[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 948: Internal Contradictions (Ask for Subscription!) , ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything! ）

In order to calm the situation down, the Japanese government proposed to the United States on September 25 a solution for a local area centered on French Indochina. www.biquge.info He also proposed that if he agrees to this proposal, he would appropriately add this case to the previous Japan-US understanding, and hold talks between the heads of state of the two sides.

However, the United States showed little interest in a local solution centered on French Indochina; Secretary Hull's attitude toward the Japan-US summit meeting was also extremely cold, but President Roosevelt seemed to be a little interesting at first glance.

Seeing that the attitude of the US side was not very positive, on 30 December, Japanese Prime Minister Fumima Konoe sent a telegram to US President Roosevelt, proposing that the Japan-US summit meeting be quickly realized.

In response to Konoe's telegram, Ambassador Nomura had held specific consultations with President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull on the date and place of the meeting, and on the face of it seemed that there was hope for it to be realized.

However, in a letter to Prime Minister Konoe, President Roosevelt said: "It will be difficult to agree to talks without prior agreement on important issues of principle." ”

Roosevelt's "important issues of principle" actually meant the "four principles" proposed by Hull before, which was the most important link in the "US-Japan Understanding Plan" first put forward by the United States, and Roosevelt wanted to tell Konoe Fumima that peace talks were okay, but the "four principles" in Hull's statement must be taken as a precondition for the talks, and asked for an agreement on this.

Roosevelt's telegram made the faces of the Japanese government extremely uncomfortable, especially Japanese Prime Minister Fumima Konoe.

Another reason for the United States' rejection of the Japan-US summit meeting is that Prime Minister Konoe was the prime minister of the Japanese Government at the time of the outbreak of the "China Incident," and on the issue of Sino-Japanese peace, the Konoe principle that Japan adheres to is precisely what he declared.

At this point, the Japanese Government has also seen that it is impossible to clean up the situation through dialogue between the heads of state of Japan and the United States in view of the overall situation, rather than saying that there is very little hope in fact.

This also made the army and navy, which had expressed great enthusiasm for the above-mentioned summit meeting, extremely embarrassed, because they had attached great importance to the summit meeting and had great confidence in it, and had even appointed a plenipotentiary attaché and made the necessary preparations for this purpose.

Lieutenant General Kenji Dohihara, director of the Army's internal aviation department, is one of the plenipotentiary attachés, and the chief of the Muto Military Affairs Bureau and the 20th squad leader of the General Staff Headquarters are attachés. And the behavior of the United States is undoubtedly a slap in the face of the Japanese, and it is even the government with the base camp to fight together, snap, bang, extremely loud!

The rout at the front caused a cloud of sorrow throughout Japan, and the negotiations between the United States and Japan ended in failure, and the atmosphere in Japan was extremely tense. While the government was deliberately trying to clean up the situation through diplomatic means, the army and navy, the Japanese army and navy, were gradually unanimous in using force to solve the problem.

To be honest, it is really a very strange thing that the Japanese Navy and Army can reach an agreement, because the contradictions between the Japanese Navy and Army have been going on for a long time, and this is also a matter that is well known to the Japanese high-level.

The disharmony caused by this contradiction stems from the origins of their establishment, and after the Meiji Restoration, a large number of samurai from the four great feudal clans, who were the heroes of the downfall, became important ministers in the early Meiji era.

Among them, the originator of the army, Yama Prefecture Aritomo and others, were all feudal warriors from the Choshu Domain; The main force of the navy was the feudal lords of the Satsuma Domain. Originally, there were some factional factors vying for power and profit, but later the "Southwest War" in which the central government forcibly dissolved the Satsuma Domain, the two sides were even more troubled.

With the exception of the Taisho era, the Japanese government was largely influenced by the military. And in order to compete for influence on state power, the military will naturally divide the spoils unevenly.

Let's talk about something hidden, the Japanese army first followed France and then Germany, and the navy learned from the British. This is inherently the result of the differences between the two cultures, and Japan has put both of them in its own pocket, and the result is inevitable.

One plans to engage in militaristic expansion in the blatant, and the other intends to learn from the Western powers to engage in "civilizational expansion". The difference between the two sides can also be understood as "urgency" and "slowness", one advocating absolute violence and the other advocating relative violence.

In the end, because of Hirohito, he did not like the Meiji senator's control of the army. He privately supported the conspiracy of the officers of the Young Zhuang faction to seize power, and the army's expansion plots continued to succeed, and the army's ambitions were extremely inflated and sought to immediately drag the country into war.

However, because the navy knew more about the strength of Britain and the United States, and realized the fragility of Japan, it never advocated such action. However, both sides are constantly expanding their armaments and warfare, so that Japan's limited resources are really overwhelmed, and the struggle for power and profit will become even more intensified.

Prior to this, the base camp of the War Department believed. At present, it has been decided that the national policy of dealing with the United States should be dominated by the navy, so the army has deliberately avoided expressing its views until the navy has made its attitude clear.

Of course, the army is only in a hurry, and they simply cannot formulate the most effective countermeasures to deal with Britain and the United States.

As everyone knows, the army has always been responsible for most of the drafting of original plans to decide on national policies. This time, however, it was different, and a meeting of the army and navy departments and chiefs of the Japanese army was held at the base camp, which was attended by the directors of the two military affairs bureaus and the chiefs of operations. At the meeting, the Navy put forward for the first time the "Guidelines for the Implementation of the Imperial National Policy."

The main content of the document reads: "The Imperial Japanese Empire was limited to late May 1941, and preparations for war and diplomatic negotiations were carried out at the same time; By mid-May, when diplomatic negotiations could not reach a compromise, force was used. ”

This is indeed an unprecedented demonstration of the Japanese Navy's unprecedentedly great determination.

However, as mentioned earlier, Japan's very existence is threatened by the embargo imposed by the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands, and the use of force if no solution can be found is the basic attitude that has been brewing in the army and navy since the spring. Since then, discussions and consultations have been held between the army and navy on the basis of this naval plan.

Japan's navy and army have always been antagonistic, and this time is no exception. The above-mentioned naval plan still retains the determination to start a war and prepares for war, and to put it bluntly, the navy still does not want to fight, or it does not dare to fight.

The Army, on the other hand, struggled to make formal preparations for war without making up its mind for war, because they were confident that they would not be able to fight across the sea by sweeping the islands of the South Pacific.

The reason why the Japanese Army is so confident is entirely because of the fact that of the four countries that dominate the South Pacific, except for the United States, the other three countries are all involved in the European war, while France and the Netherlands have been defeated, and the previous government has already existed in name only, and these two countries are completely negligible.

Although Britain has not yet been defeated, according to the relevant information gathered by the Great Japanese Empire, Britain has now suffered heavy losses.

Although Hitler's "Sea Lion Plan" did not destroy Britain, it caused great damage to British industry and agriculture, especially industry, and the major industrial cities along the coast were bombed by the Luftwaffe, and the losses were extremely heavy. Even if Britain could recover in a short time, in order to keep the British Isles, it was impossible for the main British force to move to the east, and they had to leave enough troops to guard against the Germans.

Speaking of the United States, although the economic strength of this country is indeed very strong, it is so strong that the Great Japanese Empire must look up to it. However, the military strength of the United States did not make the Japanese have too many scruples, according to the intelligence collected by the empire in 39 years, the total strength of the US army is only 100,000, and the navy is even less, less than 20,000.

In the past two years, although the United States has consciously expanded its armaments and increased its national defense strength, it has only been two years, and no matter how hard the Americans work, it is impossible for the Americans to make much progress.

Moreover, unlike the Empire of Japan, the United States has a system that limits the power of the president. Even if Roosevelt recognized the threat of empire, as long as Congress did not approve of their military expansion, the United States would not be able to increase its military strength much.

In addition, according to Ambassador Murano, the vast majority of Americans have no interest in participating in the war, and the isolationist Americans only want to defend their acres and thirds of land, so the Japanese Army is confident that it will crush all American armed forces in the South Pacific.

As a result, there is a conflict of opinion between the Navy, which is preparing without determination, and the Army, which believes that it will be difficult to prepare without determination. (To be continued.) )