readx;

Chapter 1966 from prosperity to decline

Ishihara walked around the office of the General Staff Headquarters, his face full of grief and indignation, and Senior General Nagano Shusei, the head of the Military Command Department, who was sitting on the sofa on one side, looked worried, and Senior General Itagaki Seishiro, who had been ordered by the emperor to take a plane back to Tokyo for more than 20 hours, lowered his head and said nothing. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ(《》)

"Itagaki-kun, what if I refuse to obey the edict?" Ishihara suddenly stood still, looking straight at Itagaki, the envoy who had arrived with the emperor's secret mission.

"If Ishihara-kun does not obey the edict, you will be dismissed from the post of chief of staff, and Tojo-kun, who boasts in front of His Majesty the Emperor, that Tojo-kun will exercise the supreme command of the army!" Seishiro Itagaki was taken aback when he heard this, and quickly raised his head and persuaded: "Ishihara-kun, at this time, you must not be rash and go against His Majesty the Emperor and the meeting of important ministers, there will be no good fruit to eat!" ”

"But—"

Ishihara Wan'er looked sad and indignant: "We have just let go from the mainland, it is a good time to plot the hegemony of the Americas, and at this time, it is a crime to waste precious troops on the hopeless East Asian continent again, it is a crime and a premeditated massacre of the emperor!" How can I sit idly by and ignore the future and fate of the Empire? ”

Itagaki Seishiro said: "Ishihara-kun, your worries are also considered by Your Majesty and the Council of Important Ministers, but the current situation is different from a few months ago, although Germany has not completely defeated Soviet Russia, but what is missing is only the final blow, Stalin's resistance will be completely ended when the spring of next year comes!"

"As of the beginning of this month, seventy German divisions have been deployed to the Middle East, Turkey, and the Caucasus, and with the armies of other client states, our allies will have one hundred and fifty divisions in battle, plus logistical baggage troops, for a total strength of eight million, so that the army of South China will be firmly pinned down on the Western Front!

"It is precisely because of this background that when the Führer Hitler wanted us to launch a landing operation on the Eastern Front and attract the attention of the army in South China, His Majesty and the elders of the Council of Ministers did not refuse! According to intelligence, the tank units of the South China Army stationed at Shanhaiguan have been transferred to Central Asia by the Mongolian Railway, and other elite troops are concentrated on the Korean Peninsula and the Far East.

"Once our army gathers the main forces and implements the landing in the western and eastern Liaodong regions, as long as it acts quickly, it can smoothly close the door to the Korean Peninsula, cut off the material supply of the South China army in Korea, and annihilate all the elite forces of the million South China army in one fell swoop, and then our allies on the western front will attack with a thunderous force, and the South China government fighting on two fronts will inevitably be exhausted, so that the empire can not only regain control of Manchuria, but also hope to return to Malaya, Burma and India, It is even possible to bring Annam and Siam under control together!

"With such a highly feasible plan, why didn't Ishihara-kun accept the order and fight for the future and destiny of the empire?"

Ishihara sneered: "The idea is very good, but there is almost no possibility of realization!" We all know that the South China army has a very terrible air force, and how easy is it for us to land under the threat of the opponent's fighters? Will our naval aviation, although strong, be able to compete with the land-based aviation units of China that can be transferred at any time?

"The other side not only has an advantageous air force, but also has a fast tank force stationed in Shenyang, and the other side also has a large airship, which can quickly transfer troops and deal a devastating blow to our landing force.

"I am categorically opposed to such pointless operations...... Rather than wasting troops on the East Asian continent, where it is impossible to do anything, and completely angering the South China Air Force, which has so far exercised restraint and has not bombed our islands, it is better to intensify the offensive in other theaters. Taking the Southwest Pacific Theater as an example, when Ishikawa-kun attacked Tasmania, he was counterattacked by the US shore defense forces, and more than ten landing operations were completely failed......

"For the current empire, the most important thing is to defeat the United States or consolidate the front in the southwest Pacific region, and it should not be greedy and lose troops in vain on the East Asian continent that it knows is impossible to succeed!"

Nagano cultivated himself: "Ishihara-kun, I don't doubt your strategic vision at all, but you should understand that Manchuria, Mongolia and Korea embody the efforts of successive emperors and governments after the Meiji era.

"In order to cover people's eyes, Germany has launched an air attack on the British Isles, and their naval aircraft carrier group, which also departed from the Baltic Sea, began to enter the Atlantic Ocean for sabotage warfare. The latest chapter of the Templar ChapterWhen the eyes of the world are on the Western Front, they will unexpectedly cause a bloody storm on the Eastern Front...... Ishihara-kun, please cherish the current good situation of the empire, and don't let the great cause of the empire fall short! ”

Ishihara said resolutely: "It is precisely because I don't want the empire to suffer setbacks that I insist on my beliefs!" Nagano-kun, Itagaki-kun, believe me, all these tricks are useless to the South Chinese army, and our attempt to take advantage of the fire to loot is even more wrong. Now that the expansion of the empire has reached a bottleneck, the use of troops in the Americas can only be continuously strengthened, constantly squeezing the living space of the United States, forcing it to negotiate peace, and the empire can earn a glimmer of vitality!

"Today, the imperial army has expanded to 10 million, that is to say, one out of every four to five men is fighting for the empire, due to the shortage of labor, now women and children have entered the factory, and a large number of natives have also begun to receive strict training, becoming workers in coal mines, iron mines, copper mines, tin mines and various iron and steel factories and military factories!

"If we blindly lose 100,000 or even 200,000 troops in a war that is impossible to win, and lose the precious warships and transports that keep the empire in its various regions running, then what awaits us is a terrible reversal of the situation, a reversal that will lead the empire into a bottomless abyss, never to be overturned!

"In view of this, as the chief of staff of the imperial ** team, I can only regretfully refuse this unreasonable order. If Your Majesty insists on counterattacking the mainland, I implore you to go to South America and lead your troops to fight on the front line to open up the territory for the empire! ”

"Ishihara-kun—"

Seishiro Itagaki accused the stubborn-looking Ishihara Waner, and he was so excited that he couldn't speak, and after a long time he asked, "Are you just willful and ignore the empire's danger and only care about achieving your own career?" If the empire loses its helm and declines, do you think the South American theater of operations will be out of the way? ”

Ishihara shook his head and smiled bitterly:

"Itagaki-kun, do you think I want to leave...... Now that Europe has surrendered to the iron heel of Germany, the situation in the Americas is gratifying, and the complete pacification of the Pacific region seems to be only a matter of time, His Majesty has been dazzled by the good situation, and thinks that my passive policy on the mainland is very incompatible with his civil and military prowess, and it is only a matter of time before I am replaced!

"Looking at Tojo's group again, they used to face the rapid offensive of the South China army directly on the mainland, and they didn't have the confidence to win, so they simply kept silent and let me suffer the defeat...... No matter how bad the situation is now, it is nothing more than that, they advocate a counterattack on the mainland, and it is gratifying to win, but if it fails, it can also put the blame on me, saying that I have lost the foundation of the mainland, which leads to the inability to counterattack!

"Since there are arguments for victory and defeat, they can naturally bewitch in front of Your Majesty, Your Majesty may have a little affection for me at first, but after a long time, I heard that I could achieve an unprecedented victory at a small price, and I couldn't hold back, what would Your Majesty think? Rather than make the trouble even more unpleasant, it is better for me to withdraw as soon as possible and go to South America to find a way to survive for the empire! ”

Seishiro Itagaki and Shusei Nagano were stunned, they didn't expect Ishihara to see so far and analyze human nature so thoroughly.

Nagano Xiushen sighed: "No wonder during this period of time, almost all the materials transported by the logistics department are inclined to South America, it turns out that Ishihara-kun is making a strategic layout for the next step!" ”

Ishihara nodded:

"Thank you Nagano-kun for your full cooperation, I wouldn't have been able to do this without the help of the Navy...... In the past few months, the empire has transferred 25 divisions and 40 mixed brigades to South America, and has an overwhelming superiority in forces over South American countries...... Coupled with the continuous migration since the capture of the Panama Canal, we now have more than a million Yamato ethnic groups in South America, and as long as the empire insists on immigrating to South America, in a few years, plus the population that immigrated to Brazil and South America in the early years, as well as the unfamiliar Korean immigrants, the population that the empire can control can hopefully exceed five million. If the U.S. ** team wants to counterattack the Pacific region, it must first clear its own back garden, maybe the empire can earn life! ”

Itagaki Seishiro said suspiciously: "With so many people and materials, how can the supply be guaranteed?" ”

Ishihara smiled confidently: "South America is a treasure land of feng shui, because most of them are in tropical rainforest areas, warm and humid, rice can be planted three times a year, and other random planting can easily fill the stomach, there are millions of immigrants plus millions of natives, there is no pressure to feed a million army."

"A large number of machine tools, mechanical products and production lines dismantled in the western and central regions of the United States this time, some of them were sent to Australia, and the rest of the seized steel and aluminum were sent to South America nearby.

"At present, the war situation in Venezuela has entered a critical stage, but the advantage of the imperial army is obvious, the Americans simply did not think that we mobilized so many troops to fight in South America, their reinforced troops have just landed in Caracas, Cumaná and Port of Spain, and they were surrounded by our army, and now the battle is fought in the coastal area north of the Noco Plain in northwest Venezuela, and the empire will completely gain control of Venezuela in the near future......

"After the defeat of the American army, the large iron ore mine of Cerro near Ciudad Bolivar will fall into our grasp, plus the coal mines in Medellín, Cocha, Beyo and other places in Colombia, so that our steel plant can be built! We control the oil and gas of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, and the coal and iron of Colombia and Venezuela, so that we have the basis for sustainable development, and in the future, as long as we gradually go south, and take the iron ore mining areas of Minas Gerais in Brazil, Mato Gerais do Sul and Barra in the north, and the copper, iron, tungsten, tin and bauxite mining areas in Peru and Chile, the empire can be completely self-sufficient in South America, and can even subsidize other battlefields.

"Nagano-kun, Itagaki-kun, you should know the feasibility of my strategy, and I don't feel at ease to let others implement it, so please give me a hand!"

Nagano Xiu groaned and stood up: "Let's go, let's go meet Konoe-kun and see what he has to say!" Konoe-kun has a close relationship with His Majesty, maybe he can change His Majesty's will, but not necessarily! Ishihara-kun is a commander-in-chief, so it's better to sit in the base camp, otherwise I'm really worried that Tojo will make a mess of state affairs! ”

Itagaki Seishiro's spirits were greatly lifted, and he took Ishihara Wan'er: "Yes, Ishihara-kun, let's make the last effort, no matter what, we can't give up the position of chief of staff!" ”

Ishihara couldn't resist the kindness of the two, so he had to say: "Okay, but if Konoe-kun can't do anything, you have to help me get an errand as the commander of the Southern American Army, how about it?" ”

"Good!"

Nagano Shushen and Itagaki Seishiro were at the same time, and a thick cloud suddenly rose in their hearts.