Wuhan had become an empty city, with only tens of thousands of people who were unwilling and unable to leave and thousands of Nationalist troops who had fled everywhere, and Okamura Ninji went up the Yangtze River to Qingshan Town, a town only a dozen miles from Hankou.

"How long will it take to take Wuhan? Where did the Northern Route Army arrive? Okamura asked a little nervously.

The staff officer immediately looked at the record and said, "It will take about another day to completely suppress it, the Northern Route Army has arrived in Hengdian and should join us soon." ”

Okamura Ninji waved his hand and said, "Who said about the convergence, we must take Wuhan before the Northern Route Army, order all troops, take Wuhan, I personally ask His Majesty the Emperor for credit." ”

At this time, a telegram reached the hand of the staff officer, who glanced at it and said with a smile: "Your Excellency Commander, good news, Jiang Zhong has just escaped, the army of China is in great confusion, many warehouses are being looted, it seems that the people of China have not transported everything from Wuhan, and our spies have also mastered the location of those hoarding points, and are guiding our troops to occupy those hoarding points." ”

Okamura Ningji's eyes lit up and he shouted, "The Nationalist Government Building, we must occupy it as quickly as possible, and only when we occupy it can we call it the occupation of Wuhan." ”

-- In the city of Wuhan

Hikaru Nakajima panted and led his squad to run, and after months of fierce fighting, his squad leader had been killed, and he was recommended as a squad leader as one of the few surviving veterans, and their mission at this time was to occupy a material warehouse, where it was said that the piled up supplies could last the imperial army for a year.

A man in a patched robe pointed ahead and said, "Front, just ahead, there is a hoarding point for cloth, with a large amount of cloth, cotton, linen and other materials. There is also a large amount of silk. ”

"Silk??" Hikaru Nakajima's eyes lit up, and he said to Koike-akira behind him, "Koike-kun, if there is really silk." Why don't you take one and send it home and make a kimono for your fiancée? It's going to look great when you get married. ”

Koike Akira was the vice-captain at this time, and he smirked and said, "That's a good dare, but isn't it a little inappropriate." ”

Kodo Kanichi immediately shouted, "What's wrong, we're fighting so hard, now it's just a matter of getting a piece of clothing, everyone said, isn't it?" ”

The other Japanese soldiers laughed along, and the smoke wafting everywhere and the sound of gunshots that could be heard from time to time reminded Koike of Nanjing, where all the gold he got was handed over, hoping that this time it would give them some oil and water.

"It's here. Here it is. The robed man said, "Look, there's no one, huh?" What does it smell like? ”

Koike smelled it, found it from the warehouse, pointed to a soldier and said, "Go." Open the door and keep the others on guard. ”

The Japanese troops immediately dispersed, and the soldier stepped forward and carefully opened the door, only to see a mountain of boxes piled up in the warehouse, with cloth and clothes written on them. On the other side are stacks of tall chests, and in a few open chests you can see the smooth silk inside.

But the treasure-like scene did not make everyone feel a trace of joy, and an extremely pungent smell rushed into the nasal cavity, and the neurons immediately sent signals to the brain. Only two terrifying words came to my brain: "Gasoline!!" ”

"It's not good, it's a trap, get out of here!!" Koike Akira hurriedly pulled Hikaru Nakajima and ran to the back, in a small building opposite the warehouse. A dark shadow smiled contemptuously, pressed the button next to it, and an explosion came from the warehouse. It was followed by a huge ball of fire, which swallowed the Japanese soldier who had just entered, and the Japanese soldier thirty meters outside the door was more or less affected.

Then, as if the god of fire had fallen from the sky, the entire warehouse turned into a big fireball, and thick black smoke soared into the sky, and even Okamura Ninji, who was more than ten miles away, could see it clearly.

Koike Akira's eyesight is very good, in the firelight, he suddenly found that some of the boxes seemed to be not clothes, but empty, Koike shook his head, although he didn't understand but didn't delve into it, Nakajima Hikaru next to him shouted loudly, "Quick, hurry up and put out the fire!" ”

In Okamura Ningji in Qingshan Town, he saw not a pillar of smoke, but one after another, and in his eyes, it was as if the entire city of Wuhan was about to be burned.

"What's going on? Didn't I say that you are not allowed to kill people and set fires in Wuhan City? This is a good thing done by any unit, and I am going to take him to court-martial. Okamura Ninji jumped to his feet and shouted, the matter in Nanjing has made the Chinese hate Japan to death, and again, even if Jiang wants to surrender, the people will not let him do it.

A few staff officers next to him immediately ran to make a phone call to find out what was going on.

After a while, a staff officer ran to say in disbelief, "Your Excellency Commander, this fire was not set by us, but by the people of China themselves, they set all the material hoarding points on fire, and now our people are desperately trying to put out the fire, because the fire has sacrificed hundreds of imperial troops, and the people of China have sprinkled gasoline on the supplies, and it is difficult to extinguish." ”

Okamura Ningji's eyes widened, and he ran upstairs in three steps and two steps, looking at Wuhan with a telescope, but he couldn't see anything clearly.

"Quick, quick, enter Wuhan City!!" Okamura Ninji roared.

The Battle of Wuhan ended in the black smoke of Wuhan, and the war on the land of China had just begun.

-- Tokyo

The whole of Tokyo was plunged into a carnival of victory, countless torches and lanterns made the capital of Japan a city that never sleeps, countless men shouting "Long live the Emperor" drank wine, women danced excitedly, children kept scurrying in the crowd, and fireworks flashed in the sky from time to time, all to celebrate the capture of Wuhan, the wartime center of China, by their imperial army, which in their opinion was about to surrender, The Empire of Japan was about to rule the continental country that had been on Japan for thousands of years.

In the palace, however, the atmosphere was not cheerful at all, and Hirohito closed his eyes and asked, "Why don't you speak?" What about the end of the war after the Wuhan War? What's going on with this declaration of Jiang Agent? Why did they also announce the victory of the Battle of Wuhan, and you honestly told me what the outcome of the battle was? How many people are there in the Chinese National Army? When will the war end? How many people have we lost, don't play word games on me, any serious injuries and deaths are not considered war damage, don't think that I really don't know anything. ”

Konoe glanced at Seishiro Itagaki, who immediately stood up and said, "In the Battle of Wuhan, our army invested a total of eighteen divisions. The navy and army of 600,000 and the security army of 400,000 took part in the battles, and more than 2,000 battles were fought large and small, and our army occupied Wuhan, Guangzhou, and other important cities; during this period, our army lost a total of 56,000 killed in battle, 23,000 died of illness, 17,000 were seriously wounded and could not return to the battlefield, 4,000 were missing, and about 170,000 were wounded or sick. The casualties of the security forces are about 120,000, and the Chinese casualties are expected to be around 500,000. The main reason for this is that our army is not adapted to the environment in central China, and a large number of troops have fallen ill and lost their combat effectiveness. ”

Hirohito interrupted and asked, "With such a large casualty, but the Nationalist Government still does not surrender, what are you going to do?" Do you keep fighting? Hit Chongqing? Hit Sichuan? Hit Tibet? Do we still have the money to fight? ”

Konoe immediately said, "Your Majesty, we believe that it is not a way to continue fighting like this, and our military expenses this time are too large for us to bear. The army has already used all the guns in the schools, and we have already invested the most powerful troops in China, and there is no way to increase our troops from elsewhere, and the Chinese have set up a large number of guerrilla zones in our rear. These guerrilla zones made it impossible for us to deal with the frontal battlefield with all our might, and more importantly, we did not earn a penny at all during the more than a year of war. On the contrary, there is a constant deficit, so we can no longer fight a battle like the Battle of Wuhan. ”

Due to the fact that there had been a five-phase meeting before. And he had just come down from the battlefield, and Seishiro Itagaki knew the reality very well, so although he was not satisfied, he couldn't say anything.

Konoe continued, "We believe that the military is nothing but a continuation of politics, and we can completely make the Nationalist Government surrender, or let a part of the Nationalist Government surrender, and we have now established three regimes on Chinese soil, namely the Provisional Government of the Republic of China in North China, the Restoration Government of the Republic of China in Central China, and the Mongolian Autonomous Government in Inner Mongolia, but whether it is King De or Wang Kemin, Liang Hongzhi is a character who does not enter the stream, and cannot be recognized by others, So we are ready to find a high-ranking member of the Nationalist Government to lead a large pro-Japanese Chinese government, which will include all the places occupied by our troops. Secondly, a limited war of attrition and blockade against China. Our army must make use of its existing military superiority to continuously launch short-term local campaigns in order to wear down China's strength, so that our army can always ensure the momentum of strategic offensives, and at the same time cut off all channels to support China, otherwise as long as there is the support of the Soviet Union and other countries, the Chinese troops will never be able to finish the battle. Third, it is necessary to transform domestic industry, agriculture, and other aspects into a protracted military war to meet the needs of a long-term war. ”

Hirohito said after a long time, "I hope so, besides, what does Hirohito think of the third point?" ”

"In the past few months, we have spent more than 3 billion yen on our military, and since the beginning of the war, our gold reserves have been reduced by 350 tons, and the yen has depreciated," Ikeda said. But the value of our production has also increased substantially, and our industry has begun to move to a wartime mechanism, but now it is not workers and machinery that are restricting us, but materials, and our country is extremely short of resources, although we have obtained a large number of resources from Manchuria and North China, but copper, rubber, oil, and iron and steel are insufficient, and China does not have many of these resources, and we can only seize them from Britain, France, and the United States, if only we had Southeast Asia. ”

Seishiro Itagaki immediately said, "There is also a large amount of oil shale in Manchuria, as well as coal, which can be used as fuel oil, and I think we should increase investment in this area." ”

Mitsumasa Yonechi smiled disdainfully, "It's the Deshan Coal Chemical Oil Plant that hasn't even produced a glass bottle of oil?" Or the Manchurian oil that can only clog our engines? You'd better use those things yourself. ”

Ikeda sighed and said, "Actually, we don't really have oil in Japan, including Taiwan and Manchuria, our oil mining area covers an area of 3.5 million square kilometers, but unfortunately more than 90% of them are oil fields without any industrial exploitation value, and now we produce 9,000 tons a year in Hokkaido, 50,000 tons in Taiwan, 250,000 tons in Hokkaitai Oil, 250,000 tons in Hokkaitai Oil, and 300,000 tons in Honshu, a total of only 610,000 tons, and we need more than 3 million tons a year, and it is still rising, so to speak." Western countries are strangling us by the neck in this regard. ”

Hirohito raised his hand and said, "The issue of oil will be discussed next time, the Shina incident has changed to this day, and the method must be changed, Konoe, didn't you say that someone has chosen someone?" Who is it? ”

Konoe bowed his head and smiled, "It's Wang Zhaoming from China, he has already made contact with us, and I believe that as long as he submits to our imperial army, the national government of China will be divided." ”

Hirohito's eyes lit up and said, "Could it be that Wang Jingwei who leads the knife into a fast and lives up to the head of the young man?" If he is willing to cooperate with us, the incident will definitely be well resolved, but it will be even better if it is Jiang Intermediary himself. ”

Konoe also nodded and said, "Your Majesty is very right, and we are also making a final effort. ”

-- Chongqing

Wang Jingwei and Jiang Zheng stared at each other with big eyes and small eyes, Wang Jingwei leaned on the table and said, "Now that we have lost Wuhan and Guangzhou, don't you still recognize the current situation?" Are you still going to fight? How long will you have to fight? ”

Jiang Zhong snorted, "The ultimate victor of the War of Resistance must be us, we can't and the Japanese can achieve the means of surrendering without a fight, otherwise how can we be worthy of the soldiers who died in battle and the prime minister is in the spirit of heaven!" ”

When Wang Jingwei heard this, he shouted loudly: "Do you remember the first prime minister? The former prime minister's resting place was trampled on the soles of the feet of the Japanese!! Now that the great powers are standing by and watching, the Japanese army is pressing forward step by step, and most of our territory has fallen, how can it be possible to win? Now we can negotiate with the Japanese and get better terms. If they were completely defeated by the Japanese, they could only surrender unconditionally and be slaughtered like Germany in World War I. Do you remember the Yuan Dynasty? The reason why the Semu people are second class is because they recognized the status quo clearly and cooperated with the Mongols, so they would not end up miserable. ”

Jiang Zhong glanced at Wang Jingwei contemptuously and said, "I have told you many times about the truth of the Anti-Japanese War, but you just don't listen. I'm so tired now that I don't want to say any more. I'm going to sleep, so go back too. ”

After saying that, Jiang Intermediary threw down Wang Jingwei and walked into the bedroom by himself, which was equivalent to issuing an eviction order.

Wang Jingwei wanted to chase again, but was blocked by several guards, looking at the closed door, Wang Jingwei threw down his sleeves fiercely, and turned to leave.

In the room, Dai Li stood aside, and Jiang Zhong closed his eyes and said, "I know what you said, don't let anyone know about it, go down." ”

Dai Li's heart trembled, he had already guessed what Jiang Intermediary was thinking, but he didn't dare to think about it further, and hurriedly retreated.

Jiang Zheng slowly opened his eyes and muttered, "It's been fourteen years, you think you can win me by relying on the Japanese?" Joke! Dream!! (To be continued.) )

PS: I've been working overtime for the past two days, and I'm late for the update, sorry. Replacing business tax with business tax is tired of the dead (manual goodbye)