Vice Minister Mazaki's words made everyone present, including Emperor Hirohito, nod their heads in agreement, it is true, the battle of Chengde has become a knot in my heart, and the General Staff Headquarters and the subsequent army base camp and navy base camp have done countless deductions in private, and the result is how can it fail?

Deputy Chief Masaki looked around and saw that everyone was lost in thought, so he began to sell his strategy and tactics, saying, "I think! The Kwantung Army should divide its troops into three routes, press heavily on its northern front with the strength of seven divisions, threaten the Chaoyang and Chifeng lines of its Rehe, and the main force should quickly break through Shanhaiguan and enter North China to occupy Pingjin, and then attack Baoding all the way from Tianjin to Shijiazhuang, and then turn to abandon the mountains and mountains of Shanxi on the northern line to attack Taiyuan, and the other way cooperate with the two divisions that landed in Qingdao to attack Jinan, force Xuzhou, the original hinterland, and cut off its two major arterial railways, Pinghan and Jinpu. And with the strength of no less than five divisions to the direction of Chengde and Zhangjiakou to alert, so that Zhang Xuewu's hundreds of thousands of troops are alone, and our army can use Qingdao and Tianjin ports for supply, even if Zhang Xuewu desperately attacks Jinzhou to cut off our army's supply line, our army will not be affected at all, and when our army Shanghai sends troops to capture Shanghai and take advantage of the situation to come to the city, the political axe of China will be forced to let Zhang Xuewu's troops withdraw, and realize our first strategic concept with the autonomy of North China. Eliminate the few elites of the political axe army in China, and then concentrate forces to expel all the forces in China from the south of the Yangtze River, realize the division of the river, and use the sufficient materials of China to prepare to go north to compete with Soviet Russia for the oil resources of Siberia after recuperation. ”

Vice Governor Masaki is an out-and-out faction of the Continental Army going north, and he does not approve of completely bad relations with Britain and the United States, and if the navy moves south, it will certainly play an irreplaceable role, and in this way, the Imperial Army will be in an absolutely inferior position, and as long as it goes north, it can justifiably strive for more resources for the expansion of the army, because in Vice Governor Mazaki's view, there is no need for the Great Imperial Combined Fleet to maintain such a huge combined fleet, because the Combined Fleet of the Great Imperial Empire has no opponents of the same level in Asia and even the PacificIf it weren't for the competition for its so-called oil resources, that is, after occupying Manchuria and autonomizing North China, the empire would be able to settle down and plan for a thirty-year development plan and assimilate Manchuria, but now it is an era of great changes in the world pattern, and no matter who holds a huge fleet with a displacement of more than two million tons, there is no reason to sit idly by.

In fact, Vice Minister Mazaki still has the most crucial point that he did not say, that is, there are too many overlapping institutions in the naval army, for example, if the Chinese dispatch army is established, then according to the establishment and composition of the base camp, the Chinese dispatch army cannot command the Kwantung Army, the Taiwan Army, and the Chinese fleet? The naval aviation in the fleet on the Chinese side is under the command of the Navy, while the army aviation is divided into two parts: the Kwantung Army and the Chinese Dispatch Army? Holding each other hostage like this is tantamount to tying one's own hands and feet?

However, Vice Minister Masaki did not dare to say such things easily, because there were too many interests and disputes involved, and if we said that the army did not have an air force, the power of the navy and army forces in the country had already reached the full level, and the military and political axes were jointly controlled by the two, and the military expenditure was also divided between the two. Therefore, the air power of Ben can only belong to the army and navy respectively, and in fact, this greatly subverts the strategic role of the air force.

In World War II, Ben and Germany made two extreme mistakes, one was to overestimate the existence of the air force, and the other was to greatly exaggerate the role of the strategic air force, and as a result, both suffered defeats in the end.

Emperor Hirohito looked at Vice Chief Mazaki, then at Fujiwara Motoyama, Minamijiro and others and said in a deep voice: "Why don't you first annihilate Zhang Xuewu's corps, trap it in the desolate Rehe, Chahar, and Suiyuan, and separate it from the main force of the Nanjing Political Axe Army in China, and minimize its strategic role?" ”

Emperor Hirohito pondered for a long time and said, "What other plans do you have?" Commander-in-Chief Minamijiro, your Kwantung Army will send 42 divisions to participate in the initial most operation, and after occupying Pingjin in China, it will transfer 20 to 22 divisions to form the North China Dispatch Army to continue the battle, I wonder how much time it will take for the Kwantung Army to completely destroy Zhang Xuewu's corps if it invests all its forces? ”

Nanjiro hesitated for a while, his face was a little purple and he looked embarrassed and said, "Your Majesty! It is not sure how long it will take to completely wipe out Zhang Xuewu's corps, because the fortresses of Zhangjiakou, Chengde, Chifeng, and Chaoyang built by Zhang Xuewu are very difficult to overcome, and Zhang Xuewu's corps is heavily guarded, so that our army does not dare to cross easily, and Zhang Xuewu's corps has more than 200 combat planes or even more, and our Kwantung Army flight division does not take any advantage at all, and it also has at least 150 extremely advanced combat vehicles and more than 300 heavy artillery. In terms of heavy firepower, it is not inferior to our Kwantung Army, and if it storms a city with such firepower that the enemy is firmly defended, the casualties of our army can naturally be imagined, and as for the time, I am afraid it is difficult to estimate, and the railways in Rehe, Chahar, Suiyuan and other places are extremely developed, and they have been under the military control of Zhang Xuewu for several years, and it is difficult for our intelligence agents to infiltrate them. ”

Nanjiro's words made Emperor Hirohito's face look very ugly, and in the uproar, Nanjiro said with a little irritation: "Everyone! This is not the time to be reckless, I say that the weapons and equipment of the Imperial Army of this empire have indeed been improved, and it has also been expanded from 17 standing divisions to 87 divisions, but I ask you to see clearly, our enemies are not idle, they are expanding their troops even more frantically, especially Zhang Xuewu, who plays the role of Rehe, Chahar, and Suiyuan, is thrifty to buy and manufacture a large number of arms, according to intelligence shows that a lot of its funds flow from Southeast Asia, in the face of such an enemy, we must be cautious! We cannot afford to underestimate the price of the enemy's mistakes. ”

Minamijiro said that not far away, a staff officer of the military junior army used colored stripes to mark the railway connecting Rehe with Chahar and Suiyuan.

Emperor Hirohito looked at Vice Minister Mazaki and then at Minamijiro, there is no doubt that Nanjiro's opinion is very important, because as he is the commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, he is undoubtedly the most qualified, and it seems that he is impatient on the issue of Zhang Xuewu, Emperor Hirohito seems to have suddenly remembered something, and turned around and asked Aoki Michichi on the side: "I remember that the Special Service Section of the General Staff Headquarters once investigated why Zhang Xuewu was so radical in opposing the empire?" Or even harbor such a deep hatred of the Empire? But what's the eyebrow? ”

Aoki Michichi was stunned by Emperor Hirohito's question, Izumi Ono, who was in charge of intelligence affairs, was not qualified to participate in the Imperial Council today, and the matter of investigating why Zhang Xuewu was angry was also only heard of by Michiichi Aoki, since His Majesty the Emperor asked, wouldn't it be a dereliction of duty if he didn't say it or didn't know?

Aoki Michiichi frowned slightly and said, "Your Majesty! It is said that it may be that when he was a child in school, he was beaten and bullied by students in Imperial Tokyo, so Zhang Xuewu was extremely hateful! ”

"Yaga!" Emperor Hirohito slapped the table angrily, and the generals who were originally absent-minded cheered up and condemned Zhang Xuewu for his narrow-mindedness, etc., as a result, Emperor Hirohito made a big red face, because Emperor Hirohito originally wanted to scold which bastard was so good that he had to bully Zhang Xuewu? If Zhang Xuewu can turn to the Empire, even if it remains neutral, the Empire can save at least 100,000 military lives and countless supplies and ammunition.

Just when he was making the final deployment for the imminent war, Zhang Xuewu transferred a brigade of troops from each of the five subordinate divisions, and formed the temporary first division of the Rehe Army with these five brigades, an honorary unit! Two reinforced heavy artillery brigades equipped with a total of 72 150-millimeter guns, and an assault brigade equipped with 70 jackal tanks and 100 hound-mounted armored vehicles were transferred from Tang Ziqiang's mechanized division, which was commanded by brigade commander Chen Yuxing and chief of staff Li Yunfeng.

In this way, this honorary unit and logistics support personnel reached 35,000 people, and this unit can be said to be the blood and blood of the Rehe Army, and together with a destroyer fleet equipped with 36 FB-109 fighters on the air force, it left for Nanjing at the same time.

In the year before that, Zhang Xuewu had sent a large amount of ammunition and a small number of weapons to Nanjing in batches. Chiang Kai-shek, who was preparing to train the officer corps in Lushan, also felt very confused? Because there were about 500 Whampoa officers who came with the team, and their name was to participate in the Lushan Officer Training Corps? Coupled with Zhang Xuewu's performance in the Double 12 Incident, Chiang Kai-shek is still very relieved about Zhang Xuewu for the time being.

Zhang Xueliang, who followed him back to Nanjing, has now become another heart disease of Chiang Kai-shek, except for the two armies that were absorbed by Zhang Xuewu, the rest of the Northeast Army has been demoted to the B army according to the B case, but his cousin Zhang Xuewu still sits on the banner of the central political axe with more than 100,000 troops, Zhang Xueliang finally handed over his elite lineage and heavy artillery, machine guns and precious metals to Zhang Xuewu, the meaning of which naturally does not need to be detailed.

This made Chiang Kai-shek, who was willing to punish Zhang Xueliang, hesitate, and it was obviously inappropriate to arrange for him to go abroad? Under the persuasion of his wife Soong Meiling, Chiang Kai-shek finally decided to show his generosity and let Zhang Xueliang serve as a special adviser to the General Staff!

(To be continued)