[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 442: The disagreement of the Japanese army's top brass (ask for subscriptions, ask for monthly passes, ask for everything!) ）

Obviously, neither the top brass of the North China Front nor the leaders of the base camp thought that Ma Zheng's troops were planning how to retaliate against them, and at this time, all of their eyes were attracted to the Wuhan battlefield. Indeed, compared with Wuhan, an important city in central China, both Chahar and Suiyuan are so insignificant.

War has always been a technical task, and since the beginning of the act of war, the combat tasks for the next period have often been determined before the combat units have finished cleaning up the battlefield, so that the troops can have a clear focus and proper arrangements in terms of time for rest, rectification, replenishment, training, and reconnaissance after the battle. Japan, as the largest power in Asia, is well aware of this and has made the most of it.

As a matter of fact, long before the Nanchang operation was launched, the General Staff Headquarters of the Japanese Army, when analyzing the situation on the Chinese battlefield, believed that since the first Battle of Wuhan, although China's national defense forces had suffered heavy blows, the main force had not been annihilated. Moreover, recently, Wuhan is being used as a base camp to launch a huge anti-Japanese movement. The Japanese base camp knew very well that as long as the army remained, the Nationalist Government would not give in, so it was imperative to launch a second battle of Wuhan.

Because of this, the base camp developed an operational plan specifically aimed at the capture of Wuhan, and the capture of Nanchang was only one of the stages. Now that they have successfully captured Nanchang, an important town in northern Jiangxi, they will naturally move on Wuhan next.

In a memora by Emperor Hirohito, the current chief of staff of the Japanese army, Prince Kamiyashihito Kamiyaji, wrote: "With the continuous expansion of the Shina Incident, the domestic economy has fallen into trouble. The Ministry of War believes that in terms of geography, population, resources, and other issues, it is difficult to achieve self-sufficiency on the spot. As a result, Japan's financial resources can only be consumed. It was necessary to drive the ****** regime out of the Central Plains and oppress it into the border areas in order to gain a strategic and strategic advantage, occupy important political, economic, and military positions in China, and strengthen the emerging pro-Japanese regime on this basis. The battle of Nanchang is not to be mentioned, and it is necessary to resolutely carry out the Wuhan and Chongqing operations. ”

However, there is still a lot of opposition in Japan to the launching of the Second Battle of Wuhan, and the cabinet headed by the current Prime Minister Fumihiro Konoe is the most vehemently opposed. If you don't know the price of firewood and rice, Konoe Fumiro is very aware of the current economic situation in Japan, and a bad description is not enough to explain the current economic situation in Japan.

In fact, the cabinet headed by Fumiro Konoe was reluctant to expand its aggression against China, and they preferred to gradually encroach on China's territory and interests rather than an aggressive base camp. For this reason, as early as December 1937, that is, before the fall of Nanjing, China and Japan conducted a peace negotiation under the mediation of the German government, and the personnel of the two sides did not meet at that time, and all the contents were transmitted by the German ambassador, which was the first informal negotiation between China and Japan after the Lugou Bridge Incident.

At that time, the Japanese government put forward four conditions: first, it wanted to de facto recognize Manchukuo, second, it wanted to conclude a Sino-Japanese defense agreement, third, the Nationalist Government must stop the exclusion of Japan, and finally, it was to stop special trade and free flight.

With regard to these four conditions, the Chinese Government asked the people to agree, after discussion, in principle that Japan should use these four conditions as the basis for negotiations between the two sides, on the premise of maintaining the territorial integrity of the country. It is said that Bai Chongxi, deputy chief of staff, also said a sentence that was widely circulated later: "In that case, I wonder why the Japanese government wants to go to war? It can be seen that the Japanese government did not want to expand the situation to the point where it was out of control.

However, before the two sides could sit down, the capital city of Nanjing fell. The Japanese government arrogantly imposed a number of conditions, such as expanding the demilitarized zone in North China, Inner Mongolia, and Central China, recognizing the autonomy of Inner Mongolia and the special regime in North China, and guaranteeing the stationing of troops and necessary compensation.

In addition, the Government of Japan has also made a procedural request for a response within a year limit. In addition, an envoy to the place designated by Japan was dispatched to make peace, and after all the conditions were recognized, an armistice agreement was concluded.

On January 16, 1938, the Nationalist Government conveyed to the Japanese Government a request for the Japanese Government to specify the details of the 11 conditions for peace. However, the arrogant Japanese Government originally thought that the Chinese Government, which had been defeated many times in the war, would not be able to wait to fully accept Japan's peace plan in order to stop the war at an early date.

Subsequently, a liaison meeting between the government and the base camp was held. At the meeting, the majority persuaded the opposition to reach a unanimous resolution. The government also stepped forward and issued a statement that the National Government would not be a negotiating partner, that is, Konoe's first statement. In this way, the Japanese Government itself blocked the way to a peaceful settlement of the Sino-Japanese war. Therefore, after the end of World War II, many people in Japan and historians considered Konoe's first statement to be an extremely stupid statement.

When the ****** government heard this arrogant statement of the Japanese government, of course, it angrily gave up the way of settling the dispute through peaceful negotiations, and thus went all out to resist the ferocious Japanese army.

Everyone knows what happened next, the Japanese army tried to achieve a quick victory, crushed the Chinese resistance in a short period of time, and forced the Chinese government to surrender, but the result was that the battlefield was getting bigger and bigger, and the time was getting bigger and longer, and Japan was already mired in the quagmire of a war of aggression against China.

When the Japanese army launched the Battle of Wuhan last year, the Japanese army headquarters at that time judged that as long as the Japanese Imperial Army occupied the three towns of Wuhan and controlled the hinterland of China, it could force the Chinese government to surrender and end the war. The original words were: "As long as you capture Hankou and Guangzhou, you can dominate China."

As a result, the Japanese Imperial Council decided to launch the Battle of Wuhan and quickly capture Wuhan in order to force the Chinese government to submit. To this end, it also stipulates that "the concentration of state forces to achieve the objectives of the war within this year" and "the end of the war against China."

However, the result was very frustrating for the Japanese government and the base camp, and the Nationalist government actually held Wuhan, but they lost their troops. The war did not end, but because of the defeat in the First Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army's strategic policy of quick victory was completely crushed.

After the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army, which already felt that its troops were insufficient, felt that its troops were more and more insufficient with the extension of the battle front, and it was no longer able to organize such large-scale strategic offensives as the battles of Songhu, Xuzhou, and Wuhan with the goal of conquering cities and territories, and was forced to turn to strategic conservatism. As a result, China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression developed from a strategic defensive stage to a strategic stalemate stage, and the Japanese invading army fell into the quagmire of a protracted war that it was most unwilling to wag, unable to extricate itself, and thus led to a change in Japan's policy of aggression against China.

More importantly, because the first battle of Wuhan caused many contradictions in Japan, especially in the economic aspect.

Everyone knows that Japan is an island country with a lack of strategic materials and mainly relies on imports. At that time, Japan's economic strength was not very strong, and according to the history of the Japanese army, Japan's gold reserves at the time of the "77" incident, including the reserve for the issuance of paper money, were only 1.35 billion yen. Although the war is fought by people on the surface, in fact it is an economic fight, and whoever has strong economic strength has a better hope of victory.

As far as Japan is concerned, its gold reserves limit the scale of the war of aggression against China. Such small gold reserves meant that Japan did not have enough positive currency reserves, which limited the war from the start. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to see why Japan took the lead in launching the war, but it did everything possible to seek a solution to the China incident as soon as possible. In order to sustain the war of aggression against China, in 1937 Japan imported 960 million yen of military supplies from overseas, which accounted for almost 70% of the country's gold reserves.

By June 1938, in order to carry out the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese government was poor and had to sell underwear. Even in order to equip the newly created troops, even the rifles used by school instructors were withdrawn.

At the same time, due to the continuous increase in the number of soldiers and the lack of domestic labor, food, and energy, it can be said that the scale of this war has far exceeded the reserves of the Japanese state, and the poverty of Japan's national strength has been drastically superficialized, and it has even lost the ability to fully guarantee the supply of military materials to the army. (To be continued.) )