This is a lively group of young conspirators, whose average age will never exceed twenty-five: four lieutenants (company), five lieutenants (quasi-company). Some people have just developed a shallow soft mustache on their lips. But each of them had an extremely serious expression, and their eyes showed the military spirit of being ready to fight and seeing death as if they were at home.

"You must remember the story of the forty-seven ronins in ancient Nara, right? In order to avenge their master, those ronins did not give up, and finally committed suicide by seppuku...... This afternoon, I went to Meiji Jingu as a samurai to pay homage to Amaterasu. As I silently prayed to Amaterasu for protection, the story of the forty-seven ronins came to my mind......"

"In today's Japan, traitorous ministers are in charge, the cabinet is **, and the saints are deceived by the ministers...... These are the shames of the Japanese samurai, who will save Japan? Eradicate traitors? Kill the ** molecule? Upholding the divine will of the Holy One? …… What is the point of our lives if we allow the rotten rulers and elders to do whatever they want, to crowd out respected generals and ministers, and to allow the cabinet to sell out vast swaths of the empire's territory? ”

Almost unbelievable. It was a group of low-ranking officers who were tasked with such a major mission and were determined to change the future of Japan. All of them graduated from military academies and were ambitious, crazy, full of ideals and passions of expansion and dedication. In their view, if Japan does not immediately implement the emperor's personal government and military power, and Japan does not immediately resume the war against China, then there is no hope for their future, and their existence as military personnel is meaningless.

“…… Now, please join me in swearing: If our actions are correct, let Amaterasu bless us with success. If we are wrong, please Amaterasu and let the uprising fail...... I will commit suicide by seppuku in front of the palace to thank the emperor"

It is a traditional Japanese bushido manifesto.

At this moment, all the Japanese soldiers were moved and inspired by the spiritual tradition of romanticism and heroism from their own nation, so they all made a solemn oath of righteousness and solemnity. The heavy darkness of night concealed the conspiracy, as well as the dangerous powder keg that was about to detonate on the south side of the palace. Only the guqin of Suzumi Kato, the girl who played the piano, was still unhurriedly plucking strings of monotonous notes, like a frightened bird, crashing around the cliff-heavy room, and then quickly burrowed out of the house and disappeared.

The meeting ended quickly, and the soldiers got up and left. At this time, there were still more than three hours before the uprising, and Captain Matsumoto began to become restless, like a beast about to be released from the cage walking around the house. At this time, the guqin, which has been hidden in the shadow of the corner, clearly does not want to be ignored anymore, it reverses the original gentle and melancholy tune, with rapid plucking, high-pitched rhythm, trembling irrepressible passion and all the calls and expectations of a flesh-and-blood woman's soul. Captain Matsumoto was first stunned and stopped walking; Then I was shocked and listened. Suddenly, there was a "ding", the strings were plucked, Suzumi Kato raised her head, she looked at Captain Matsumoto, and she was already in tears.

"I want you to die with me." The captain hesitated slightly, and said to her expressionlessly, "Please"

"Yes, Matsumoto-kun, I'm willing to die." The young girl bowed deeply and whispered.

"Thank you so much, Suzumi." Captain Matsumoto was moved to take the girl in his arms, "For the sake of His Majesty the Holy Emperor, your life and mine are insignificant......"

As he spoke, he savagely tore open the girl's kimono, frantically put the girl down, and then pressed his body up......

At 4 a.m. on February 13, 1922, about 3,200 soldiers of the 1st Japanese Guards Division stationed in Tokyo, led by a group of junior officers, opened their barracks and captured the Japanese Ministry of Army, the General Staff Headquarters, the Diet Building, and the Prime Minister's Residence. Communication between Tokyo and the whole of Japan was severed, and the entire government cabinet and military heads were paralyzed.

This is the sensational "two? 13 coup d'état".

Leaving the palace, inner courtyard.

Because he had been reading for too long the night before, the "quasi-emperor" Hirohito slept late. It is a novel that celebrates the spirit of traditional Japan. In the book, Hirohito reads a lot of exciting scenes, so the mood of the "quasi-emperor" is infected, and he returns to the palace and has insomnia for a long time before falling asleep. ,

Shortly after Hirohito fell asleep, he was woken up by an inner palace civil servant. The official looked flustered and spoke almost incoherently, and the "Quasi-Emperor" was confused for a while before he figured out that the army had launched a rebellion outside and had surrounded the palace.

Hirohito's heart was greatly shaken, and his face suddenly turned pale, and the corners of his mouth trembled for a while before he put on his clothes.

When the "quasi-emperor" with a cloudy face appeared in the large house used for the audience in the Inner Palace Province surrounded by everyone, the cabinet ministers, aristocratic senators, and military heads who were already waiting here and talking in a panic immediately prostrated on the ground, and the room was silent for a while.

"Get up, all of you." The "would-be emperor" sat down on a sandalwood chair inlaid with a chrysanthemum relief emblem and leaned over to look around at his ministers, "Who will tell me what is going on outside?" ”

The "quasi-emperor" speaks in a rather strange tone, not a descending tone as is usually used in Japanese, but a rising tone, accompanied by a sizzling air leak. People held their breath, and no one dared to speak rashly.

"Is Prime Minister Hara here? Let the Prime Minister talk to me," the "Emperor-to-be" said impatiently raising his voice. At this moment, there were still intermittent gunshots outside the palace from time to time. He felt that he was disappointed not so much that the rebels were hateful, but that the useless Manchu civil and military forces in front of him made him feel disappointed.

A minister of the Inner Palace had to summon up the courage to tell the truth all the terrible news from outside: the rebels had occupied all the key departments and military and political offices in the city. It is rumored that Prime Minister Hara and several cabinet ministers have been brutally killed, and the whereabouts of the chief of staff and the head of the military command are unknown. The rebels outside the palace have raised... Requirements: Jin to the emperor, reshuffle the current cabinet system, active military participation in politics, etc.

"How do you Army explain this?" After hearing the report, the young Hirohito was furious, and he turned his head to the army generals angrily and asked loudly.

"The ministers are not strict with the army, and they are willing to accept the responsibility." Several generals said with sincere fear, at this time they were not too afraid of the anger of the "quasi-emperor" in their hearts, and even secretly gloated, "But as far as the ministers and others know. The rebels were not disrespectful to His Holiness and His Highness, but were dissatisfied with the long-term oppression of the army, and dared to recite a few words of the rebels' "Program Declaration": '...... The state of God and Japan is embodied in the commander of His Majesty the Emperor...... Ignoring the dignity of the emperor, elders, ministers, warlords, chaebols, bureaucrats, and politicians are the main culprits in the destruction of the national system...... It is the sacred duty of His Majesty the Emperor to purge the traitors of the monarch and to smash the conspiracy of the group of important ministers......"

"Do you mean that His Majesty the Emperor should give in to the demands of the rebels?" A cabinet minister, seeing that the generals had bad intentions and that they were trying to use the rebels to blackmail the emperor, immediately fought back-for-tat.

"I'm afraid your words are exaggerated, right?" A Japanese army general snapped. They now believe that they have military power and do not take the civilian cabinet officials seriously: "Factional strife in the army is the bane of rebellion, and it is natural that it should be severely suppressed, but the general demand in the army must not be ignored."

"If the army's discipline is lax and the army is in rebellion, the minister of the army should ask the emperor for his guilt and resign," the cabinet minister said loudly without backing down.

"Your Highness, the suppression of the rebels is a top priority, and after the rebellion is quelled, the ministers are willing to resign together with the cabinet," some of the generals said in unison.

It is clear that the generals of the "control faction" are determined to take advantage of the cabinet's predicament to achieve the goal of killing two birds with one stone: to eliminate the old rivals in the army, the "imperial faction", and to achieve the formation of military personnel in the cabinet.

Listening to the words of the generals, Hirohito was groaned for a while.

The quarrels between the cabinet ministers and the generals gave him a headache. After all, he was still young and inexperienced, and had never experienced such a major event as a coup d'état. His ministers were all heroes of the Taisho era and even the Meiji era, and they were old, virtuous, scheming, and submissive on the surface, but they didn't necessarily take him seriously behind their backs. As the de facto king of a country, if even these arrogant and arrogant ministers with evil intentions can't be subdued, how can he rule the world?

"I think Your Highness should be considerate of the feelings of the army and announce pardon for the disrespectful behavior of those soldiers who are loyal to the emperor." A prince with the rank of lieutenant general in the army, who is known to be one of the supporters of the "royal road": "...... It is their duty to eradicate traitors and be loyal to the emperor, can the emperor and his highness hurt this feeling of the army? ”,

As soon as the prince's words fell, a lieutenant general of the army retorted-for-tat: "What the rebels have done has already damaged the sacred state and is not tolerated by all the officers and men of the army. ”

Not to be outdone, the prince immediately ridiculed him: "The army's 'downward' is really a last resort, and during the 'Vladivostok Incident' last year, didn't the army also make a similar move?" At that time, His Highness did not hold the soldiers accountable for exceeding their authority."

The general did not back down: "How can you confuse the declaration of war on Manchuria, the homeland, with the crime of rebellion?" As a lieutenant general in the army, can't the prince even know what it means to declare war on a foreign country and point a gun at the palace? ”

The two men were red-faced and angry. The palace stood on three feet for a while, each not giving in to each other, and the atmosphere was very tense.

At this time, the "quasi-emperor" Hirohito, who was in the center of the whirlpool, calmed down. Emotionally, he even had considerable appreciation for the rebels' actions. These young officers dared to defy the condemnation of the world and launch a military attack to kill the prime minister and cabinet ministers, and they must have been mentally prepared to kill themselves. If all Japanese people, especially the ministers of civil affairs and military affairs, can dedicate themselves to the imperial family in such a loyal manner, instead of seeking their own personal interests and intriguing with each other, then what can Japan fail to accomplish in the great cause of reunifying Asia?

It is not that Hirohito cannot tolerate disrespectful behavior towards himself and his father, but that the authority of the Japanese imperial family itself cannot be offended in the slightest. Whoever commits the sin of disrespect will be given death, regardless of your motives. The key problem was that the coup d'état was a perfect opportunity to oust all the old ministers and high-achieving generals who had overwhelmed him.

To this end, the young rebels had to die as sacrifices to the altar of imperial power. The Emperor of Japan is the supreme ruler, and like the emperors of Japan, Hirohito is an animal of interest rather than emotion, and the struggle for power has always come at the cost of bloodshed: either you dominate the country or you are dominated by others, and one or the other must prevail.

The corners of Hirohito's mouth moved, and he let out an imperceptible sigh, then changed his stiff sitting position slightly and coughed majestically.

"You all stand down," he squeezed out an angry expression, a pair of white eyes staring lifelessly, "...... If the army is unable to suppress the rebels immediately, I will personally go out of the palace to persuade them to surrender. ”

The crackdown on the rebels dragged on for another five days amid intransigent bickering. It was not until the morning of February 18 that a large number of troops transferred from the vicinity of Kyoto and Kofu entered the city one after another. The Emperor's edict was printed as a leaflet and dropped from the plane, and it was blown like snowflakes falling on the streets of Tokyo. At around 2 p.m., the rebels began to be broken up by the Emperor's edict, and many soldiers laid down their weapons and returned to their respective barracks. At 7 p.m., the rebel officers decided to abandon their military advice and surrender en masse to be tried by a court-martial. Only Captain Matsumoto refused to lay down his weapon, he walked alone to the open space in front of the palace, raised his head to the sky and howled, and then pulled out his saber and committed suicide by disembowelment. A few hours later, Suzumi Kato learned of Captain Matsumoto's death on the radio and hanged herself in the house.

The week afterward, the Japanese military carried out a harsh crackdown on the coup forces. Officers who participated in the rebellion were sentenced, and soldiers were sent en masse to labor camps or mines to atone for their crimes. A total of 13 military officers and four civilian officials were executed. They were blindfolded and tied to a post, and their foreheads and left chests were marked with red pens. But all of them were not afraid, and before they were executed, they shouted long live three times and sang the Japanese national anthem "Junno Dai", and the scene was very heroic and moving.

Large-scale personnel changes were also carried out in the upper echelons of the Japanese military department and in the cabinet. Four army generals were dismissed, and some of the generals who had fanatical demands for an immediate war against China were purged. The cabinet was ordered to resign, and the prince, who was sympathetic to the rebels, was deposed. He was transferred to the reserve and no longer cared about military and political affairs. Dramatically, however, the general who had confronted the prince was also implicated and retired from active duty.

The history is called "two? Although the attempted coup d'état of the "13 Incident" was not successful, its impact or consequences on the situation in Japan and even in Asia were enormous, and it brought about changes in Japan's social and political structure, and directly contributed to and influenced the formation of Japan's China policy in the future. Hirohito, the regent, personally took part in the affairs of purging the armed forces, broke with the practice that servicemen on active duty were not allowed to participate in politics, and promoted those ambitious young generals who advocated seizing the time to go all out to develop so that they could wash away their shame in the future war against China and the United States to the head of the military department and the cabinet. ,

Palace of Versailles, Paris, France.

Gu Weijun, the general minister of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a straight and dignified black embroidered gold thread dress, sat in his seat, his eyes looked at the venue from time to time, he noticed that there were two empty seats in the seat of the Japanese delegation, and the head of the Japanese delegation sitting there Nobuxian Baron Makino had a gloomy face, the expression seemed as if everyone present owed him a large amount of money, Gu Weijun looked at him panting there, and couldn't help but laugh secretly.

For the Japanese delegation, the nine-month-long Paris Peace Conference was nothing short of hell.

Of course, the Japanese are not alone, and they have Italians to keep them company.

The Italians were not taken seriously because they were weak and their performance on the battlefield was really lackluster. And the Japanese were not taken seriously because Japan offended almost all the Western powers in this war.

At the most critical moment of the First World War, Japan, as a major member of the Entente, still took a posture of "inaction" and continued to make small moves behind its back, not only completely seizing Germany's colonies in the Pacific, but also attacking China twice, trying to annex China when the Western powers had no time to look eastward, but the Japanese did not expect that they would suffer an unimaginable defeat, and then reap unprecedented shame and embarrassment at the Paris Peace Conference.

"Chief, call from Beijing." The Chinese representative Wei Chen's group came to Gu Weijun and sat down, and quietly handed him a telegram, "There has been a coup d'état in Tokyo, Japan. ”

"No wonder this old boy has such an ugly face." Gu Weijun looked at Makino Shinxian quietly, opened the telegram, and read it quickly.

"It's a pity that we signed it today, otherwise, if it drags on for a few more days, we can still squeeze some oil out of their stones." Wei Chen's group whispered.

"Forget it, we can't be too greedy, just take it when we see it." After Gu Weijun read the telegram, he nodded, put the telegram away, he looked at the representatives of the countries around him, his eyes just met the eyes of US President Wilson, Wilson showed him an amiable smile, so that Gu Weijun's heart was full of the joy of victory.

At the Paris Peace Conference, Gu Weijun made full use of China's status as a victorious power and the favorable conditions with the help of the United States to form an alliance with the United States to support each other on various major issues, and finally reached a series of agreements with the Western powers that were extremely favorable to China, and embodied these agreements in the peace treaty with Germany that was about to be signed.

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