"Ahhh Bastard! Their last negotiation was completely fake, and the real purpose was to investigate the intelligence of the sea off the coast, and we were all fooled! ”

When the news of the attacks on Kitakyushu and Shimonoseki reached Tokyo, the anxious cabinet ministers seemed to have finally found the truth, and they roared in anger!

I understand it! Why did the Chinese inexplicably choose such a remote place to start negotiations, and why did their navy go around the Japanese archipelago, it turned out that they were just looking for excuses to explore hydrological data and prepare for today's military operations!

"What a despicable and shameless fellow, they have no sincerity in negotiating with us! Sure enough, now the original form is exposed, they are here to invade the Great Japanese Empire, damn it, bastard! ”

Mutsu Munemitsu's eyes were bloodshot, he waved his arms frantically, and the spit from his mouth was enough to give people a drill. I don't know if this has completely freed them from the mental pressure of playing Laipi, and the expressions and postures of the big people look like they are in a state of insanity after taking drugs of unknown use.

"Uh-huh! It must be so, yes. I will say that the Chinese are not so kind, since they have suffered losses, how can they not take revenge at all, but just negotiate with us in a regular manner? It turns out that all of them are to cover up the conspiracy to start a war! ”

Foreign Secretary Katsunosuke Inoue loudly helped to lay a nail in the coffin for His Excellency the Minister's judgment. At the same time, his opinion also represents the opinion of the majority of middle-level government bureaucrats, who have long been unhappy with those arrogant Chinese!

This is the first time I don't know how many imperial meetings have been held recently, in front of the emperor. For the first time, the ministers felt that they had enough confidence to speak. There is no need to make up nonsense to fool people as before.

However, not everyone is as perfunctory as they are. Emperor Muren squinted his eyes slightly from beginning to end, and the advisor Xiyuan Temple Gongwang was as calm as ever, and asked the ministers who were on the face: "Is it too early for you to draw conclusions now?" According to my observations, there seems to be no necessary connection between the two. Perhaps this was simply a warning action taken by them in response to the Empire's failure to agree to its extortion conditions and the assassination of Lord Li Hongzhang. ”

These words were like a basin of cold water poured on boiling oil, and Mutsu Zongguang jumped up as if he had been stepped on by his tail, pointing at him and scolding him fiercely: "Xiyuan Temple-kun." Which side are you on?! Isn't it enough for the empire to suffer such humiliation? Do you think that it is natural for the despicable Chinese to brazenly bombard our ports and cities? ”

The other people who were not well positioned also darkened their faces and stared at him viciously with unkind eyes. That is, everyone's background and qualifications are not as good as the old man, so they didn't pull out a knife on the spot to live pk.

Saionji Konozo was a rare moderate among the Japanese, and he strongly disapproved of the radical education of the Japanese people and future generations, nor did he approve of the military's policy of blind expansion and aggression. After many years abroad, he had a broad vision and always wanted to transform Japan into a truly democratic country, and enter the forefront of world civilization with the image of a country with an enlightened government and a gentle people.

Unfortunately, with the spread of colonization policies since the Meiji Restoration. The success of the weak Manchu Qing again and again made too many people taste the sweetness. Military aggression and foreign expansion have become the mainstream, and few people from top to bottom are willing to think calmly. Even Hirobumi Ito, who single-handedly created the great cause of Meiji, couldn't control those fanatical guys, let alone he, the representative of the Senate.

In the face of the surging questioning, the Gongwang of Xiyuan Temple could only sigh silently, turned his head to look at Muren, whose face was sinking like water, and asked, "Would Your Majesty be willing to see the subjects of the empire devoured by the war beast?" If we tolerate for the time being, we may be able to resolve the current crisis at the lowest cost. ”

Muren raised his eyelids and glanced at him, then lightly swept over the menacing ministers, and said in a soft voice: "The reputation of the empire and the friendship between the Western powers are the most valuable, and the people of the world must fight patiently with the government, which is related to the overall situation of the great cause of the future." ”

…… Well, as the nominal head of the empire, the emperor has to speak in this way of clouds and mountains, and there can't be any conclusive words that can make people grasp the handle, the specific meaning, guess?

This is like when the world was defeated in World War II, the Americans occupied Japan, and MacArthur sent people to the Imperial Palace to ask for the guilt, trying to find out whether Emperor Hirohito ordered the attack on the United States in the first place. The minister's reply was repeated with only one sentence: "His Majesty the Emperor recited a poem ......." ”

Indeed, when the battle plan was drawn up at the base camp and finally brought it to Hirohito, he did recite an old Japanese poem. Whether outsiders can figure it out or not we don't know, in short, the Japanese soldiers at that time decisively figured it out, His Majesty the Emperor affirmed their plan, and Tsuruyin made a decision.

As a result, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and set off a prelude to death.

Today, an earlier male lord also said a very profound phrase, although it was not as elegant as a poem, but it also made the ministers present basically understand what he meant.

Today, Japan's general trend of breaking away from Asia and joining Europe is irreversible. And the great powers have opened their arms and revealed that they want to accept them. No matter what kind of defeat Japan suffered on the road of expansion before, and no matter how big the crisis is now, as long as it can bravely resist the pressure and contain China to the death, then it will definitely be able to get the strong support of the great powers.

After that, Japan has gathered enough energy, and it will not be too late to reconsider standing side by side with Westerners when it will re-emerge with the support of the foreign powers.

Of course, this had to come at a considerable price, and the casualties and losses that were now caught up in the naval bombardment had to be borne by the Imperial Government for the time being. As for the people below, they have been suffering for thousands of years anyway, so what can they not do if they have suffered for another ten years or eight years?

Muren made up his mind at the moment, and the ministers naturally spoke better. They completely ignored the disappointed and helpless eyes of the Xiyuan Temple Gongwang, and began to discuss how to resist to the death.

War Minister Oyama Iwaki personally led his army to attack China and almost died under the bombardment of shore artillery. When I came back, I learned the hard way. It was decided to vigorously promote military reforms. It is imperative that the Army's equipment catch up with the world's first-class equipment as soon as possible.

However, Japan is so poor that it can't scrape together enough money to buy warships, and the little money it squeezes out has to be used to expand the army establishment, and where does it have so much spare money to improve the level of equipment? In addition, the level of the domestic military industry is really limited, and even the basic Murata rifle is not enough, not to mention the more advanced 6.5mm rifle to update.

Artillery or something, it's not that I don't want to. That thing is really too expensive, a battalion of rifle equipment, and it can be killed by people with a larger caliber at every turn, and it costs the distressed important people's lives. So I had to think about it, and I couldn't make it myself.

At present, the Japanese Army has expanded several times compared with two years ago, and the number has increased to more than a dozen divisions and regiments, and the number has increased dramatically, but its combat effectiveness has plummeted. The ability to pull out and start fighting must be gone, and it seems okay to defend the homeland, right?

He was sure that His Majesty the Emperor had made up his mind. Immediately patted the chest of the five short figures: "Please rest assured, the warriors of the Imperial Army are desperately shedding the last drop of blood." And never let the shameless Chinese set foot on our territory! ”

Mutsu Munemitsu then said: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will immediately negotiate with other countries on matters of support, and at least obtain a considerable amount of advanced equipment, coastal defense artillery, ammunition, and so on. In short, we will become a powerful barrier to China's external expansion, and with 50 million subjects as a guarantee, we will win the opportunity for the nations to regain their strength and punish the tyranny! ”

After the gossip was finished, Muren bowed his head slightly: "It's up to the secretaries." ”

Under heavy pressure, there are also many less things to do in Japan. All departments mobilized and threw themselves into the mobilization work of the struggle and warfare.

Oyama Iwa personally sent a telegram to the 12th Division in Kitakyushu: "Your officers and men must serve the country with the heart of deciding to die, and there must be no loss of proportion in defending the territory!" Billions of people hope that they should not be overlooked. ”

The commander of the 12th Division, Lieutenant General Kanichi Tamura, had already marched into Kitakyushu with all his troops, opened up a position under Ogura Castle, and faced the fleet with a vague trace of the sea, and threw himself into the desperate resistance with a fearless spirit.

As for Dashanyan's telegram, he just looked at it and threw it aside, wrapped his head with a menstrual belt, and addressed the 10,000 soldiers with a stern face, encouraging everyone to fight to the death, and never let the enemy go ashore.

This is easier said than done.

Kokura faces the exit of the Kanmon Strait, across the sea from Shimonoseki on Hikoshima. The widest point between the two is less than four kilometers, and the shallow water is less than ten meters deep. The narrow channel was 700 meters at its narrowest point, and a large number of artillery batteries were deployed on the hills on both sides of the strait, which had repelled the British, French, American, and Dutch fleets that had attempted to invade 30 years earlier.

Geographically speaking, this place is undoubtedly a natural hazard, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

If the enemy wants to fight from the sea, he must face a strong battery in the mountain. If you want to land on the beach, you have to consider whether you can unload the troop carrier in the turbulent current, not to mention the constant threat of shore defense artillery. Even if the artillery here is already much behind, it cannot be compared with the naval guns of the Chinese Navy.

Tamura Kanichi had confidence and determination, and with the advantage of the location, he stubbornly resisted the invading enemy. Even if it can't compete with its long-range and large-caliber naval guns, it shouldn't be a big problem to simply hold the ground.

Seemingly...... That's right.

Northwest of Kokura, on the water near Ojima, a group of warships bombarded the bay for a full hour with their main guns and secondary guns, and the boiling smoke and flames filled the bay several kilometers wide for a long time, and as soon as the wind blew away, the clear space was immediately filled with another. It was so dense and frequent that the soldiers on the battleship choked on tears.

Looking at the shore again, Kokura Castle was almost razed to the ground, and the original rudimentary factories and barracks fortifications were all blown to pieces by dense shells! The raging fires converged into a boiling crater, twisting their teeth and claws in the rapidly flowing air, making all sorts of terrible images.

The Japanese troops scattered in the city and in the barracks were blown apart by the ferocious shells that cut their heads and covered their faces. A large number of small and medium-caliber naval guns were fired in a terrible number of hundreds, which was worth more ammunition than the army artillery division bombarded in a day, and the entire position was blown into a rotten field. Large and small craters, the cold looks like they have reached the surface of the moon.

The shock of the heavy shells was enough to break the hearts of the defenders. Even if it is a lightweight 335kg high-explosive bomb, the rumbling roar that is pulled out when flying at high speed is like a violent earthquake when it lands and explodes. Sweeping through thousands of armies and destroying a qiē building. Even the hill was cut off with the terrible power of a piece. All made the Japanese recruits of the 12th Division frightened!

His Excellency, the commander of the division, said it so lightly, in fact, he himself was already colorless. Looking down from the mountain, you can see the devastation of the hurricane and tsunami. The occasional miserable howl in the wind made the soldiers in the mountain fortifications behind them want to cover their ears.

Their camp in Mt. Adachi was not directly bombarded by naval guns for the time being because it was on the anticline, but it was still crushed by the stones rolling down from the crumbling mountain, and it collapsed everywhere. Those who don't know think that there is a volcanic crater here that is about to erupt, and their lives are in danger at any time.

Finally. They held on until the sound of the explosion faded, and Tamura came out with his teeth gritted and commanded his troops to burrow out of the ravine and come to the front of the burning position.

On the "Hebei," Yang Haiwei swept the battlefield with a telescope and expressed his slight satisfaction with the results of the 1,000 rounds of large and small caliber shells.

Captain Deng Shichang had just finished calculating the amount of ammunition consumed, grinned distressedly, and sighed: "An hour's consumption is almost as good as the training ammunition that the old Beiyang Navy Division has shot out in ten years." And that's not even counting the increase in production costs. The Navy is really an expensive force that no money can afford. ”

The corners of Yang Haiwei's mouth twitched slightly. said indifferently: "Anyway, it's all the foreign devils who pay for it, so we just have to let it go." As long as the troops can be trained well, this qiē is worth it. Well, the order went down, everyone rested for an hour, and sent the marines to prepare for the landing reconnaissance. ”

"Understood!"

Deng Shichang did not dwell on meaningless issues, immediately conveyed the order, and directed the battleship to turn around the rudder at sea, light the other side, and face the burning shore in the distance.

The attack on Shimonoseki and Kitakyushu was, of course, not just a bombardment, and before the war began, there was indeed a sense of sending troops to land and occupy it. It's just that Yang Hao has no intention of permanently controlling this place.

First, this time, the Japanese army will inevitably drag the revolutionary army, which has not yet been put in order, into a bottomless whirlpool, regardless of the resistance and counterattack of the Japanese army. With the current strength of the Chinese Navy and Army, it is quite not cost-effective to be completely contained here, and it is bound to lose a lot because of a small one.

Second, the Great Powers absolutely did not want to see him occupy Japan, even if it was only a small piece of territory, it could lead to uncontrollable troubles in the future. For this reason, the great powers will inevitably do everything possible to sabotage the interference, and the revolutionary army will be dragged into the endless war.

Third, Yang Hao's purpose in provoking this punitive war is not here, his intention is to use Japan as a live target and whetstone, train the navy and marines, and take it with the Korean Volunteer Army. Second, he wants to take the opportunity to show his strength and further push the shipbuilding competition that the great powers have already launched to a white heat!

The "Tianjin" heavy cruiser, which was displayed more than five months ago, made countries eager to start building larger-tonnage and faster dreadnoughts. The resulting large number of orders have effectively driven the overall improvement of China's industry, and the high profits are terrifying.

Now that he has shown more powerful warships in Japan, he believes that with the intelligence power of the great powers, he must have obtained general information at this time. So, a regular battleship carrying all the main guns, a behemoth with a displacement of at least more than 20,000 tons, will inevitably break through the last barrier in the hearts of the great powers, and what are they keeping up with? Or keep up?

This is an issue that hardly needs to be discussed.

If they want to build a battleship of 20,000 or 30,000 tons, all the equipment that the great powers originally made up must be upgraded, the slipway must be rebuilt, the naval guns must be redesigned, the appropriation must be increased again, and the pressure on their finances will inevitably be greater!

Unfortunately, the equipment they have ordered may not be enough; The number of warships that have already started construction will not be of great use, and they must continue to increase. If you want to catch up quickly, the easiest way is to place additional orders with Yang Hao. This one thing was tossed by him into two stages, and the powers vomited blood angrily, so they could only grit their teeth and take out a small amount of money!

If there was still a kind of thinking of concentrating on fighting and robbing before, then after this period of strength display, I believe that the great powers should be enlightened, and before they have no way to destroy the two battleships, don't think about using rudeness to solve the problem.

The only way out is to win the first chance in the shipbuilding competition!

Japan became the chicken that was killed to scare the monkeys, and the bricks that were thrown to attract jade.

Tokyo, Nagasaki, Sasebo, and Kitakyushu, two battleships that demonstrated their performance and might from various angles, are believed to have made the most impressive impression on the intelligence officers of the countries here. Smack Japan hard, I believe they will definitely make a wise decision!

An hour later, the fireworks on the coast had stopped, and the four destroyers sailed into two groups at the exit of the strait, facing the coast about five kilometers apart.

Dozens of speedboats were lowered, and a battalion of marines loaded with them rushed to the beachhead. Under the eyes of the remaining Japanese scouts, the flat-bottomed rubber boat rushed directly against the water, and there was no tragedy of hitting the reef and capsizing, but it quickly turned like an arrow.

Some of the hot-blooded Japanese soldiers couldn't stand it, and raised their guns to shoot from a distance, but the gunshots just rang out, and they didn't hit the target, and they were immediately discovered by the sharp soldiers on the speedboat, and the machine guns swept over unceremoniously, hitting the mountains and rocks, and the branches and leaves were broken!

In less than a minute, fireworks flashed on the destroyer, and several shells smashed one after another, and the latent ground that exploded when it landed was on fire, and several Japanese soldiers were too late to scream, and they died in pieces! (To be continued......) R1292