After arriving in Tokyo, the rest of the life and others saw the devastation of war-torn Japan. Not to mention, the ruins of Tokyo after the bombing were all over the place, and even the Japanese who hurried through the streets were mostly skeletal and thin, as if they were reincarnated as hungry ghosts. Walking up and down, one step at a time, fluttering. At first glance, I knew that it was a long time since I had eaten enough. There are absolutely no concerns about the need to lose weight.

In fact, the collapse of the Japanese economy did not come after the large-scale bombing of Japan by the Americans. The collapse of the Japanese economy began as early as the middle of the war, in 1938. The Japanese war of aggression could only guarantee their prosperity for a short time. The richest time for the Japanese was at the end of the Sino-Japanese War.

After the Meiji Restoration began, Japan was still poor. Although he has exhausted his national strength and learned a lot of advanced knowledge from the West, he basically knows the industrial development of modern times. But it is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice. Without money, all kinds of economic development and the construction of the industrial system are all empty talk.

By 1894, before the start of the First Sino-Japanese War, the annual revenue of the Japanese government was less than 50 million taels of silver. In order to raise materials for the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese government raised 230 million yen by using its financial savings, issuing government bonds, and obtaining donations from the private sector. That's about 150,000,000,000 taels of silver.

This money is only enough to sustain the war for eight months. If the First Sino-Japanese War dragged on a little longer, even if China and Japan were tied. Japan's finances will collapse as a result. At that time, it was not China that compensated Japan, but the Japanese thought about how to pay war reparations to China while repaying their debts. The subsequent rise of Japan will not be the case. Unfortunately, the Qing court chose a pig teammate to command the Sino-Japanese War. The First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, the Beiyang Naval Division, lost in the first battle.

Through the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese not only gained a net profit of 300 million yen, but also gained the right to control Taiwan, China. All of a sudden, the Japanese government and the opposition were cheering. When the Emperor of Japan asked Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito what was the financial situation of Japan. Hirobumi Ito replied that people from all walks of life in Japan today feel extremely rich......

Through the war, Japan became rich overnight, and on the basis of the huge war reparations it received from China, it formulated a "10-year plan for post-war finance," and the scale of the Japanese government's finances expanded rapidly, and by 1895, the Japanese government's financial expenditure had doubled compared with 1894. By 1899. It reached nearly 400 million yen.

This money was spent on various industrial and infrastructure construction, and military spending also increased significantly. The war has since become a means for the Japanese to get rich. The Japanese pursued their capital for profit, and after digesting the war reparations of the Qing court, they began to expand gradually. In 1904, war with Tsarist Russia began. Obtained the rights and interests of Tsarist Russia in Northeast China.

However, Japanese society was not satisfied, and even because they did not receive direct compensation, tens of thousands of people gathered to riot on the streets of Tokyo. Subsequently, the Japanese operated in China. The Japanese began to make huge profits, and while digesting these profits to strengthen themselves, they were also ready to make their own power even further.

In 1914, the Japanese used the excuse of World War I. Participated in the war against Germany. Sent troops to capture the Qingdao and Jiaoji line railways, which were originally in the German sphere of influence, and occupied many islands in the Pacific Ocean. Originally, the Germans did not have many troops stationed in China, and the Japanese expelled the German garrison. It didn't take much effort. However, in this war, the Japanese benefited greatly.

In addition to occupying a large area of influence. Because it was the victor of World War I, its relations with the European powers improved, and it received a large number of war orders from European countries. From 1914 to 1919, Japan's gross national product doubled dramatically!

However, there are only so many ways for the Japanese to get rich. Due to the Washington Treaty, without war, the Japanese economy came to a standstill. In 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan caused the Japanese to lose as much as 9 billion yen, and the yen at this time was not as worthless as in later generations.

After five or six years of hard work and a barely recovering economy, in 1929 the global economic crisis reappeared. This economic crisis, which is almost the worst in history, has pulled Japan's economy into the abyss. In two years, Japanese exports fell by 76 percent, imports by 71 percent, total industrial output by one-third, and total agricultural output by 40 percent. Nearly half of the factories were shut down and nearly half of the workers were unemployed. A large number of homeless people have nowhere to go, so they come to China to earn a living, known as the Japanese ronin, and the infamy will go down in history......

In this case, the Japanese are poor in donkey skills. The only option is to use war to solve domestic problems and divert domestic contradictions. After all, over the course of a few decades, Japan had repeatedly gotten rich through war. Therefore, two years later, that is, in 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army planned the September 18 Incident and quickly occupied Northeast China. A large number of Japanese who did not have land in Japan were emigrated to Tohoku. The Japanese authorities' plan is to use one million people, which is known in history as the "One Million Households to Immigrants" program. In addition to wanting to Japanize Northeast China and occupy land, it also carried out large-scale plundering. All kinds of minerals and grains are constantly being shipped back to Japan.

From 1932 to 1937, after the Japanese occupied Northeast China, Japan relied on the resources plundered from Northeast China to make a rapid economic recovery. In the past five years, Japan's GDP has increased by as much as 1.5 times! The lives of the Japanese people have also improved dramatically.

Because of this experience, all the Japanese people turned red-eyed. The continuous plundering from China not only allowed the Japanese to survive economic crises one after another, but also allowed the Japanese to quickly become rich with the resources obtained. Moreover, these plunders were only plunders that hurt the skin. Even if it occupies the northeast, it is just a piece of meat on the Chinese. This bit of fur and a piece of meat have such an effect, if China is occupied, then won't the Japanese have no worries about food and clothing from now on?

With this logic, coupled with the brainwashing of the people at the bottom by the upper strata of Japan, the Japanese soon became fanatical, and their strategic intentions gradually expanded from occupying China to occupying Asia and the Pacific. It hardly took much incitement, and the Japanese people, who wanted to get rich and live a good life, went crazy. Support for the military has basically become the instinct of the Japanese people. In 1937, the Japanese had 4.7 billion yen in revenue, and military spending. But it's as high as 3.3 billion yen!

The normal functioning of the finances depended on the war savings and the war bonds purchased by the Japanese people in a frenzied manner.

However, the Japanese plan of plundering and getting rich did not proceed smoothly because of the official start of the war against China in 1937. Wealth, though in peacetime, can be gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, real estate, and so on. However, by the time the war began. There are only a few kinds of so-called wealth - grain, weapons, population, medicine, cotton and linen, minerals......

Of course, the Japanese plundered a large number of cultural relics, classics, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, gold, silver and jewelry from China. But these things. In times of war, it is useless at all. Although the Japanese quickly occupied the southeast coast and other metropolises of China, these places were lacking. It is precisely the bulk resources such as grain, pharmaceutical raw materials, minerals, cotton and linen and population that originate in the countryside.

At this time, urbanization in China had not yet begun. The total number of people in rural areas is much higher than in urban areas. As for weapons and the like, the Japanese dare not expect to get them from China. China since modern times. It is not a military power, and the weapons are even more uneven. Far inferior to the standard equipment of the Japanese.

Moreover, the destruction of the lines of communication by the Japanese by the Chinese. The cost is small, but the effect is large. A few grenades and mines can disable a section of rail or road for much longer than an explosion. Therefore, large-scale plundering cannot be achieved at all. Even if the Japanese were able to control some of the countryside around the city, most of the output of these places would only meet the needs of the Japanese-controlled cities.

Therefore, even if the Japanese plundered a lot from China, it would be useless for a while. The sudden riches that cannot be realized have become a burden on the Japanese. On April 28, 1938, the Japanese government promulgated the "Basic Policy for the General Mobilization of the National Spirit" and began to implement the rationing of consumer goods. By 1941, the rationing of the Japanese population at home had been reduced to a dangerous point. The daily ration of rice or wheat for ordinary people is only 330 grams, and the staple food of ordinary people has actually become sweet potatoes, potatoes and other potato grains. In fact, it is similar to what the anti-Japanese people in China eat.

By 1943, the Japanese economy had finally collapsed. The Japanese government began to prohibit ordinary people from bathing at home in the name of frugality, and only allowed bathhouses. In order to find weapons made of metal, the iron street lampholders on the streets were removed and replaced with wooden ones, and even the iron doorknobs and extra iron pots and buckets of ordinary people's homes were collected......

At the same time, the Japanese government's food ration for ordinary people also dropped rapidly to 300 grams. From then on, the Japanese began to starve. However, even with such a thrift, it is difficult to guarantee the supply of front-line troops. Almost all Japanese units received orders to "live on their own". The troops were required to solve their own provisions on the spot.

This made the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines in China and the guerrillas in various places very dissatisfied. After all, originally, these Chinese who robbed the Japanese for a living relied on the Japanese to send food to improve their lives. In the early days of the war, robbing the Japanese not only obtained clothing, guns and ammunition, and cowhide shoes worn by Japanese soldiers. You can also loot canned beef, compressed biscuits, bread, sweets and salted fish, which are Japanese specialties.

These things are considered luxuries in the eyes of the common people and guerrillas who eat sweet potatoes and corn as their staple food. Robbing the Japanese once is enough for the troops to live comfortably for a long time. But since 1943, these things have become less and less. Robbing a Japanese soldier, in addition to grabbing some guns, not to mention canned meat, not even dry food can be snatched much.

So far, Lao Jiang's strategy of exchanging space for time has basically succeeded. Many in later generations questioned whether the Chinese could drive the Japanese away from China without the help of the Americans. Moreover, a large number of people believe that without the atomic bomb, the Chinese's War of Resistance against Japan would have lasted for another ten or eight years.

However, in reality, the Japanese economy simply did not last long. Although China also produces grain, and the land is vast. However, due to the war, the labor force died in large numbers, and the production of grain was very limited. Even if there is grain production, whenever the grain is harvested, the anti-Japanese people behind the enemy line will do everything possible to sabotage the Japanese grain requisition. And snatched a large amount of grain into their own hands.

Therefore, even if the Japanese repeatedly requisitioned grain in China, they did not collect much. Even on the southeast coast, these areas are fertile and produce a lot of grain.

Under these circumstances, the military strength of the Japanese gradually faded in the absence of supplies, while the Chinese, with the growth of the second generation, gradually increased the strength of the anti-Japanese resistance.

By 1945, although the Japanese in China seemed to be powerful, in fact, they were on the verge of collapse. Even if the Americans had not bombed the Japanese mainland, once the logistics had passed the critical point of collapse, the collapse of the million-strong Japanese army might have been a matter of moments.

This is not unfounded. In terms of wounded soldiers. In the early days of the war, many of the wounded Japanese soldiers were considered heroes, well treated, and well fed. However, in 1945, once Japanese soldiers were wounded in China, they could only be sent to rear hospitals, where they lived by drinking gruel until they died or became disabled. Because, inflammation of the wound, in the absence of penicillin treatment, the consequences can become very serious. In fact, the number of deaths in the Japanese army hospitals has exceeded the number of battlefield deaths! Most of the Japanese soldiers could only choose to stay in the line of fire if they were lightly wounded, because if they did not go to the rear hospital, there might be a way to live.

In 1945, this situation seemed to be a minority, but because the supply from the rear could not keep up. In a year or two, the situation becomes extremely serious. Moreover, when wounded soldiers are not treated and logistics are not guaranteed, the morale of soldiers will also collapse. It was only a matter of time before the whole line collapsed.

Therefore, as long as on the basis of confrontation with the Japanese, the logistics supply lines of the Japanese are cut off. Even without the Americans, within three to five years, the Japanese army occupying China would inevitably collapse. At that time, these Japanese soldiers were not repatriated to China.

And there will be starvation in Japan. As Japan's finance official said on the eve of Japan's defeat in World War 1945: "[If we survive another winter] there will be only two kinds of people left in the country -- the dead and the dying." '100 million total jade pieces' is really going to come true! ”

If this were the case, the Japanese nation would not exist in the future. In other words, these Japanese are too anxious to surrender, and it would be nice if they delayed it for three or two years...... (To be continued.) )