The chaos of the times makes it difficult for every country to find a clear policy direction, and everyone seems to be taking one step at a time, and it is true that there is no better way to deal with it.

After all, China is a pragmatic country, and it is impossible to directly engage in a large-scale military conflict with Britain.

The Empire's strategic focus was still on Asia, and after the two foreign military interventions of the past two years, the Freedom Coalition forces sent by China quickly withdrew to the mainland, and did not retain troops in Spain, and only one air base and naval port in Eritrea.

As the strategic focus of the empire shrinks back to Asia, the empire will inevitably have to solve the problem of the original problem, and an important focus of the Chinese issue is the handling of the Korean Peninsula.

This meant that the empire had to abandon its colonial rule over northern Korea for these two years and promote the autonomy of North Korea.

In the past, the provocateurs of various problems between China and China have always been called the original, but now the situation will change completely, as the naval competition between the two sides enters the white-hot stage, the empire from the emperor to the prime minister, from the chief of the general staff of the military department to the entire Central Defense Commission has reached a unanimous consensus, if you want to continue to promote decolonization and expand the scope of the Asian Union to achieve the expansion of the empire, you must first solve the problem, and only by solving the problem can the center of gravity of the imperial navy go south to Southeast Asia. to move westward into the entire Indian Ocean.

If you want to promote the decolonization of Korea, push North Korea to become a reading country, and join the Asian League, China will inevitably fight a war, which has been about to break out in the past ten years but has not happened, and now the initiative is in the hands of the empire, and the empire will inevitably knock down the only obstacle that prevents the empire from ruling the whole of Asia.

Now the question is only when to go to war.

It was already the unanimous consensus of the central cabinet and the top level of the military department, and it was also the unanimous decision of the emperor and all important ministers.

The time is ripe.

The empire has long wanted to destroy the navy of Yuben, but it has only waited and endured until today.

At the end of 1937, on December 20, before the New Year's Day, Song Biao held a secret meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central National Defense Commission in Xuanzheng Garden, and Gu Weijun, the prime minister of the Central Cabinet, also attended, which also meant that Gu Weijun, the prime minister, was only one step away from officially entering the Central National Defense Commission.

There is a transition in everything.

The establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the empire and the appointment of the prime minister to the National Defense Council are still a long way off, but the road must be progressed gradually.

In addition to the emperor, the minister of national defense, the chief of the general staff of the Central Military Department, the chief of the military intelligence department, and the chief of staff of the three services, there were also Prime Minister Gu Weijun and Chief of the Inner Court Shu Fangde, a total of nine people.

The first seven people are the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Central National Defense Commission, which is equivalent to the 7+2 highest military decision-making meeting.

Before the formal meeting, the Military Intelligence Department compiled the military intelligence of the Chinese navy, the army, and the air force, and the Ministry of Defense also made a comparative analysis of the economic and industrial strength of the two countries.

In terms of national strength, the gap between China and China is very obvious, and the results of the preliminary audit in 1937 proved that China's national GDP exceeded 187.5 billion yuan, accounting for 30 percent of the world's total economic output, while the scale of the country was 15 billion yuan, accounting for 2.4 percent, ranking behind China, the United States, the Soviet Union, Germany, Britain and France, and slightly higher than Italy.

In terms of military strength, the gap between China and China is much smaller.

According to the intelligence of the Central Military Intelligence Department, the fourth naval armament replenishment plan had been adopted around the end of June 1937, and on the basis of the previous third naval replenishment plan, it was required to increase the number of Yamato-class battleships to four to cope with China's emperor-class high-speed battleships, and to speed up the construction.

China's first emperor-class high-speed battleship has been basically completed in the Jiangnan Shipyard, and will be launched for sea trials in March next year, and the Yamato also urgently began the construction plan in early 1937, because the scale of the project is huge, and the real lack of modern engineering management experience, it is expected that it will take another year to two years from completion.

Before the completion of the Yamato-class battleships, the two Emperor-class high-speed battleships of the Empire will be successfully put into service, and for the first time in terms of the total tonnage of battleships, the size of the battleships of the Imperial Navy will remain the same size as that of the Yamato-class battleships.

The Kongo-class is a high-speed battleship converted from a battlecruiser, and there are two of them each of the Hanoi-class, Fuso-class, Ise-class, and Kii-class, and the first two levels are not high-speed battleships in principle, and the four classes that are really qualified to be called high-speed battleships are Kongoi, Ise, Nagato, and Kii, with a total of 10 main battleships.

The Kii-class battleships were a transitional type between the Nagato-class battleships and the Yamato-class battleships, and the construction of this class of battleships was initially canceled after the signing of the Washington Naval Convention, but in order to compete with the Chinese Navy's shipbuilding program, construction began secretly in December 1935, the first was commissioned in July 1937, and the second was also commissioned recently.

Because the Navy's expenses were greatly involved in the construction plan of the Imperial battleships, it was said that it was not able to maintain an equal competition with the Empire in the construction of aircraft carriers, and there are currently a total of five naval aircraft carriers in active service, except for the Canglong and Fengxiang, the rest are aircraft carriers built by temporary modifications and changes in the construction plan.

The battleship competition was very expensive, and in order to cope with the Chinese Navy's temporary increase in the construction of battleships, two Kii-class ships were added, which directly consumed other naval expenses.

Prior to this, the Chinese navy had also engaged in a 10-year-long cruiser race, which had done very serious damage to the economy, and at the same time had made the navy obviously in a situation where the navy was strong and the army and air force were obviously weak, and almost all of the main industrial investments in the navy were concentrated in heavy industry and the military industry, and the entire country's economy was completely deformed by the long-term arms race.

At this time, the Chinese Navy had five classes of battleships in the field of battleships: Aurora-class, Qingzhou-class, Yuzhou-class, Liangzhou-class, and Emperor-class, and the construction plan of Liangzhou-class battleships and Yongzhou-class battleships, which later changed into emperor-class, was completely made public in 1935.

From 1935 to 1937, the empire built 8 battleships, 4 Liangzhou-class battleships and one emperor-class battleship were orders for the imperial navy, while the remaining 3 were exported to Iran, Thailand, and Brazil.

Even so, the Empire still had enough spare space to build two new aircraft carriers and a number of escort cruisers, and the warship construction strength of the two sides was completely different from the same level.

The Imperial Navy now has 4 Aurora-class, 2 Qingzhou-class, 4 Yuzhou-class, and 4 Liangzhou-class battleships, the Aurora class is at the level of dreadnoughts, and the 10 battleships built since then are all high-speed battleships.

Compared with the old ships that the Navy continued to dismantle in the past, although the Imperial Navy started late, it started on the basis of the British Queen Elizabeth-class battleships and the German Bavaria-class battleships, directly absorbing the technology and design experience of the British and German battleships at that time, and also maintained a high design margin in the design and construction process to ensure subsequent upgrades, which made every penny invested by the Empire in the battleships worthwhile.

The four Aurora-class battleships built by the empire during World War I were modernized and upgraded, but because of their lower tonnage, they had more flexible combat characteristics, and they were also the four most active warships between the Chinese and Western lines.

Since the Yuzhou level, the empire has accumulated more experience and technical strength, and has more abundant strength in the overall construction level and the forging of defensive armor.

In the comparison of battleships, relying on the strong shipbuilding strength, the overall strength of the battleships of the Imperial Navy surpassed the Imperial Navy for the first time, the Imperial Navy had 14 battleships, while the Imperial Navy had only 11 ships, but the Navy adopted the policy of "although the number cannot keep up, but each one should be considered elite", its average standard displacement tonnage of a single ship is higher, and the difference in the total tonnage of the naval displacement of the two sides is not large.

Based on the latest comparison between the Liangzhou class and the Kii class, the standard displacement of a single ship of the Liangzhou class is 39,500 tons, while the standard displacement of a single ship of the Kii class is 42,600 tons.

In the field of aircraft carriers, there are 5 ships in the Navy, 7 ships in the Chinese Navy, and there is not much difference on the surface, but the 7 aircraft carriers of the empire are all relatively mature aircraft carriers, not only from the beginning are specially designed aircraft carriers, but also after the full experiments of two aircraft carrier test ships before that, in addition to the first Zhenyuan aircraft carrier, the remaining 4 are Northeast-class aircraft carriers, 2 are Far East-class aircraft carriers, and the two Far East-class aircraft carriers are new models that have been improved and designed again on the basis of the Northeast-class aircraft carriers.

During the East African War, the two Northeast-class aircraft carriers and the Zhenyuan aircraft carrier both arrived in the Indian Ocean to participate in the war, although there was no real naval battle, but from the long-distance navigation test, it has been proved that the aircraft carrier of the same class is suitable as an escort carrier, and the effect of the Zhenyuan aircraft carrier as an escort aircraft carrier is not very good.

According to the planning of the Imperial Navy, the Northeast-class aircraft carriers and the Far East-class aircraft carriers are both the main aircraft carriers, which play the role of escort aircraft carriers in peacetime, and a large number of medium and light escort aircraft carriers are built in wartime.

There is only one difference between the two, that is, the former is mainly based on fighters and torpedo bombers, supplemented by attack planes and reconnaissance planes, while the latter is mainly based on fighters and supplemented by reconnaissance planes.

Unlike the United States in design, the Imperial Navy's escort carriers did not have a large number of naval guns, and most of the artillery anti-aircraft and artillery bombardment work was carried out by escort cruisers.

After a surprise attack from 1935 to 1937 and a sudden large-scale construction of ships, the Imperial Navy surpassed the Saiben Navy for the first time at the end of 1937, and at this time, the Sino-Chinese naval war would inevitably break out.

Unlike the military department that wants to fight but does not dare to fight, the central military department of the empire not only wants to fight, but also dares to fight very much, as long as the gap in the navy is made up, then it can be fought at any time.

The Navy Staff handed over the latest report on the size of warships on both sides to the nine top decision-makers present, Song Biao didn't read it carefully, because he had already seen too much, and when Gu Weijun and the others read it roughly, he asked everyone: "What do you think about the complete elimination of the Yuben Navy in the near future?" ”

After reading the new report submitted by the Navy Staff and the Military Intelligence Department, none of you rushed to answer the emperor's inquiry, but all looked at Gu Weijun.

There is no need to ask about the attitude of the Central Military Department, the Air Force and the Army have been waiting for this day for more than 10 years, just waiting for the Navy to be ready, and Fu Liangzuo, Chief of Staff of the Army, has long said -- "Even if we do not use the Navy to participate in the war, we can easily defeat the Japanese Army, but if the Navy cannot defeat the Japanese Army, this war will never be meaningless, because the real meaning is only to repay the revenge of the First Sino-Japanese War."

The Chinese Navy will not be able to defeat its own navy for a day, and it will not claim to be the hegemon of the Asian navy for a day, and without this position, even if the total tonnage is equal to that of Britain and the United States, it will still be inferior to Britain and the United States in terms of actual naval status in the world.

Even if it is not a navy person, as a middle-class [***] person, no one wants to let such a powerful empire be a second-rate naval country.

At this time, the chief of staff of the Navy was Chen Jiliang, who had just succeeded Chen Houfu, and of course he wanted to start a war immediately, even if there were no fighters now, but as long as the empire changed its policy on North Korea from the past division of the world to "completely eliminate the influence of the Chinese people in Asia by promoting Korea", the war between China and China was imminent, and there was no way to avoid it, unless the empire was willing to make a concession to the emperor again at the last juncture.

No way.

Chen Jiliang looked at Gu Weijun.

Whether or not to fight is a matter that the Central Military Department can decide, but whether or not to pay military expenses is a matter for the Central Cabinet to decide.

Although the Cabinet will still be forced to allocate military spending after the military department takes the initiative to provoke a war, this will always hurt the morale, and it is far better to temporarily increase the military expenditure in the future than to allocate a huge amount of military expenditure in advance for more active and stronger preparations for war.

Gu Weijun was a little embarrassed at this time, he was quite happy, because the emperor and the Central Defense Commission finally wanted to listen to the voice of the cabinet on this kind of national defense matter, but he didn't expect that letting him come over was asking him to pay the bill.

The emperor seemed to close his eyes neutrally, closed his eyes and meditated, but wasn't that attitude obvious?

As always, the emperor was the biggest supporter of the military department.

Gu Weijun has long seen through it, in fact, it is all militarism, but there is an emperor in China who suppresses the military department, and the Chinese is not as extreme as the one, and the military department will not act against the cabinet, let alone send someone to assassinate the cabinet.

After thinking about it for a while, Gu Weijun and Jiang Fangzhen, who was the best to speak, asked, "Chief of General Staff Jiang, how much do you estimate it will cost if you start a war with Yuben?" ”

Jiang Fangzhen laughed, and replied to Gu Weijun: "Prime Minister, I'm afraid this is not how much money can be calculated, right?" The goal of war is to defeat the opponent, and the essence of war is always to contain the opponent, not to destroy the opponent, we cannot destroy the enemy's entire nation and country, but we can destroy their army, safeguard the interests of the country, and break up the enemy's competition. If we do not take the initiative to strike when we have the upper hand, and if we wait for a large-scale military conflict between China and the Soviet bloc, we will be stabbed in the back and we will be exposed to the enemy in the back, and our situation will be very complicated. In the same way, if we eliminate the Japanese navy ahead of schedule and defeat their war strength, the Soviet Union will not dare to rashly continue to infiltrate Central Asia, and we will not be able to further force Britain, France, and other countries to achieve decolonization of Asia without the containment of the Soviet Union. Therefore, it is very important to eliminate the threat of this and their role in restraining us, and it is also the most important step to break the current chaos in the international world. In other words, it's worth the extra money. ”

Gu Weijun could only sigh very seriously: "Chief of General Staff Jiang, what you said is very reasonable, and I am convinced, but the expenditure of the political axe in recent years is too great, plus the consumption of the Spanish Civil War and the East African War, our central financial deficit this year has reached the scale of one billion yuan, unprecedented, even if this war must be fought, it must be fought, but can we wait for another two years, and the military department is also more fully prepared?" ”

Jiang Fangzhen replied: "Prime Minister, we understand the difficulties of the Central Cabinet, but there is no if in history, the opportunity is fleeting, the current international situation is so complicated, we ended the war in East Africa, it is a good time to engage in decolonization with great fanfare, and now we announce our support for the decolonization of North Korea, and I estimate that it will take half a year until the outbreak of the war in China." If we deliberately delay, it may not be a good thing to delay any longer, and if we wait another two years, the Yamato-class battleships will be put into service, and the situation will be more complicated. ”

Gu Weijun was noncommittal.

He actually knew very well in his heart that once the military department and the emperor decided to eliminate the navy at this time, it would be impossible for the cabinet to make any reversal, and the cabinet would have no decision power at all in this kind of matter.

Now that this is the case, what else can he say?

Thinking of this, Gu Weijun no longer objected to this matter, and said to Jiang Fangzhen directly: "Chief of General Staff, you give me a happy word, how much will you increase the military budget?" ”

Jiang Fangzhen insisted on it: "At least 7 billion yuan." ”

Gu Weijun asked: "How much is the trust assets of the military department's surplus?" How much can I raise on my own? ”

Jiang Fangzhen said: "There is no problem in raising hundreds of millions of dollars by yourself, but you will definitely not be able to do more." ”

Gu Weijun sighed, he knew that the Central Military Department was still reluctant to spend his own small treasury, but he could only agree to the request of the Military Department, and said: "The central finance will add about 2 billion additional margins in next year's budget, and the remaining 4.5 billion yuan will be directly purchased by the four major trust companies and the central bank through the issuance of special war bonds, and the rest will be raised at home and overseas. ”

Jiang Fangzhen did not speak, he actually understood that the central government has not been as generous as before in recent years, since the exchange rate has risen, the central government has maintained a relatively large tax reduction and exemption policy, coupled with the expansion of the scale of infrastructure investment, the central government has been in deficit for three consecutive years, and it is expected to reverse this situation next year.

As for the small treasury of the Central Military Department that Gu Weijun suspected, it really wronged Jiang Fangzhen, and in recent years, the surplus of various military budgets and the surplus military expenditure of the military department invested at home and abroad by the Central Trust and the China Trust Company in previous years add up, which is indeed a very terrifying figure, but this small treasury has actually been directly responsible for the Inner Court and the Central Secret Bureau, and the Central Military Department really has no real power to call it.

Nuclear Weapons, Turbojets, Turbofans, Turboprops, Turboshafts, MBTs, Large Jet Aircraft, Carrier Power Systems, Steam Catapults, Radar...... These research projects are huge expenditures, because the level of secrecy is too high, and they cannot follow the path of appropriations from the National Assembly and the Central Cabinet, and most of the expenditures are supported by the small treasury of the Ministry of War, and now, there is really not much money left in the small treasury.

It was only at this time that Song Biao opened his eyes and added to Gu Weijun, Jiang Fangzhen and others: "In fact, this battle may not be able to be fought, our first goal is to promote the decolonization of North Korea, control the whole of Korea through decolonization, and include North Korea in the scope of the Asian League, so that the air force can directly threaten the entire army." According to our estimates, this situation will certainly not be acceptable to the air force, and judging from the current combat scope of the air force, as long as we control the whole of Korea, the air force will be able to threaten the entire western part of the country. As long as we do not accept it, war will inevitably come, and if war starts, we can achieve our second goal, which is to destroy the Tsumoto navy, recover the Ryukyu Islands, and completely flank the Uramoto in the north and south. It's not interesting to make a small fight, and if you want to fight, you have to beat the book and can't turn over. But Ben is not stupid, they know very well that they can't beat us now, and instead of confronting us head-on, it is better to sit back and wait for the contradictions between us and the Soviet Union to erupt. The same is true between China and the Soviet Union, either they do not fight, or if they do, they will fight a full-scale war, but at this stage there is no possibility of war breaking out between China and the Soviet Union. We must also consider another question, that is, will the USSR take the opportunity to send troops to threaten our rear? ”

Song Biao also wanted to speak and stopped.

His words were only half of what he said, and his opinion on this war was actually more reserved, and it was more Jiang Fangzhen's opinion.

Jiang Fangzhen's point of view is that in the past two years, the relationship between Germany and Italy has been close to the alliance, and if the relationship between Germany and Italy is added, it will be very troublesome, and the relationship between Germany and the Soviet Union has also entered and is forming a similar alliance with the Soviet Union.

The German-Italian alliance was to contain France and Britain, while the Soviet alliance was to contain China.

It's obvious.

Jiang Fangzhen was worried that the German-Italian and Soviet alliance would come together completely, and even if they could not come together because of various contradictions, as long as Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union reached an agreement on cooperation and mutual assistance, Germany and Italy would be able to attack Europe without any worries, and the Soviet Union would attack the Soviet Union without any worries.

Therefore, Jiang Fangzhen proposed not to wait for this situation to happen, since it is difficult for Italy, which has already been fought, to turn over for the time being, then it is necessary to seize the time to continue to defeat the forces of the army, so that the whole situation will be completely clear.

As long as the Soviet Union could not effectively continue to contain China, the Soviet Union would not dare to continue to approach the Soviet Union and secretly plot some kind of offensive against China, and the Soviet Union would not be able to determine whether it would develop eastward or westward, and at the same time, Germany and Italy would not have been able to sign any truly effective peace and mutual assistance pact with the Soviet Union without the Soviet Union connecting with them.

In the past two years, he has changed from waiting for China and the Soviet Union to go to war again to taking the initiative to contact the Soviet Union and ask for a joint attack on China with the Soviet Union, so that the Soviet Union can recover the lost territory and Central Asia, while he wants to get the guardianship of "Manchukuo" and China's colonies in Southeast Asia.

It was said that Ben thought very beautifully, and the Soviet Union did have this kind of thought, but after all, the Soviet Union was not the crazy militarism of Yu Ben, and Stalin felt that the viability was very low after a little assessment, and even if he united with Yu Ben, it was impossible for the Soviet Union to defeat China.

The Soviet Union is not the kind of country that cannot develop without gambling on its national fortunes, and what the Soviet Union wants now, like China, is a space for peaceful and long-term development, and as long as it continues to develop steadily, the Soviet Union and the great Soviet Union will surely win the victory in the struggle for mankind, because the Soviet Union is still a country with vast land and abundant resources.

Of course, what the Soviet Union thought about it is not clear to the empire now, and for the empire, no matter what the Soviet Union thinks, directly knocking out the clown who jumped off the beam is undoubtedly the most trouble-free countermeasure.

There are many benefits to playing early.

Song Biao knew very well that it would be difficult to use nuclear weapons to flatten the book just by attacking it early.

If he really used nuclear weapons, he was comfortable in his heart, and the result might not be World War II, Britain, Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union all went to nuclear weapons together, and the direct exchange for nuclear weapons was probably nuclear annihilation.

If World War II will definitely break out in this world, nuclear weapons must be used at the last moment, so that the enemy will not have time to develop nuclear weapons and win the final victory, otherwise with the madness of World War II, it will eventually become self-destruction.

Song Biao actually hopes that he will bomb the capital with nuclear weapons in the end, so he does not support the early elimination of the capital, but he will always put the national interest first, and the early elimination of the capital is likely to keep the empire away from World War II and be a bystander.

He was faced with a difficult choice.

Contemplation.

Ponder for a long time.

Song Biao suddenly said to Gu Weijun: "You can deal with it, according to your ideas, the army should gradually learn to obey the command of the political axe, and on the same road, this is our best example." If one day, I die, China will be the next one, and this is not a situation I want to see. So from this time on, you can deal with the problem according to your ideas, and I think we can speed up the arrangement for the prime minister to officially become a member of the Standing Committee of the Central National Defense Commission, and use this opportunity to have the cabinet deal with the North Korean issue. It is difficult to predict the future of the world, and it is still difficult to say whether it is better for China to deal with the situation clearly sooner or better for fishing in troubled waters. ”

Listening to the emperor's sudden words, almost everyone present was speechless in surprise.

Jiang Fangzhen was the most shocked, he had already persuaded the emperor to support the decision to fight early, but he didn't expect the emperor to change his mind at the last moment.

Song Biao was silent.

After a while, he picked up the report of the Ministry of Military Intelligence, read it again, and finally put it aside again, looked at every member of the Standing Committee present, and reminded: "The empire is still talking about it, what else is there to worry about? Whether it is Ben or the Soviet Union, whoever offends us will have a good end, if they want to accumulate strength, then let them accumulate well, and what the final outcome will be, you all know very well in your hearts. Conventional military preparations still have to be done, and they must step up their efforts to do a good job and become bigger, just like fishing, if you want to catch a big fish, you always have to be willing to bait, so you might as well give Ben and the Soviet Union more time to toss around. ”

Since the emperor said so, you all know that the emperor's decision is simple, and all the troubles in front of him will be gone, and the empire will eventually fight a nuclear war, destroying all opponents one by one.

The Emperor has made up his mind.

It is necessary to use nuclear bombs to attack the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union, instead of destroying the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union as early as possible, as the Chief of General Staff Chiang Fangzhen hoped, so as to ensure the safety of the empire and get out of the entire chaotic military race in the chaotic situation of the world.

(To be continued)