From the day of the failure of the navy's surprise attack on the Sandu Ao Military Port, the third Sino-Chinese war launched by the Chinese navy was doomed to defeat, and in the frenzy of anger of the people of the two countries, neither country could retreat at all, but could only fight this war completely and thoroughly.

In order to prove the superiority of the Yamato nation and the inferiority of the Shina race, for the sake of shame, for the sake of the emperor, and for the sake of the imperial army, the base camp of the Daishoben Empire formulated an unrealistic strategic goal from the very beginning, in a vain attempt to launch an all-out offensive at Kaesong, destroy the main force of the Northeast Defense Army, advance to Pyongyang in one go, and then force the "Shina Empire" to negotiate peace.

The strategic plan drawn up by the naval and army headquarters of the Imperial Empire controlled by the Imperial Daoist faction was so detailed, regarding their so-called "recovery" of the whole of Korea and Taiwan within six months, the use of submarine warfare to disintegrate the maritime trade of the "China Kingdom" and the collapse of its economy, and the people's fear of war, forcing the "China Kingdom" to take the initiative to seek an armistice, formally returning Korea, Taiwan, Western Ryukyu, Jeju Island, northern Sakhalin Island, and Papua to the Great Empire, and compensating the Great Empire with 4 billion yuan. It also compensated more than half of the main warships and aircraft carriers to the Imperial Navy, and strictly limited its naval tonnage to half of the total naval volume of the Imperial Empire.

Regarding the so-called more secure plan of the base camp, Prime Minister Mitsumasa Yonechi can only say that the military department has frantically lost the last of its senses.

Mitsumasa Yonechi, who was born as an admiral, knew very well that this war would only be lost, not won, and he had no say in the crazy goals set by the base camp, and he did not even have the right to attend the decision-making meeting of the base camp, so he could only wait in the official residence for the base camp to inform him of the results in the name of the emperor's edict and tell him what to do.

After the Battle of Sanduao, Mitsumasa Yonechi should have stepped down, but because the base camp adopted a policy of concealment and bullying the subordinates, the result of this naval battle was a slight victory and annihilation of the three main battleships of the Shina Navy, and in the air battle of Incheon, the base camp continued to acquiesce in the lies of the Army Aviation Force, and continued to claim that the Imperial Army of the Great Shohonben had achieved an unprecedented victory over the Shina Army, and as a result, under such circumstances, Mitsumasa Yonechi could only continue to remain in office.

In the words of the princes and marshals of the Marshal's Mansion, even if they are replaced by other candidates now, they may not be more suitable than that guy.

Even if he was born as an admiral, Mitsumasa Minechi was completely out of control of the military department, in fact, before him, there has never been a prime minister who can really control the imperial army of the Great Empire, which is similar to China, the army and the cabinet are the vassals of the emperor directly under the emperor at the same level, since they are equal to each other, the cabinet naturally has no right to interfere in the army, because the emperor is more keen to control the army than the cabinet, so it is always easy for the military department to interfere in the cabinet, and the cabinet interferes in the military department is not only impossible, In the eyes of the military and political circles, it is also a ridiculous thing.

For this war, Mitsumasa Yonei has no choice at all, all he has to do is to continue to raise taxes, raise as much military funds and materials as possible to ensure all the needs of the base camp.

In contrast, Prime Minister Gu Weijun is much better than Mineti Guangzheng, Gu Weijun has first been nominated as vice chairman of the Central National Defense Commission at the outbreak of war, as one of the three vice chairmen, he can not only participate in all meetings of the highest military body of the central government, but also participate in all decisions and discussions; Secondly, Gu Weijun has the absolute support of Emperor Hua, which is much better than Mi Nei Guangzheng; Third, the war in China is all about this, but for China it is only a local war, far less important than the development and normal operation of the country, as long as there is no world war, Gu Weijun, as the prime minister of the empire, is still the highest minister of real power under the Chinese emperor.

Mitsumasa Mine was perhaps the wisest person in the military and political circles of this period, and he knew very well that this war was doomed from the beginning, even if he won the Battle of Sanduao, it was impossible to force China to sign a humiliating armistice, but his opinion was the same as the forgotten Xiyuan Temple Gongwang, no one cared about it for a long time, and now it was the era when the military department and the Imperial Dao faction controlled everything in the capital.

Under the strong impetus of the base camp of the Yue army, the Yue army continued a large-scale offensive on the Kaesong defense line for 21 days, but the result was heavy losses, there was no mechanical force enough to break through the defense, and the air force did not have any advantage, so it still wanted to forcibly break through the Kaesong defense line presided over by Fu Zuoyi, which was a bit too much to take the Chinese army seriously.

Are they the only ones who know how to fight bravely?

Or even though more than 100,000 army units were annihilated that year, he still insisted that "Zhi" was the lowest and lowliest nation and race, and that only their Yamato nation was the noblest race in Asia second only to the Anglo-Saxons? Or is it that under the light of the emperor, they can defeat their opponents even if their IQ is low, as long as they are foolish?

Yes.

The power of Shinto is great.

China has obviously been preparing for this war for a long time, and while carrying out a major mechanization revolution, China will also pay special attention to the needs of the Korean battlefield in the process of developing new weapons such as armored vehicles, tanks, aircraft, and self-propelled artillery.

China's disadvantage is that the country is too vast, there are too many overseas provinces, protectorates, and important allies that need to be stationed, and the army's 54 divisions are scattered throughout Asia, making it difficult to draw enough troops to reach the Korean battlefield in an emergency.

Even if there were 850,000 patrol and coast guard units in China, and by reorganizing the patrol forces in the northeast and north China, replenishing the demobilized officers and soldiers, and recruiting new soldiers, the empire would be able to complete 22 new infantry divisions, 4 artillery brigades, 2 armored brigades, and more than 10 brigades of heavy engineering units by December 1939, but it would take a period of running-in and intensive training for these troops to be put into the war on a large scale.

This meant that the ace army on which the empire relied would not have to exert its full combat effectiveness until at least March 1940, so in the Battle of Kaesong, the more powerful army of the empire was on the defensive with the support of the air force, which made the base camp of the army more arrogant, in a vain attempt to force China to surrender before March 1940, and also added 12 divisions in the country.

At the same time, starting in October 1939, with the transfer of the 203rd Division of the Air Force ace unit to Jeju Island to reinforce the 214th Division, coupled with the arrival of the Central Air Force Combined Fleet, the empire began to play the role of a combat fulcrum at the Jeju Island Sea and Air Base, which had been cultivated for decades, and carried out large-scale air raids on ships traveling back and forth in the Strait. It also poses a direct threat to the local community.

Due to the loss of almost all of its aircraft carriers, and the insufficient range of the 97th Land Battle, it could only build airfields on the Goto Islands to confront the Imperial Air Force, and suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Kaesong but failed to open up the situation for a long time, and the Strait and the mainland were threatened again, which forced the Sayben to reshift its strategic focus back to the Navy and Jeju Island.

In the strategic map of the empire, Jeju Island is a very important strategic fulcrum, the air force and navy deployed here directly guard the security of the entire coastline of Chinese mainland, and the imperial air force and navy use this as an isolated fulcrum to carry out anti-submarine operations in the long East China Sea to prevent the submarine forces of Yuben from entering the East China Sea to attack merchant ships.

Under the threat of the submarine force, the empire's foreign imports and exports were generally changed to the port south of Fuzhou Port by rail, but in terms of military transportation, the northern port was still very important, and a large number of ships set off from Shandong and the Liaodong Peninsula to transport supplies and troops to North Korea.

This forced the base camp to adjust its strategy and consider adopting a more extreme policy to attack Jeju Island.

In the original plan of the Japanese army, once the naval battle of Samduao was successful, the navy would quickly take advantage of the vacuum period when the main force of the Chinese navy was exhausted to capture Jeju Island, but this plan did not come to fruition.

After the end of the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War, because of the absolute superiority of the country's navy, he did not oppose China's purchase of Jeju Island from Korea at that time, and it was not until the end of World War I, with the development of the air force, that he realized the seriousness of this mistake, but at that time, Jeju Island did not have too many air forces stationed, and he did not have too many military worries.

It was not until 1929 that the 214th Air Force Division, which had been stationed in Qingdao, was transferred to Jeju Island in order to curb the expansion of the first Indonesian Rebellion, and a large naval base was built in a deep-water harbor of Kouzi, 7.5 kilometers west of Seogwipo on Jeju Island, for which a long-term project was carried out for five years.

Although this naval base, officially named Gangjeong Port, is currently mainly anchored by submarines, close defense and destroyers, and the largest naval submarine is only two heavy cruisers, and it lacks the ability to attack the mainland through the navy, the air force has a strike range of more than 800 kilometers at the Jeju Island Air Base, and is fully capable of striking Osaka.

This made the base camp of the army completely unbearable.

However, China's garrison on Jeju Island is not ordinary, not only has it had two air divisions, an artillery brigade, an infantry brigade, and a light armored brigade, but the total garrison size has reached 77,000 men, which is enough to curb the large-scale landing warfare of the Japanese army.

If the Chinese aircraft carrier fleet launched an offensive and failed to end the battle in one day, the Chinese aircraft carrier fleet that followed would be able to completely crush the attacking Japanese army and crush all the Japanese navy that had invested in it, unless the entire naval force was mobilized.

In view of the difficulty of the entire operation, the army needs to dispatch at least more than 200,000 landing troops to force a landing on the northwest coast of Jeju Island.

Objectively speaking, with the state of defense and the level of fortifications on Jeju Island, coupled with the lack of armored forces and defense-breaking capabilities of the army, in the face of Jeju Island, which is like a steel bunker, not to mention 200,000, even 300,000 troops cannot take it.

In recent years, the empire has studied fortifications and positional warfare the most deeply, which is none other than Jiang Fangzhen, Zhang Hongkui, Fu Zuoyi, and Han Chunlin, if purely in terms of the theory and architectural design of fortifications, Zhang Hongkui, vice president of the Central Military Academy, is undoubtedly the highest level, and in order to strengthen the study of fortifications, he even completed a master's degree in architecture from the Central University of Science and Technology.

The defense of Jeju Island is precisely Zhang Hongkui's masterpiece in the past 20 years, and his defense theory is a very alternative aviation active defense, that is, with the air force airfield as the center of defense, the air force is used to blockade and strike at the surrounding coastline, and the enemy destroys the enemy's ships before the landing operation, and even if it cannot be destroyed, it must be constantly weakened, layer by layer, so that the enemy army cannot organize an effective landing operation.

A total of two-story ring roads and fortifications were built throughout Jeju Island, and the armored brigade was dominated by light and medium tanks, while the artillery belonged to the self-propelled artillery brigade.

In Rudong County, Nantong, an air force airborne division is stationed in the Imperial Central Air Force, and the J5 fighter groups at Jiaxing Air Base and Xuzhou Air Base have the strength to be transferred to Jeju Island within 8 hours.

Under such circumstances, even if the base camp of the Yue army continued to adopt an extreme adventurous strategy, it would be impossible to capture Jeju Island, the core fulcrum of the empire's strategy, and whether the army could organize a landing operation with a scale of 200,000 people was a very serious problem.

At this time, the navy really still had the strength to continue fighting, its main battleships were basically intact, and the problem of not having aircraft carriers could be compensated for by building an airfield in southern Korea.

According to the idea of the Chinese army, it still hoped to arrive in this sea area through naval deployment at night and then launch an attack on Jeju Island in the early morning, but the army's ability to transfer and transport was very limited, and it could only organize a landing operation of 40,000 to 50,000 people, because of the lack of amphibious armored vehicles and tanks by water, the landing operation could only continue to rely on traditional charging tactics.

This decision actually led to the early arrival of the defeat of the Hon.

The Battle of Kaesong lasted until November 1939, where the two sides faced off for three months, and the Japanese army was unable to make a breakthrough and suffered heavy losses.

After carefully evaluating all the information, the Central Military Department estimated that the army could not use more than 60,000 troops for the landing operation on Jeju Island, two infantry divisions and one brigade, and as everyone knows, the army and navy are the most seriously divided branches of the armed forces in the world, and the internal contradictions are extremely violent, and the army is desperately demanding an attack on Jeju Island, while the navy seriously disagrees, and the two sides are also fiercely arguing within the base camp.

But no matter what, the base camp finally decided to attack Jeju Island.

Around 20 November, the Central Military Headquarters intercepted the telegram, and after analyzing it, in light of the situation of the preparations for war, it was estimated that the telegram would probably carry out a landing operation on Jeju Island in early December, and if it was colder, it would have to be delayed until after March next year, which would be an extremely unfavorable situation.

On the night of 24 November, the Second Fleet of the Central Air Combined Fleet quietly headed south for Taiwan waters, and this fleet consisted of five aircraft carriers, four escort aircraft carriers, three battleships, and seven escort cruisers, as well as two integrated supply ships, five destroyers, and 14 transport ships.

The Imperial Navy also considered that the possibility of a decisive battleship battle was very low, and the fleet would basically only fight within the coverage of the Korean Peninsula Air Force, so it did not send more battleships, and purely used the aircraft carrier formation as the main striking force, while the four newly added escort aircraft carriers were all from coal carriers renovated from the Jiangnan and Fuzhou Shipyards.

After the Second Fleet left Weihai Port, it remained silent by radio, but another coast guard fleet cooperated with two escort aircraft carriers to disguise the number of this fleet, and repeatedly confirmed by radio that it was heading south to the Central Pacific Theater.

At this time, in the Pacific waters, China was also fighting, but the scale of the engagement was smaller, and with the southward movement of this fleet, if the main fleet was not sent south, the main force would be quickly defeated in the Pacific waters.

The two sides are constantly fighting wits.

He was forced to send a part of his navy south, and at the same time continued to secretly concentrate the main forces in the Pusan port area, and the army fleet never entered the port, staying in the waters east of the port of Busan during the day and secretly advancing towards Jeju Island at night.

At this time, he already knew that China's S-10ZC series of patrol planes had night reconnaissance capabilities, but the Yue army did not have night fighters to defend against such patrol planes, so it could only adopt a quick victory strategy, that is, the main landing force set off at night, while the main fleet set off at 3 a.m. and arrived at the operational sea area at 7 a.m. to cooperate with the landing force in a large-scale operation.

This is the only extreme strategy against China's night reconnaissance capabilities, and it is ostensibly feasible, but there is a special risk that the main fleet and the landing force will be easily separated.

In the absence of aircraft carriers, once the main fleet is attacked by the Chinese naval aviation in advance, the air force deployed in southern Korea will face a dilemma, either abandon the landing force or abandon the main fleet.

Since the air battle on the Kaesong defense line was still going on intermittently, it was said that there were not many air forces that could have been transferred to the Jeju naval battle, and the total number of fighters was only about 700, which could barely compete with the air defense force stationed on Jeju Island.

Therefore, the policy of the military is still very risky.

It's just that for the Yue army, they lack a more suitable option besides taking risks.

Beginning in mid-November 1939, the army aviation unit at the airport in Seosan-gun, North Korea, has been sending planes to reconnoiter the sea area between Weihai Port and Dangjin Bay in North Korea, which is 160 nautical miles wide and must be used by the Central Air Force of China to go south.

Because the bases of the Central Combined Fleet are scattered among the two large joint bases of Jinzhou-Lushun and Weihai-Qingdao, and the Second Combined Fleet is deployed in the port of Qingdao, this is beyond the reconnaissance range of the Chinese army, but the Chinese military is already convinced that the Second Combined Fleet is in the South Pacific waters between Taiwan and Brunei, so it is not very worried that this aircraft carrier group will threaten the landing operation on Jeju Island.

The First Fleet of the Central Combined Fleet has been supporting the Northeast Defense Forces in northern Korea in operations, and the reconnaissance planes of the two sides have constantly met in the waters of Weihai and Tangjin, and there have been many entanglements, and the reconnaissance planes of the Syrian army are not at all the opponents of the J-5 electronic reconnaissance plane and the J-303 Sea Snake fighter, which has made the reconnaissance plane of the Syrian army shot down many times, but it has made the base camp of the Syrian army feel a little more at ease.

In order to capture Jeju Island, the base camp of the Yue army set up four ports in Wando County, which is only 55 nautical miles away from Jeju County, and the landing ships returned here to transport the second and third groups after transporting the first batch of combat personnel to the south, and the first batch of landing troops was a division, and then two divisions and an armored brigade were dispatched to capture Jeju Island with 75,000-80,000 troops.

In the planning of the base camp of the Japanese army, the most important thing is the tactic of firing 10,000 guns at the main fleet of the navy, at that time, the main ships of the Japanese navy will basically gather here to carry out a comprehensive artillery bombardment of Jeju Island, destroy the fortress on the island, and cover the attack of the troops.

For this reason, the base camp of the Yue army specially conducted an exercise on Sado Island, and at the same time as the landing operation, a number of planes were dispatched to patrol the sky above to observe the position of the opponent's fortress, and the battleship group of the main force of the Yue army then carried out artillery bombardment of the fortress in turn according to the coordinates.

Such a plan is a good one, but the prerequisite is that the army will destroy the two air divisions deployed by the Chinese Air Force on Jeju Island, and at the same time help defend against the J-5 Tiger Shark fighter-bombers flying in from Jiangsu and northern Korea, which will be upgraded to the J-5D and already equipped with two Shenyang Liming SeLM-2800-14 or Pratt & Whitney R-2800-8 engines, each with a power of 2240 hp, a cruising speed of 520 km/h and a maximum of 630 km/ The maximum speed of hours, the practical ceiling can reach 11,000 meters, and the conventional range is 2,200 kilometers.

This kind of heavy fighter-bomber, which is almost equivalent to the size of a medium bomber, was officially installed in 1938 when the J-5D model was officially installed with the electrocrystalline Doppler radar "Rainbow ERD-10" of the East Conductor Company.

Due to the lack of suitable high-altitude fighters in the army, the J-5D Tiger Shark fighter-bomber could attack normally even in the daytime, and was not afraid of the army's 97 land battle.

This type of attack made the 97 Land War completely unprepared.

With the ultra-long range of the J-5D Tiger Shark fighter-bomber, even if it takes off from Nantong, Yancheng in Jiangsu Province and Xinchuan Air Base in northern North Korea, it also has the ability to carry out assistance operations against Jeju, and the total service scale of the Tiger Shark fighter-bomber in the Imperial Air Force has exceeded 3,000 aircraft, and its multi-purpose and common surname can make it also bomb the mainland in groups, and at the same time do not need fighter accompaniment to fight, or provide protection and escort for larger heavy bombers.

This is, of course, bullying the lack of suitable high-altitude fighters, if it is in the face of countries like Britain, Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union and France, as long as the opponent has suitable high-altitude fighters, the empire will not mass-produce so many Tiger Shark fighters.

In short, the value of the existence of this thing is just to bully the poor of the book.

In order to deal with the Tiger Shark fighters, the Yue army also came up with a lot of crazy ideas, such as installing an anti-aircraft machine gun on a 97 land battle, such a thing is probably only thought up by a country like Yue Ben that has been driven crazy, just like their Huitian torpedo.

The Japanese army also practiced many tactics to try to curb this high-altitude advantage, especially in the Jeju Island landing operation, they installed a large number of French 75mm anti-aircraft guns on ships, in an attempt to defeat the Chinese tiger shark fleet and let these tiger sharks have no return.

In early December 1939, as the weather gradually cooled, after believing that the preparations were foolproof, the headquarters of the Japanese army issued a final battle plan in the name of the emperor's edict, and the Second Air Combined Fleet of the Imperial Navy circled the Taiwan Strait and then secretly returned to the sea area between Shanghai and Nagasaki, where it was secretly on standby.

At this point, the Battle of Jeju, which will determine the final fate of the navies of China and China, is about to begin.

(To be continued)