On May 31, 1921, Hirohito, who had found nothing, ended his visit to England and went to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. In Paris, Hirohito held secret meetings with young officers who had studied in Europe, and these young officers who were close to him later became the backbone of Hirohito's forces to replace the Choshu feudal lords, many of whom became the backbone of the fascism of the thirties and forties. On September 3, Hirohito returned to Saimoto, and on November 25, he officially succeeded Emperor Taisho, whose condition had deteriorated severely, and the curtain fell on the "Taisho Aki Era".

On the other hand, on July 11, during Hirohito's departure from Britain for a visit to other European countries, British Prime Minister Lloyd-George delivered a lengthy speech to the British Parliament, declaring that "the Anglo-British alliance, the future of Asia and the Pacific, and the question of Anglo-American relations arising from these two issues are the main issues that the imperial government should seriously consider...... The first principle of our policy is to maintain friendly cooperation with the United States, and we are convinced that peace and stability in the world can be better established by relying on this factor than any other single factor...... We also wish to maintain close friendship and cooperation with the British Empire, the greatest advantage of which is that it can coordinate the forces and activities of the two Pacific powers, so that the stability of the British Empire and peace in the Far East can be maintained. Lloyd-George's speech showed that Britain should first be in line with the United States in the new round of competition in the Far East, and at the same time Britain did not want to offend Britain's interests in the Far East by offending too much. At this time, Hirohito was well aware of such a result, and he understood that the "British Alliance" had come to an end with Lloyd-George's speech, and now all that was needed was a formality.

At this time, Hirohito's mind returned to the "package" international conference to be held in Washington.

Before World War I, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and the United States were competing in the Far East and the Pacific. After the end of the war, Tsarist Russia was destroyed, and Soviet Russia, which was subsequently formed, withdrew from competition in this region; Germany was defeated and excluded from the list of great powers, and the victorious powers did not allow it to gain any more advantages in any area other than its own territory; Having suffered heavy losses in the war, France is too busy to heal the wounds of the war and consolidate its vested interests in Europe to get involved in the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, in the political arena of the Far East and the Pacific region, it is mainly a performance between the United States, Britain, China, and the four countries, among which there are contradictions between Britain and the United States, as well as contradictions between Britain and China, and the most prominent contradiction is the conflict of interests between the United States and China, and the center of contention is China; in addition, on such topics as how to deal with the former German islands north of the equator, how to deal with the East Siberian issue, and how to limit naval armaments, the United States and the United States also have very different attitudes, and there are many controversies and contradictions.

At the Versailles Peace Conference after the end of the war, the U.S. delegates strongly demanded that the former German Pacific Territories, including the occupied islands and the territories occupied by the Anglo-Australian and New Zealand forces, be internationally administered or simply returned to Germany. He adhered to the principle of "advancing from the north to the south" and advocated that none of the German islands in the South Seas should be left behind. U.S. President Wilson, who attended the peace conference, made a compromise proposal, that is, hand over the German islands north of the equator to the Equator on the condition that they should not be fortified. In the end, the issue of Yap Island was resolved by saying that the three major cables were divided among the three major cables, and the United States could enter and leave the island at will.

The Yap issue, the Pacific issue, and the debate between the United States and the United States over the China issue and the open-door policy at the Versailles Peace Conference are only the tip of the iceberg of the dispute between the United States after World War I. There are many irreconcilable contradictions between the two countries in the Western Pacific, including China, Siberia, the Philippines, and Australia, so it is not surprising that the diplomatic and economic wars between the two countries quickly spread to the military field, and finally to fierce competition in naval shipbuilding. Wilson's Secretary of the Navy Daniels issued a statement saying, "We have only two choices, either choose to join the League of Nations to maintain world peace and avoid a naval arms race; Either the most powerful navy in the world must be created, and there is no middle way. ”

The U.S. Navy's massive expansion plan began before and after the time it forced China to sign the infamous "21 Articles" and its contents were announced. In 1916, U.S. President Wilson issued a five-year plan for the construction of the Grand Navy, planning to allocate $1.5 billion to build 10 battleships, 6 battle cruisers, 50 destroyers and 100 submarines, so that the U.S. Navy strength jumped from the fourth in the world to the first in the world at that time. In June 1919, the U.S. Navy officially announced the division of the fleet into two to form the Pacific Fleet. In August 1919, the U.S. Congress passed an ordinance to fund the Navy, increasing naval military spending from $137 million in 1914 to $433 million in 1921. The tonnage of new warships built by the Navy was 200,000 tons in 1916-1920, 400,000 tons in 1921-1925, and 120,000 tons in 1926-1929, totaling 720,000 tons, which was quite overwhelming the British Navy.

In July 1920, the 43rd National Assembly finally approved the "88th Fleet" plan, which had been drawn up for a long time but had been unresolved for a long time, and from 1919 onwards, the Navy often kept eight battleships and eight battlecruisers that were less than eight years old, and by 1927 the first round of shipbuilding of the plan was completed. At the same time, it was also planned to build 25 light cruisers, 102 destroyers, and 113 submarines, and the navy's military spending soared from 163 million yuan ($85 million) in 1917 to 482 million yuan ($245 million) in 1921. Judging from the shipbuilding plans that the United States and the United States have drawn up and begun to implement, the naval strength of the two countries reached the state of parity in 1925, after which the US Navy will leave the US Navy far behind, so 1925 is the year when war is most likely to break out, and the United States and the two countries are gloomyly placed in front of the politicians of the two countries. At that time, the words "war between the United States" had become a hot word in both countries, and the ideas and discussions about the war between the United States and the United States abounded when they opened the newspapers. A best-selling book entitled "Germany in Asia" was published in the United States, in which he described the post-war book as "behaving very much like the Germany under Caesar,...... Savage, vulgar, aggressive".

In another book titled "Do We Have to Fight with Books?" In the book, the author said: "The huge dispute between the United States and the United States has far exceeded the dispute between Germany and the United States more than ten years ago...... Ben is expanding in East Asia, Hawaii, and our West Coast; Its interest in Siberia clashed sharply with U.S. international policy; Its control over the cable station on the German territory of Yap, and its demand for the League of Nations to grant it a mandate, caused us so deep unease...... Its aggression against China is incompatible with U.S. commerce, trade, diplomatic interests, moral sentiments, and U.S. 'open door' policies......."

The last two years of Wilson's presidency were fraught with the threat of war, with Tokyo and Washington at a standoff on every issue, and the two capitals talking about war everywhere. But is war avoidable for both U.S. and Chinese countries?

After the adoption of the newly revised national defense policy on September 13, 1918, the United States and China, supported by the United States, had become the main imaginary enemy of the United States after Russia. After World War I, the general staff of the company found that large-scale wars tended to become protracted. The First Sino-Japanese War lasted for eight months, the Russo-Russian War lasted for one year and seven months, and the First World War lasted six and a half years. The future war will be a "total war," a battle for national strength, a joint operation between international blocs, and it will undoubtedly be a war that will last longer, at a time when the war was beginning to enter a period of long-term economic depression after the war.

On March 15, 1921, the Tokyo Stock Exchange saw a sharp drop in stock prices, which spread to the United Kingdom in April and turned into an economic crisis that in turn affected the economy of the world. Compared with 1919, the company's exports fell by 30 to 40 percent, and the productivity of the steel, shipbuilding, and raw silk industries fell sharply. Under such conditions, it is said that the country's financial resources do not allow it to actively expand the armed forces and strengthen armaments.

Although some people in military and political circles claimed that he was "ready to spend as much money as the United States to build warships," this was just a slap in the face and a fat man, and the United States, whose per capita income was only $21 at that time, was unable and could not compete with the United States, which had a per capita income of $350. After the establishment of the League of Nations, an atmosphere of coordination was pervasive in the international relations between the major powers, and the idea of peace prevailed. In early 1921, Yuzaburo Kato, the former Minister of the Navy, said that if other naval powers agreed to abandon the shipbuilding program, he would also be willing to abandon the "88th Fleet" program.

For Britain, the main ally of the country at the time, the need to prevent a new naval race was all the more urgent. Previously, Britain had maintained the "double power standard" of the navy, and did not allow a second country to compete with it, so the expansion of the German navy caused Britain to be jealous, which eventually led to the outbreak of world war. However, any great political power, if it takes a considerable amount of time, will induce change. The United States, which has been in charge of the Pacific since the 20th century, has spared no effort in naval expansion, while Britain has been devastated since the end of the war. Britain spent £17.497 billion on the war, equivalent to 52% of the country's total wealth during the period, lost one-third of its overseas investments after the war, and owed the United States a debt of £982 million. After six long years, Britain's traditional overseas markets were all occupied by the United States and medium-sized countries, and the domestic steel, textile, machinery and other industries shrank in an all-round way, and foreign trade, which was regarded as the lifeline of the British economy, changed from more than 134 million pounds in 1913 to more than 832 million pounds in 1921. By 1921, the pound had fallen to 79% of its gold parity. British Prime Minister Lloyd-George realized that if he engaged in the costly naval arms race again, it would inevitably lead to the total collapse of the British economy, so Britain could no longer compete with the United States in any naval expansion, and even resolutely decided to abandon two centuries of maritime supremacy and compromise with the United States, which also belonged to the Anglo-Saxon civilization.

In March 1921, the British Admiralty Secretary and Foreign Secretary Balfour made a speech proposing that Britain and the United States have equal navies through negotiation. In April 1921, Britain officially notified the United States that it was "prepared to abandon the traditional policy that the possession of a fleet should be equal to the fleet of the other two most powerful naval nations in the world combined." However, the decision was made before Britain approved plans to build four 42,000-ton giant battle cruisers, 10 cruisers and more than 30 submarines in addition to the 10 capital ships already built.

Although China's navy has become the world's second largest navy with the help of the United States, China's economic strength is obviously not enough to support such a large navy for a long time, so the United States is the only one left with the capital and strength to establish a global naval superpower. But those in power in the United States are well aware that their citizens may not support the political axe to fight against the Siberian question or the open door issue of China, and the US Congress will probably not continue to make huge naval allocations for this purpose. What's more, the United States is the most important commodity export market in the United States, accounting for more than 97 percent of the raw silk sold in the United States, and 80 percent of the total number of steel and machinery imported in the United States comes from the United States, and the economic ties between the United States and China are second only to the economic ties between the United States and China.

In order to ease the deteriorating US-China relations and the tensions they have brought about, US Senator William Brown, who has consistently criticized the expansionist policy in the Asia-Pacific region. On December 14, 1921, Bora introduced a motion in Congress advocating that the United States and Britain cut their respective naval construction plans in half within the next five years to avoid causing a bad result. "If we are drawn into a massive naval shipbuilding race, coupled with threats and criticism, we are likely to have a bitter war with Ben for the next 25 years," Bora said. This suggestion was proposed by the newly elected President of the United States, Warren ? Adopted by Harding.

At his inauguration, Harding said that "the United States is willing to discuss and consult with the rest of the world...... propose ways to reduce armaments and reduce the unbearable burden on the army and navy". Senator Bora proposed an amendment to the Navy Bill authorizing the President to "invite British and Chinese political representatives to a conference aimed at reaching a speedy understanding and agreement, so that the naval construction programs of Britain, the United States, China, and other countries participating in the meeting may be reduced to the extent specified in the agreement for the next five years." The U.S. Senate then voted 74-0 to approve the proposal to convene a consultative session, and the House of Representatives also passed the bill by an overwhelming 330-4 vote.

Harding accordingly instructed Secretary of State Charles? Hughes asked him whether he would agree to participate in a conference on naval armament reduction in the United States, while coordinating the resolution of conflicts of interest between the two countries and other countries concerned in the Far East. At the same time, the United Kingdom and its self-governing territories, Canada and Australia, also raised the issue of convening an international conference. Because the third Anglo-Japanese alliance of 10 years was about to expire, the British Empire, which was caught in sharp confrontation between the United States and China, held a meeting to discuss how to deal with the issue of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. The Dominions of the British Empire, which are in sharp opposition to each other politically and economically, have demanded that Britain clarify its alliance with the United States, because these countries have already seen that in the future conflict between the United States and the United States, they can only stand on the side of the United States for their own security and interests. The absurd spectacle of war with Dominions such as Canada and Australia, which are allied with the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Meehan delivered a speech at the Imperial Conference, resolutely opposing any renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance that might lead to Canada's break with the United States or with the British Empire, and called for the convening of a Anglo-American conference to discuss the issue of the Anglo-American alliance. The Australian Prime Minister made the same call. Against this background, British Foreign Secretary Balfour proposed to convene a package of international conferences on Britain-Syrian, US-Chinese, Sino-Chinese relations, the Pacific issue, and the post-war naval race. Therefore, the British government decided to propose to the United States to convene the conference, and the United States should decide the date, place, and countries participating in the meeting, and issue an invitation.

After heated discussions, the participants held a meeting of the Emperor's Imperial Council, a Cabinet Meeting, and a Foreign Affairs Committee, and after heated discussions, they held that if the United States and Britain supported arms limitation, if they rejected the US proposal, they would be unable to escape the accusation of "interfering with the plan to guarantee international peace," so they decided to participate in the arms limitation conference. Subsequently, he replied to the United States and agreed to participate in the decision of the United States, Britain, France, China, and Italy to participate in the six-nation arms limitation conference and the international conference on the Pacific and Far East issues.

After receiving an affirmative reply from this side, the United States issued a formal invitation to the "Washington Conference" to "relevant countries," including Britain, China, France, Italy, and other countries involved in the naval arms race, as well as Canada, Australia, India, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Of course, Sovietized Russia did not receive an invitation for conceivable reasons, Germany and Austria-Hungary were defeated countries, and Austria-Hungary itself had dissolved and therefore both were excluded from the conference.

(To be continued)