Volume 1: Inner Mongolia Fengyun] Chapter 432: The Ambitions of Japan's Top Leaders (2) -

Chapter 432: The Ambitions of Japan's Top Leaders (2)

However, the next German action opened the eyes of the Japanese high-level, and the German government did not relent, but intensified and became more unscrupulous, and at the same time as attacking Norway, the German government began to launch a brazen attack on France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and was even more indifferent to the warnings of Britain and France.

On January 22, 1940, a large number of German air force planes violently bombed 72 airfields in northern France and in the Netherlands, Belgium and Rwanda. Then, German paratroopers seized airfields, bridges, and strategic points, and the German war against Western Europe broke out. In this battle, the German army invested a total of 136 divisions (including 10 tank divisions, 7 motorized divisions and 1 cavalry division), 2,580 tanks, 3,824 aircraft, divided into three army groups, and advanced towards France and the Netherlands, Belgium and Rwanda at the same time.

Originally, the Japanese top brass expected that even if Germany took out more than half of the country's troops to deal with the countries of Western Europe and Northern Europe, with the strong support of Britain and France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries also had a certain degree of resistance, after all, even the small Belgium had more than 200,000 troops at that time.

However, in February 1940, the war took a sharp turn for the worse, and under the fierce attack of the German army, the Dutch army only held out for five days before announcing its surrender, and the Dutch NV Wang Zhengfǔ fled to London. On January 31, the King of Belgium announced his surrender, and 200,000 Belgian troops were captured by the Germans. In the face of the fierce German offensive, the French army and the British expeditionary force in France were defeated one after another. On 2 February, the Germans could not absorb the newly occupied Belgium, and the army bypassed the well-fortified "Maginot Line" and unexpectedly attacked the French territory with a large number of tanks straight into the Ardennes Mountains. On February 9, under the cover of ground-air fire, the Germans forcibly crossed the Maas River and completely annihilated the French 9th Army.

On 13 February, the Germans went straight to the English Channel. On May 14, the Germans occupied Calais, only a few dozen kilometers from the coast, forming a flanking posture against the British and French forces, and the 400,000 defeated British and French troops were in a desperate situation in the area near Dunkirk. In just two months, Hitler's army swept through Western and Northern Europe. In less than two years, the fascist German team swept across the European continent and occupied more than 10 countries, including Austria, Czech Republic, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Romania, and its military and economic strength expanded unprecedentedly.

And now Germany has put its old enemy France into a desperate situation, and the Maginot Line, which was built with a lot of money, has become a joke completely, and it is only a matter of time before France surrenders. Even the French Empire, the traditional old power on the European continent, which dominated the whole of Europe for centuries, is about to become history, so Britain, which is only a small land, is not a piece of cake in the eyes of the Japanese, as long as the German army is determined, even the Royal Navy, which Britain is proud of, cannot stop the pace of German national expansion.

The great victory of the allies greatly stabbed the Japanese high-level, and according to the provisions of the German-Japanese-Italian Triple Entente, Germany and Japan were close brothers and allies who supported each other, and the German victory in the whole of Japan caused far more than the Japanese high-level estimates, when France was about to be defeated, and the news that the vast majority of the main French army had surrendered to Germany reached Japan, there were a few popular demonstrations in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and other regions in Japan in recent years.

The Japanese were very dissatisfied with the current situation of soaring domestic prices and economic decline in Japan at this time, and the war situation in China had fallen into a stalemate, and the result of the delay in breaking through was that the Japanese government had to continuously project the vast majority of the country's manpower, financial and material resources to the Chinese battlefield, and the benefits obtained from China could not make up for the losses of the war for the time being. Even if the puppet Nanjing Nationalist Fǔ supported by Japan gradually began to show a little power and effect last year, and Japan began to gain some benefits in China, but for such a big war, that small interest is simply not even a million m-o.

What makes the Japanese people most dissatisfied is that the United States, which has always made a fortune from the war, saw that Britain and France's defeat in the European theater had lost control, and was afraid that Germany and Japan and other countries would make a move against the United States, so they began to consciously reduce the export of raw materials to Japan last year, and the direct result of this was that all strategic materials in Japan suddenly became extremely scarce, and not only did the stocks of petroleum, rubber, and other materials that could not be produced in Japan fall to a dangerous situation. There was also a huge shortage of materials such as steel and food, so that some people in Japan and some of the top officials in Japan began to look elsewhere.

The promotion of the domestic people has shaken the idea of Japan, including the emperor and Prince Zaihito, who actually controls the base camp, to resolutely take China. Originally, in accordance with the strategic national policy of conquering the world formulated by Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Yoshiichi exposed in 1929, Japan first established the strategy of using Manchurian M-NG as a base for aggression and expansion. If y-conquers the world, you must first conquer China. If China can be conquered by China, then other nations such as Central Asia Minor and the South Seas of India will fear me and respect me and surrender to me, and the world will know East Asia as the East Asia of China, and will never dare to invade us. Later, Japan decided on the strategic idea of taking the United States and the Soviet Union as imaginary enemy countries, and the Japanese prime minister explained it in the following way: "However, if the three eastern provinces of China are protected by iron and blood, then the America of the third country will be instigated by the instigation of China to control the United States, and when the time comes, it will be impossible for us to compete with the United States." "In the future, we will take the fight against American forces as a prerequisite," "China will have no choice but to fight with the United States for its independence," and "in the future, it will have to fight with Red Russia in North Manchuria." ”

In fact, Japan has been implementing this plan since the time of Emperor Meiji, but some unexpected situations and realities have limited Japan's development, and at the same time, Japan has been forced to revise some of Tanaka's compromises. However, in any case, there is a consensus at the top level of Japan that no matter whether it is the Russo-Japanese War in the past or the Sino-Japanese War in the present, if it wants to control China in the future, it must first defeat the US forces, which is similar to the Russo-Japanese War. For example, Y-conquered China must first conquer Manchurian M-ng; If you conquer the world, you must first conquer China. If China is completely conquered by Japan, other nations such as Asia Minor, India, and the South Seas will inevitably fear the Japanese Empire and surrender to the Empire, so there has always been a strategic plan in Japan to fight the Soviet Union in the north and eliminate American forces in the south, but due to last year's "Nuo M-N Kan Incident" and the "Zhang Gufeng Incident" the year before last, Japan really saw the strength of the Red S-Soviet Union, and Japan, a nation full of wolves, has the gene of surrendering to the strong. Just make them feel frightened and afraid, and then they will suddenly turn from wolves into dogs wagging their tails and begging for mercy.

After the disastrous defeat of the "Zhang Gufeng Incident," especially the "Nom-Nkan Incident," the clamor in Japan to challenge Soviet Russia in the north disappeared all at once, but with the continuous victories of Germany, the call for Japan to go south to conquer Southeast Asia and eliminate American power became louder and louder, and there was a tendency to get out of control.

However, although the Japanese emperor and the General Staff Headquarters are also very excited about going south, they have many misgivings, first of all, if Japan goes south now, it will inevitably clash head-on with the powerful United States. [This chapter is not finished, please click on the next page to continue reading!] ］