readx; In front of a destroyed tank, the Western military attache examined the tank's structure and concluded that although the engine had been given to the U.S., the vehicle they built would have to wait at least five years to catch up with the Western army. However, when they learned the story www.biquge.info of the tank soldier who insisted on firing the last shell in the burning tank in order to destroy the enemy, and was finally burned alive, the soldier was impressed by the warrior's obedience to orders, loyalty to the emperor, and the bushido spirit of not being afraid of sacrifice.

A general called Ben received the Western Observer Group. The guests asked the host many questions, one of which was interesting: why did the soldiers use old-fashioned rifles instead of submachine guns)? If American-made submachine guns are used, their individual combat capabilities will increase by more than three times as a result.

On the spot, General Yuben ordered a group of soldiers to demonstrate shooting techniques to the guests, and the "38-style" rifles made by Yumoto were not missing bullets in the hands of the soldiers, indicating that all of them were sharpshooters. Then the assassination combat was practiced, and the soldiers roared like thunder, and stabbed their shiny bayonets into the chest of the imaginary enemy. Shogun Samoto proudly replied to his guests: Samurai will kill every enemy with a fighting spirit of the dead, and they don't need submachine guns, which are the weapons of cowards. The samurai were eager to plunge their bayonets into the enemy's chest.

Westerners were dumbfounded.

The reason for this is not entirely due to the conservative thinking of General Yuben, but because Yuben is really an island country with poor resources. Someone calculated that if all the soldiers were replaced with submachine guns, they would deplete the country's ammunition stocks in just a few months.

After leaving Xuzhou, the Westerners flew to Wuhan non-stop, continued to inspect the Chinese [***] team, and then wrote a written report on the comparative conclusions of the two armies and the judgment of the war prospects, and submitted them to their respective political axes.

Western observers believe that the combat effectiveness of the Chinese armed forces is not yet sufficient to threaten the interests of the Western powers in Asia, and although the Chinese armed forces are backward, they are numerous and hard-working, and they will inevitably greatly deplete the armed forces. The general view of Westerners in this war between Asians is that the vast territory of Chiang Kai-shek will be a powerful weapon in the war of resistance, and that the possibility of his occupation of the whole territory of China is very small. In the long run, China and Yue Ben will inevitably lose each other, and their appetite will be broken by China's huge prey, unless the Chinese themselves choose to surrender.

The conclusion is that it is necessary to appropriately increase aid to China to restrain his own expansionist ambitions; At the same time, it will continue to sell arms to others and promote the international strategic principle of "Asians fighting Asians."

At the beginning of the 13th Showa era, on the eve of the Battle of Xuzhou, the Cabinet held a meeting to study the strategy toward China. Unlike before, Emperor Hirohito, who had not been seen easily, decided to preside over the meeting himself, thus setting a precedent for the Imperial Council at the base camp. Thereafter, all major decisions concerning the "jihad" process and domestic and foreign affairs must be submitted to the Imperial Council for discussion and decided by the emperor himself.

It should be pointed out that the constitutional monarchy is fundamentally different from European constitutionalism, and the European royal family is a nominal imperial throne system, that is, it only has symbolic meaning and no real power, for example, the British constitution clearly stipulates that the supreme power belongs to the parliament, and even the noble British queen has no right to interfere in politics. However, the Constitution stipulates that the Emperor is not only a symbol of the national body, but also the commander-in-chief of the army, navy, and air force, and has the power to make final decisions on wars. History has proved that it was precisely because of the full support of the Emperor that the pace of expansion of the Emperor's militarism was accelerated, and the all-out war of aggression against China, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and the dispatch of troops to Southeast Asia were all approved by the Emperor himself.

Therefore, in any sense, the so-called "parliamentary state" is only in name, and its essence is still the imperial rule of the feudal emperor.

At this time, the clouds of war were thick over Europe, and World War II was about to break out, and the Chinese battlefield did not "settle the battle in three months" as he expected, but showed a slow and protracted stalemate. The Emperor was deeply anxious about this. The ministers were told that the noble Majesty often kept up at night because of the war, and the ministers were sincerely afraid and remorseful. Of course, this "Amaterasu Okami," who was worshipped by the people of the country, was of course worried about how he could realize his aggressive ambitions as soon as possible.

In the view of some cabinet ministers, the consequences of the rapid expansion of war have exceeded those originally envisaged, because war is a means, not an end. They believe that the key to solving the problem of China is not a total occupation, but a gradual division, and that China's territory is so large that annexing China is tantamount to swallowing an elephant, and therefore the purpose of every military attack on China is not superficial occupation -- occupation is futile, but dismemberment.

By repeatedly dismembering China, China was divided into a number of suzerains under the control of the Covenant in order to achieve the long-term goal of "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity", just as the Covenant annexed Taiwan, Korea, and Northeast China. It will take enough time and patience to achieve this strategic goal, perhaps decades, maybe generations, for which they proposed that the military attack should be accompanied by the intensification of secret negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek's political axe, forcing the other side to accept a number of harsh conditions such as "autonomy in North China".

But General Ben did not have a surname.

The stage of soldiers is on the battlefield, they can't wait for decades, even a few years, they can't wait, they can't wait, because the glory and meritorious deeds of Ming will not belong to today's soldiers. It is said that he has been eager to expand his territory for generations, coveting the vast continent across the East China Sea, which is the Yamato nation's ambitious east**.

The generals, headed by the ministers of the army and navy, were adamantly opposed to the peace talks, and they vigorously exaggerated that the ancient Chinese elephant was so sick that it would only take a heavy hammer to send it to the grave. With the occupation of Nanjing, the capital of China, the ambitions of General Yumoto were unprecedentedly inflated, as if the dream of a "royal paradise" was about to be realized. Since the soldiers at the front are fighting bloody battles and marching forward with great triumph, and the people in the rear are unanimously supporting the "holy war," what reason does the cabinet have to look ahead and hesitate? The generals threatened the heads of the army to resign en masse if the cabinet tried to carry out negotiations.

The sharp confrontation between "war" and "peace" seriously hampered the emperor's judgment.

At the Imperial Council, the military generals of the Buntomi exchanged accusations with each other, causing Emperor Hirohito to keep his face tense and silent. At that time, it was said that His Majesty the Emperor was suffering from a syndrome of nervous system disorders, which made the monarch look sluggish and dull-eyed, like a lifeless wooden man. Of course, the emperor could not speak casually in front of his ministers, and his voice was called "Tamayin", which had to be recorded by the ministers of the Imperial Household and sent to the world as a holy decree. Until the end of the Imperial Council, the Minister of the Seals announced the emperor's retirement from the imperial court, and Hirohito still did not open Chrysostom, which inevitably made the civil and military ministers feel deeply tired and disappointed. But when the emperor was about to go out, he spoke unexpectedly, and His Majesty's "jade sound" was not aimed at someone, or even had nothing to do with the Imperial Council, but casually recited a haiku poem from his grandfather, Emperor Meiji: "Within the four seas, all are brothers."

In the vast sea, what is the competition? After finishing and leaving, he left behind the confused ministers and looked at each other.

It is said that Emperor Hirohito quoted his grandfather's haiku poems many times at the Imperial Council. Emperor Meiji was an idol in Hirohito's mind, and his recitation of his grandfather's poems was tantamount to expressing his inner dissatisfaction. The Cabinet Minister, who held a meeting overnight in fear of fear, finally reached a compromise with the Shogun and submitted a plan to the Emperor for approval, which was the so-called political axe statement of the Konoe Cabinet that it would not be an opponent of the national political axe in the future, or the "First Konoe Declaration."

The release of the document indicated that the civilian cabinet no longer opposed the full expansion and escalation of the war, while the military department assured the cabinet that "after the Battle of Xuzhou, the two major armies will maintain their respective positions, and the general policy is not to expand the war area for the time being, and the Hankow operation may be next year."

However, the drive of military chariots is often not diverted by the will of politicians, and the cannons of the Battle of Xuzhou have not stopped, and the ban on "temporarily not expanding the battle area" in the base camp has been broken by the North China Dispatch Army.

Just as the fierce battle in Xuzhou, Lianyungang, the outlet of the Longhai Railway, was suddenly attacked by the sea of the fleet.

Originally, once Xuzhou was lost, Lianyungang became an isolated city, and it was only a matter of time before it fell, so most of the local defenders and residents had been evacuated. The fleet, which suddenly appeared on the sea, discharged a powerful formation, including aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft, announced the occupation of Lianyungang in just a few hours, seized a large number of seaborne supplies and civilian ships, and sent a telegram to the base camp on the same day.

But this "brilliant victory" of the Navy greatly angered the Army. Originally, the army fought for several months to easily open up the Tianjin-Pudong railway, turning the isolated Lianyungang into a bag, so the North China dispatch army was not in a hurry to attack the city, because in the eyes of the commander-in-chief of the temple, Lianyungang was like a duck in a pot, and it would not fly away if it was placed there. Unfortunately, the boiled duck flew away, and it was none other than the Commander-in-Chief's sworn enemy of the Army, the self-proclaimed Empire's naval fleet, that stole the fruits of the Commander-in-Chief's victory.

As a matter of fact, the Navy has repeatedly created incidents similar to overstepping its authority to attack, seriously infringing on the interests of the Army. At the beginning of the year, North China sent troops to attack Shandong, and the navy sent ships to seize Qingdao by sea, declaring that it would take this important coastal city for itself. This incident once triggered a clash between the two armies, which almost led to bloodshed.

In ancient times, "lower and higher" specifically referred to the low-status party offending the powerful and recklessly, which means rebellion. However, in modern times, the meaning of "going down and going up" has quietly evolved, and it has become an important spiritual slogan and reason for the military clique to interfere in politics and act on its own.

In the fifth year of the Showa era, the Cabinet decided to compromise with Britain and the United States to reduce the number of naval vessels. Prime Minister Yuyuki Hamaguchi was assassinated by soldiers. The Assassin was sentenced to death, and before his execution, he delivered an impassioned patriotic speech, and became a national hero known as a household name. After watching the play based on the Assassin story, the Emperor openly expressed his affection for the "down" Assassin.

Shortly after Hamaguchi's assassination, right-wing soldiers staged an armed coup d'état in Tokyo in an attempt to establish a military cabinet to achieve a full-scale invasion of China (China), known as the "March Incident." The authorities arrested a large number of putschists, and strangely enough, the putschists were not severely punished, or even exempted from military discipline. It turned out that the order to pardon the putschists came from the Imperial Palace, and Emperor Hirohito became the largest umbrella for the military to "go down".

Before the storm of the March incident had subsided, the Army launched the "Nine. 18 Incident". The day after the incident, the Cabinet rejected the Army's proposal to send troops on an emergency basis and established a policy of "no expansion." However, the soldiers did not pay any attention to it, and the Kwantung Army and the Korean Army jointly dispatched and occupied the entire northeastern territory, which was equivalent to two and a half times the size of the country's territory, in less than 100 days.

Some far-sighted politicians felt that a crisis was imminent, and Reijiro Wakaki, who was prime minister at the time, said bitterly at a cabinet meeting: Once this war begins, the country will have no peace. It can be seen that he has foreseen that starting a war against China is a road of no return, which will bring catastrophe to the people of the island countries. At this time, the soldier was like the devil who came out of a bottle in Arabic mythology, and it was too late to stop it.

Since then, the political situation has continued to be turbulent, and the military have done whatever they want, wantonly creating a series of armed bloodshed incidents aimed at pushing the fascist military clique to power, such as the "October Incident", the "Blood League Incident", and the "Five. The First Five-Year Incident", "Teijin Incident", "Divine Soldier Incident", "November Incident", "Aizawa Incident", etc. In the seventh year of the Showa era, hundreds of young military officers staged a coup d'état, attacked the prime minister's official residence, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Bank of Tokyo, and the headquarters of the political party, and shot and killed Prime Minister Inuyoyi. In the 11th year of the Showa era, the 1st Division of Konoe Konoe, stationed in Tokyo, staged a mutiny, openly killing the former Prime Minister Minoru Saito and Takahashi Isaki, and the Minister of Education Watanabe. 26 Incident".

"Going down and up" became popular for a while.

Originally, soldiers should regard obedience to orders as their duty, and acting without authorization and fighting beyond their authority were not tolerated by military discipline, but "going down and going up" has become like an increasingly fierce epidemic, making this army like a wild horse that has escaped from the rope and does its own thing. The commander-in-chief of the temple sent a telegram to Tokyo to complain, and at the same time sent people to protest to the navy, and the young and vigorous division commander sent a tank unit to Lianyungang to demonstrate to the navy, but the navy, which has always been arrogant and rude, did not take the army seriously. As soon as the commander of the fleet gave an order, the long-range cannons on the warships raised their black muzzles, the carrier-based planes roared through the sky in a dense formation, and the marines built fortifications and waited for them.

The Tokyo base camp urgently sent a special envoy to mediate, and the result of the mediation was that the North China dispatch army returned to Xuzhou, the navy maintained the occupation, and the "Lianyungang crisis" was temporarily resolved. In fact, Tokyo's position of favoritism eventually became a stumbling block to the victory of the Shomoto Empire.

The commander-in-chief of the temple was deeply indignant at the partiality of the base camp, and since the base camp was unable to restrain the navy, why did the army have to become a victim and victim of the "lower and upper ranks"? History shows that this "Lianyungang Incident," which seemed to have nothing to do with the Chinese war situation, would have a far-reaching impact on the course of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1938, and its direct consequence was to stimulate the North China Dispatch Army to act ultra vires.

Despite the order of the headquarters to "maintain their respective positions and not expand the scope of the battle for the time being", the ambitious commander-in-chief Terauchi had no intention of obeying the order, and his reason was simple: Tokyo would never punish the generals who won the battle. The staff supported the commander-in-chief's determination, they said; The occupation of China is the responsibility of the Army, so it is impossible to overdo it.

The Battle of Xuzhou was coming to an end, the two major dispatch armies were victorious, and the Central China Dispatch Army, which had come to reinforce the operation, withdrew to the southern theater one after another, and the northern battlefield began to show a brief calm situation, and a secret order that had been planned for a long time was issued. It was the commander-in-chief himself who gave the order, and he dictated a telegram to the chief of staff:

"Call General Kenji Dohihara, the order for the North China Dispatch Army is as follows"

For most ordinary people who experienced the fall of Northeast China, the occupied areas under the enslavement of Yuben were like a hell on earth, and the slightest disobedience of the Chinese was arrested and sent to the secret services, where they were severely tortured at the slightest and beheaded and fed to wolf dogs. And the "Mukden Special Service Chief" who commanded the Northeast secret service was the notorious Class-A war criminal Kenji Dohihara.

Kenji Dohihara, a professional spy chief, graduated from the Army University and came to the "Banxi Mansion" in Yanjing as an army captain in 1913, and began his decades-long spy career. In the "History of World Espionage" written by Westerners, Tu Feiyuan is listed as one of the most important international spies of the 20th century, because his espionage activities have "influenced and changed certain historical processes in Asia", and some Western scholars simply refer to him as "Lawrence".

Only "IX. In just a few years after the "18 Incident," Tu Feiyuan commanded the Northeast secret service to arrest and kill tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians.

He was not only able to speak the native dialect of Northeast China, be familiar with Chinese history books, and be familiar with Chinese history and customs, but also had been active in the turbulent northern China for a long time, going in and out of the official mansions of Yanjing, Tianjin, and Shenyang, bribing Han Jian, cultivating pro-Chinese forces, and disrupting the political situation, fearing that the world would not be chaotic. Yoshiko Kawashima, a notorious female spy back then, was a cronie cultivated by Dohihara. In the more than 20 years from the Xinhai Revolution to the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the big spy Tu Feiyuan intervened in almost all major events in China, such as instigating the Zhiwan War, fishing in troubled waters and reaping profits; intervened in the Zhifeng War, supported the Feng warlord Zhang Zuolin, and abruptly suspended bank exchange to invalidate the Beiyang political axe banknotes and subvert the Beiyang regime; But only four years later, he personally planned the "Huanggutun Incident" that killed Zhang Zuolin.

Tu Feiyuan also participated in the "Nine. 18 Incident", supported the establishment of the pseudo-"Manchukuo", and single-handedly directed the political scandal of the last emperor Puyi's escape; conspired to plot the autonomy of North China to try to separate the provinces of North China from the map of China; Stirring up all kinds of incidents, creating excuses for the war of aggression against China, and so on, are really bad deeds and heinous crimes!

(To be continued)