Southern Army Command sent urgent telegrams to the radio station controlled by Nagumo Tadaichi, informing them that the An Jia Army had dispatched a large number of troops to invade Persia and India in an all-round way.

The base camp asked Nagumo Tadaichi to quickly contact Kotaro Nakamura and quickly negotiate this to ensure the safety of the troops and ships, and if necessary, to withdraw from the Persian Gulf.

Kotaro Nakamura and the army general Sahara were discussing the battle situation at the Jalali Castle, which was the headquarters of the army, when they suddenly got comrades from the navy, and they didn't know what was going on, and after sitting down, they looked at Nagumo Tadaichi suspiciously, wondering what he was doing when he called the army officers to this world-famous castle, did he want to get a piece of the army's rich profits?

Seeing the provocative eyes of this group of army generals, Nagumo Zhongyi waved his hand a little irritably, signaling the chief of staff, Major General Ryunosuke Kusaka, to explain the situation.

Kusaka Ryunosuke stood up with the manuscript summarized before the meeting, looked around at the unruly army generals, and saw that many people were disapproving, and deliberately raised his voice, and said very seriously:

"Ladies and gentlemen, in the morning we received more than a dozen urgent telegrams from the base camp, the General Staff, the Military Command Department, the Army Department, the Navy Department, the Combined Fleet Command, and the Southern Army Command.

"Although they are still far away, if we don't prepare early, we are very likely to fall into the trap carefully designed by the other party! You all know very well that due to the limited transportation capacity, our army in the Persian Gulf is only two divisions, plus the 8th Lanyin Division, which is used as the occupation force, the total strength is only 60,000!

"According to intelligence, the total number of troops dispatched by the other side is about 40 divisions, and the strength of each division is equivalent to that of our second-class division, that is to say, the number of enemy troops will exceed 600,000, ten times that of our base camp and the army and navy headquarters have asked us to quickly come up with a response plan, whether to fight or retreat, we must decide at today's meeting and report to the base camp for approval!"

"That's right, we have to agree right away!"

Nagumo Tadaichi stood up, nodded to Kusaka Ryunosuke, motioned for him to sit down, and then said in a calm tone:

"The Persian Gulf stretches from the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab River in the northwest to the Strait of Hormuz in the southeast, with a length of about 990 kilometers, a width of about 50 kilometers to about 338 kilometers, and an area of about 240,000 square kilometers.

"The whole Persian Gulf is like a bottle lying horizontally, and the mouth of the bottle is the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is about 150 kilometers long from east to west, 97 kilometers wide at points, only 48 kilometers at narrow points, 56 to 125 kilometers wide from north to south, with an average depth of 70 meters, 11 meters in shallowness, and 210 meters in depth. Such a width is very uncomfortable for most of the Chinese ships in our fleet, and once they are controlled by the enemy, they will be like iron locks across the river, and they will not be able to advance or retreat!

"All the information today was provided by the German side free of charge at the strong request of our diplomats! According to the Germans, who are strict by nature, today our opponent has dispatched at least 3,000 warplanes, including more than 2,000 bombers, and the direct consequence is that the Soviet troops in Persia and India are completely stunned and unable to stop effective resistance! Moreover, the Germans predicted that so many fighters were only a small part of the opponent's huge arsenal, and if necessary, the other side could organize twice or even three times as many bombers, which would undoubtedly be an unprecedented disaster for our task force!

"The previous naval battles of Malacca and the Maldives have amply demonstrated how weak ships are in the face of aircraft bombardment. Therefore, I have ordered the aircraft carriers 'Wyvern', 'Giryu', 'Jade Dragon', and 'Sanglong', the high-speed battleship 'Hiei', the heavy cruiser 'Myoko', and sixteen destroyers, which have entered the Persian Gulf, to cover the convoy of transports, and to be ready to withdraw from the Persian Gulf at any time to join the main force of our fleet in Muscat! If the army wants to retreat with our ships, it must move quickly! ”

"No, without the reconnaissance and protection of carrier-based aircraft, the advance of the army will be very difficult!"

Major General Anda Twenty-three, Chief of Staff of the Indian Ocean Front of the Southern Army, frowned and said: "I don't know what the lords of the base camp think, now that the enemy is still thousands of kilometers away from us, is it too anxious to retreat at this time?" With the military strength of the Soviets, they quickly recovered after a wave of blows, and the possibility of a stalemate between the two sides in central Persia is very high!

"Taking a step back, even if the Chinese gain an advantage, if they want to advance from the eastern border of Persia to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, it will take at least one to two months, and this time our army's landing force will be able to complete the tasks assigned by the Southern Army Command! Now, the right flank of the 2nd Division has just occupied the oil field area in southwestern Persia, and the 8th Division of Lanyin is organizing the locals to clean up the bombed-out mines and refineries, in order to resume production as soon as possible and provide abundant fuel for the Great Empire. ”

Kotaro Nakamura was also very dissatisfied:

"The main purpose of the Imperial Base Camp is actually to open the Eurasian railway bridge, once the German army goes south, we can join forces with it at any time, and then advance to North Africa together, and completely expel the British and French forces from Africa! The orders we received from the Southern Army Command were, first, to occupy the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, second, to completely eliminate the puppet government supported by the British Persian Gulf coast, third, to open the Eurasian railway bridge, and fourth, to occupy the Suez Canal after joining forces with the Germans going south, so that the Reich would have the key to free access to Europe!

"Up to now, the governments of Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait have been completely eradicated by our valiant royal army, and the decaying bodies of their royal family and government members have been thrown into the Persian Gulf by the heroic and invincible royal army for the fish to devour. Since the death of the young King Ghazi in April after the death of the young King Ghazi in a bizarre crash into a telephone pole, the regime has fallen entirely into the hands of the pro-British Sharif faction. The audacity of this stupid government to brazenly declare war on the Empire and Germany and Italy at the beginning of June is an act of seeking death!

"In front of our absolute strength, these chickens and dogs are not worth mentioning! Nanyun-kun, believe me, in less than half a month, we will be able to march under the city of Baghdad and wipe out all those daring Arabs like cockroaches and bugs! As soon as the Iraqi royal family and government are destroyed, most of the mission of our trip will be accomplished. Nanyun-kun, are you just going to sit back and watch the great opportunity to make a contribution slip away? ”

"I'm sorry!"

Nagumo Tadaichi bowed deeply to Kotaro Nakamura and said apologetically:

"Nakamura-kun, please forgive Nagumo for not being able to obey his fate! Nagumo can't put the fate of the Imperial Navy on the ethereal pursuit of meritorious service! Today, in order to capture Baghdad, it can be delayed for half a month, and who knows if after half a month, the army will again make the precious ships of the navy wait for the sake of the goal? These ships were slowly accumulated by the Empire over time, and today, the Imperial Navy has finally surpassed the aging British Navy and become the second largest navy in the world, and I will never allow our warships to be put in danger!

"Nakamura-kun, if the people of China are so easy to deal with, the army will not have an inch of land in the north of China, and Malaya and Myanmar will swallow their anger! Even if the navy transports the 67th and 100th Divisions of Liuxingzhou, Lanyin and Malaya, as well as the 9th, 10th, and 11th Divisions of Lanyin, as Nakamura-kun said, it is far from being the opponent of the South China Army with 40 divisions! Rather than wasting time in vain, it is better to find another way and leave the threat of the South Chinese Army far away! ”

Nakamura Kotaro's face turned red with anger, and it took a while to suppress his anger, and he said in a sincere tone: "It's really difficult to get the Great *** Imperial Army to give up the task on its shoulders, what do you think of this?" In the northern and western coastal areas of the Persian Gulf, leave two squadrons of reconnaissance aircraft each, and the ships will be withdrawn to the Gulf of Oman first, and when we need them, we can send some supply ships to deliver ammunition and supplies to us!

"At this time, our 45th Division is advancing towards Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. How can this Saudi government, like the government of the Kingdom of Iraq, dare to declare war on the empire and teach them a bitter lesson?

"The entire country of Saudi Arabia has an army of less than 10,000 people, the weapons and equipment are extremely backward, and they are scattered all over Saudi Arabia, and they are no match for the imperial army at all, after erasing Riyadh from the face of the earth, the 45th Division will return to the sea with the gold and jewels captured in the war of King Ibn Saud to unify the Hejaz, Najd and the belonging regions, and then decide the whereabouts of the army according to the changes in the situation!"

Nagumo Tadaichi saw the greedy gaze in the eyes of Kotaro Nakamura, and his heart moved, and he suddenly understood why Kotaro Nakamura insisted so much.

It is said that during Yamashita Fengwen's attack on British Malaya, he scraped a lot, and even forced more than a dozen indigenous chiefs to death in order to get the exact location of several legendary hidden gold, and at the beginning of the year, he only gave 200,000 taels of gold to the royal family, and he secretly concealed and did not report how much gold there was!

There is also a rumor that the reason why General Ishikawa Koichi was promoted so quickly was that during his expedition to the Lanyin Islands and Borneo, he secretly transported gold to the imperial family four times, with a total amount of more than 500,000 taels.

Koichi Ishikawa was once a taboo existence in the royal family, he was the product of a maid from the Liaodong Peninsula of China before Taisho Emperor Kahito succeeded to the throne, with half Chinese blood in his bones, and was discriminated against since birth, his mother died of ridicule and ridicule when he was one year old, and then Koichi Ishikawa was sent out of the Zichen Palace and given to a samurai to raise.

In late November of the 26th year, a month before Kahito's death, he suddenly remembered that Koichi Ishikawa, who had graduated from Lu Shi and Lu University, and had been in the army for five years as a lieutenant, suddenly awakened the little compassion in his heart, and specially sent someone to summon Koichi Ishikawa from his Shenyang garrison to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, so that the crown prince Hirohito, Chichibu Gong Yonghito, Takamatsunomiya Nobuhito, and Mikasa Palace Takahito treat this exiled brother well, and called to arrange for the henchmen in the army, and designated to give Ishikawa Koichi a bright future. At this time, Koichi Ishikawa knew his life story and began to search for the truth

Thinking of the news circulating within these high-level military leaders, Nagumo Zhongyi couldn't help but feel hot for a while, and deliberately asked, "Nakamura-kun, why didn't you mention the Second Division?" After all, the 2nd Division went deep into the interior of Iraq and Persia, and it was very dangerous! ”

Nakamura Kotaro said proudly: "The second division is a first-class division of the army, with nearly 30,000 people in one division, and the troops of the two divisions of the Royal Government of Iraq, plus its internal and external troubles, it is not the opponent of my second division at all!" After occupying the oil field area of Khuzestan, the Right Wing Army of the 2nd Division has handed over the defense to two regiments of the 8th Division of Lanyin, and the Right Wing Army of Khuzestan will move north from the railways and roads in Persia and attack Baghdad from the flank!

"According to the plan drawn up before the war, we are not interested in occupying Iraq, so during the march, we will adopt a three-light policy of robbing, burning, and killing all the people against those inferior races. These people, like people in Bangladesh and other places, belong to the hard-line pro-British elements, and it is impossible to win them over! Our purpose is to remove as many obstacles as possible and obtain enough strategic materials, anyway, there are railways and ports along the way, and the materials are not afraid of not being delivered! ”

Nan Yunzhong nodded, and suddenly said:

"In this way, Nakamura-kun, our navy will be on alert in the Arabian Seas, and we will not leave until we receive the tasks issued by the Military Command Department, the Navy Ministry, and the Combined Fleet Command, so as to give the army strong support! However, I hope that the Army will be able to take a third of this operation and hand it over to our Navy! After all, everyone is in the same boat, we can't just watch you get rich, we can't even drink soup, right? ”

Nakamura Kotaro looked at Nagumo Tadaichi with some surprise, and suddenly smiled: "Okay, after all, we also have to hand over part to His Majesty the Emperor, and it's just right to divide it into three points!" This Middle East and Africa are full of gold, and there will be more opportunities for everyone to make a fortune in the future, please take care of Nagumo-kun! ”

When a group of people from the army and navy heard the conversation between the two bigwigs, they immediately smiled, and the original estrangement suddenly disappeared, and they all seemed to think that the other was much more pleasing to the eye.

Just as there was a lot of peace in the conference room, the communications officer hurriedly walked into the room and handed Nagumo a telegram.

Nagumo Tadaichi frowned after reading it, and Nakamura Kotaro asked a little nervously, "Nagumo-kun, does the base camp insist that we evacuate?" ”

"Yes and no!"

Nagumo Tadaichi handed the telegram to Kotaro Nakamura, and then said to a room of admirals: "The base camp asks the army to stay in Muscat and protect this naval base with an absolute superiority of forces, and the main force of the fleet will quickly move south, advance to the island of Madagascar, and force the main fleet of the French Navy there!"

"After the British Navy's Eastern Fleet was wiped out by us, the French Navy, at the strong request of the British, had no choice but to mobilize its two fleets in the Mediterranean and the South Atlantic Fleet to merge into the Indian Ocean Fleet, with the port of Madagascar as a naval base to defend the western Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa.

"However, with the surrender of France, the position of this fleet suddenly became awkward, and the Vichy government of France wanted the fleet to obey its orders, but Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the French independence movement in Britain, demanded that the fleet obey his command. The British, fearing that the French would turn against the water, had already sent their main forces south to the Atlantic Ocean for a strategic maneuver and, if necessary, the waters of South Africa, to sink them.

"The base camp, the military command department, the naval province and the combined fleet command require us to go south quickly and make a forced landing on the French, if we can accept the ships of the French, our big *** imperial navy can catch up with the gap with the US Navy and become the world's largest naval power!"

Everyone knew what that meant, but when you think about the upcoming gains, you can't make such a move!

Nakamura Kotaro thought for a while and said, "That's it, Nagumo-kun, you can lead the main force of the fleet to the south, leaving behind two small aircraft carriers, a few destroyers, all the submarines and the transport fleet!" Anyway, the main force of the fleet stays here, and we can only watch from the sidelines for the time being, but if we can make a forced landing on the French naval fleet, it will be extremely important to the Empire, to Nangumo-kun, and even to our Indian Ocean Front! We should still focus on the big picture! ”

"That's—"

Nagumo Tadaichi looked at Kotaro Nakamura with some hesitation.

Kotaro Nakamura couldn't help but smile and said affirmatively:

"Don't worry, Nanyun-kun, it belongs to your navy, and we will never swallow it, after all, so many things are shipped back to China, and it depends on your navy, right? We are outside the territory, eating alone is destined not to last long, only everyone to get rich is the king. ”

"Good!"

Nagumo Tadaichi was finally relieved, stood up and ordered: "Navy lords, let us wish the army colleagues a complete success in their march!" I'll make the following arrangements."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

: Although it is a little late, I still wish the brothers a good year, good health, and all the best!

The first chapter of the year, ask for a subscription and double the guarantee***! In addition, tomorrow is Monday, please recommend votes and free evaluation votes support, thank you!