July 22, 1923. Tokyo, Akasaka Imperial Palace.

In the study of Prince Regent, Prince Regent, two Japanese soldiers in straight uniforms looked at each other silently. One of them was Hirohito, whose life and succession to the throne were threatened by Chang Ruiqing, who was holding a copy of the telegram and looking at it carefully over and over again, and he didn't know how long he had been reading it. Prince Zaihito Miyaji, the chief of the General Staff Headquarters of the Japanese Army, sat opposite him, grinding his teeth there with a blue face, probably wanting to go to China to bite Chang Ruiqing, right?

There was a dead silence in the room, and only the squeak of Zairen's teeth grinding in the idle courtyard was heard. ""The fastest update, full text hand-typed

At the end, a snap was heard, and Hirohito's slap slammed on the desk. With a look of resentment, he said: "Britain and the United States are ready to mediate jointly...... They believe that Chang Ruiqing's peace conditions are acceptable, including those for me to step down...... The question of the succession to the throne of the Japanese Empire is actually up to the Chinese and British and American, how can the face of the empire exist......"

“…… But will I really be able to end the war with dignity if I step down? The essence of the Army had been lost, and the Soviet Union did not allow the First Army to return to Boli by the route...... Now even the navy had to live up to the expectations of His Majesty the Emperor, and in two days lost two battle cruisers, one first-class coastal defense ship, and fourteen transport ships...... What happened to the Great Japanese Empire! Is it true that the legacy of Emperor Meiji is going to be buried in my hands? Am I a faint king like Nicholas II? "Baidu Search" "See the latest chapters."

Listening to Hirohito's words, Prince Zaihito's nose was sour, and tears flowed down. He couldn't figure it out that the Great Japanese Empire had reached (Emperor Taisho was no longer able to govern. Hirohito is actually already the emperor) Hirohito began to fall in his hands? Now I don't know who actually posted "anti-emperor slogans" on the streets of Tokyo, viciously attacking the regent Crown Prince Hirohito as a faint monarch who ruined the hegemony of the Japanese Empire. It is also said that this Sino-Japanese war was completely defeated by Hirohito's blind command!

How could Hirohito be a faint king? And those few failed battles have little to do with Hirohito, even if the assassination of Chang Ruiqing with the King Kong cannot be regarded as a mistake, if the assassination is successful, China will definitely be in chaos now, and most of Manchuria will also be in hand. Now to say that Hirohito is a faint king, it is completely a king and a loser!

What's even more odious is that Chang Ruiqing actually pretended to say that he had no ambitions for the Far East and North Korea. In this way, Britain and the United States mistakenly believed that they could restore the balance in East Asia. Therefore, Britain and the United States not only do not suppress China and support Japan now. And, in turn, put pressure on Japan to force Crown Prince Hirohito to renounce his right to the throne......

Prince Zaihito let out a long sigh and said to Hirohito with a frown, "Please cheer up." Now the empire is far from reaching the point of exhaustion, and the war potential of the empire has not yet been fully realized, but the strength of the branch has reached its limit. As long as Japan implements the general mobilization of the whole people, the manpower and material resources of the whole country will be mobilized. And industrial power is all transformed into war capability. Defeating China, recovering lost territories, and even capturing Manchuria is possible! ”

Zaihito's voice had a crying sound in it, and these insincere words sounded a little heartfelt to Hirohito.

Hirohito slowly raised his head, and his eyes were already a little more bright, as if he saw the hope of victory again. "Mobilization of the Whole People...... How much manpower and material resources do Japan have to mobilize now? How many armies can be armed with weapons and equipment in stock? How many more commercial ships can be mobilized? How long will the Navy's reserves of fuel last? In case the Anglo-American sanctions us. How long can domestic stocks of raw materials be sustained for industrial production? Zai Renqing, are you clear about these questions? ”

Jae-in cried out in his heart. He is not the prime minister, how can he know so many things? But he can't say that he doesn't know, this is too bad for Hirohito, so he has to pick up what he knows and say: "Your Highness, the local population is still more than 50 million, and if a general mobilization is implemented, an army of up to 6 million can be organized!" ”

"6 million?" Hirohito's eyes lit up, he looked at Zaihito and said, "Can you really arm 6 million troops?" ”

Jae-in shook his head and said: "It takes a process to arm 6 million troops, and the weapons and equipment in the army's current inventory are far from enough, and it is only possible to transfer national production to wartime." However, there are still stocks of weapons and equipment armed with 1 million to 1.5 million people. ”

"So there are so many weapons...... Hirohito paused, and then asked, "These weapons are very old, aren't they?" ”

Jae-in pondered and said: "It's not particularly old, most of it is left over from the Russo-Japanese War, and a small part is reserved over the years." ”

Rifles and machine guns are certainly not old, but the artillery is outdated.

However, Hirohito did not delve into it and turned the topic to the Navy. "What about the Navy? The planes of the people of China seem to be very powerful, does the Navy have a way to deal with it? Can the Shanghai operation still be maintained? ”

"There is a way, the navy has found a way to deal with the air raid in China!" Prince Zaihito of the Idle Courtyard said. "In fact, the operation at the mouth of the Yangtze River was not a complete failure, at least the landing force still held on to the beach."

……

In the earthy yellow East China Sea, the 14,000-ton Japanese battle cruiser Tsukuba seemed to have been hit in the abdomen by something, and the starboard side was scorched black, especially in the hull directly below the bridge.

If you look closely, you can see that the battlecruiser has tilted to the right, apparently caused by a large amount of water on the starboard side, but a closer look reveals that the balance of the hull is slowly recovering, which indicates that the port side of the hull is being filled with water.

Vice Admiral Isamu Takeshita, commander of the Combined Fleet, stood on the deck above the injured part of the Tsukuba, leaned on the railing with his hand and asked the captain of the Tsukuba, Nagano Shusui, with a gloomy face: "Nagano-kun, is the Tsukuba still worth repairing?" ”

"I don't think so."

Nagano Shushen shook his head slightly, and said with a wry smile: "The ship's amidship was torpedoed by two large openings, one is three meters wide, and the other is about one and a half meters wide, and a boiler room has also been flooded, causing the Tsukuba to lose 30% of its power, and it will take at least 6 months to repair it." Spend millions of yen...... By then, the war would probably be over, and the Tsukuba would have to be dismantled in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Shanghai. ”

"Roar." Hearing Nagano's answer, Isamu Takeshita actually had a satisfied smile on his face. "Since there is no value in repairing. Then the Tsukuba doesn't have to go back to Japan, so it might as well be thrown at the mouth of the Yangtze River. ”

"Your Excellency the Lieutenant General means to abandon the Tsukuba?" Nagano was stunned, and said in his heart that the commander was going to scuttle the Tsukuba? Although this old ship does not have much value, the meaning of being dismantled on the slipway is not the same as being sunk on the battlefield! At least for the future of His Excellency the Captain, it was a world of difference.

"It can't be regarded as giving up, it should be waste utilization. It was Yamamoto's idea to run the Tsukuba aground on the beachhead of Yokosha Island at the mouth of the Yangtze River to serve as a fixed battery. The cannons of the Tsukuba are all right, right? ”

"Fixed turrets? So do you want to continue the Shanghai operation? ”

"Go on. Of course, it will continue. Takeshita Yong smiled bitterly: "This is the meaning of the palace, there is no way back now, you can only grit your teeth and fight to the end!" ”

"Can we win by fighting to the end?" Nagano Shushen blurted out. Apparently after the Battle of Haikou at the mouth of the Yangtze River on the 21st. This Japanese militarist, who had historically been Minister of the Navy, had doubts about the future of the war.

"I can win! We will definitely win! Takeshita gritted his teeth and said with certainty: "The fleet command held a meeting to summarize the battle of the Yangtze River estuary on the 21st, and the command believes that the planes and submarines of China are not invincible...... Their aircraft have too short a range and can only be used during daylight hours when the weather conditions are good. And only torpedo attack aircraft

There is enough firepower to threaten the capital ship. We just need to take refuge in the deep sea during the day. If you return to the mouth of the Yangtze River at night, you don't have to be afraid of the Chinese plane. As for their submarines, the number was too small and the firepower was insufficient, and the combined fleet decided to transfer more destroyers to the mouth of the Yangtze River, so that there would not be too much to worry about submarines. ”

He paused, patted the railing of the Tsukuba with his hand, and said with a smile: "As for the fire support mission during the day, let this Tsukuba complete it!" Nagano-kun. Give you half a day to replenish ammunition and repair the warship, and when it gets dark, you will go to the beachhead of Hengsha Island to run aground. There should be no risks associated with this mission. Because the Shina Army did not have artillery capable of penetrating the armor of the Tsukuba, in fact, they could not even deal with the armor of the Tamate, which was less than 10,000 tons! ”

……

What Isamu Takeshita said to Nagano in the end is right, the most powerful Chinese defense force in Asia, can't really deal with an armored cruiser completed in 1900 now! After the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet retreated to the open sea, the Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou Garrison Headquarters felt that a great victory in the Battle of Shanghai was imminent! As long as the Japanese troops on Chongming Dongtan and Hengsha Island were driven into the sea, everything would be fine. This glorious finishing task was handed over to the 20th Army of the Wehrmacht Army to complete, and it was always a piece of cake to use one army to clean up a few Japanese wings that had been beaten to the ground, right?

But no one expected that several waves of offensives organized by the 20th Army of the Wehrmacht would have failed! The bitter battle between Hengsha and Chongming Dongtan still did not make much progress until the afternoon of 22 July, and the biggest reason for the setback of the Wehrmacht's offensive was the first-class coastal defense ship Pante, which ran aground on the shoals of Chongming Dongtan!

Letting the Iwate run aground was probably the most correct decision made by Isamu Takeshita, commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, in the Battle of the Yangtze River Estuary on the 21st. This old ship with a displacement of less than 10,000 tons is a vulnerable target if it floats on the water. The Chinese submarines and torpedo attack planes could easily sink it, but when it ran aground on the beach, Chang Ruiqing's generals were depressed to find that they had nothing to do with the old armored ship.

First of all, they couldn't use a torpedo to sink a ship that had run aground, and the torpedo was not a flying missile, and it had to be at a certain depth to be used. Secondly, it doesn't seem to be very effective to drop bombs with airplanes, the accuracy of the Ju.23 bomber's bombing is really a tragedy, even if hundreds of tons of bombs are dropped, none of them may accurately hit the target, as for the Fokker D.18 dive bomb, the accuracy of the bomb is passable, but the 50 kg bomb is really a little less powerful for an armored ship. In the end, the 180 220mm heavy howitzers of the Wehrmacht could not hit Chongming Dongtan, and the mobility of this kind of artillery was too poor to reach Chongming Island at all.

And the firepower of this first-class coastal defense ship of the Iwate, which made the Chinese National Defense Force helpless for a while, is extremely strong compared to the army. The ship has a total of four 203mm guns and 14 152mm rapid-fire guns. 12 76mm rapid-fire guns and 8 47mm guns. Such a steel fort-like thing is now leaning against the sand on the south shore of Chongming East Beach, facing Chongming Island on one side. One side faces Hengsha Island, and the secondary guns on the left and right sides and the four 203 main guns can reach the maximum firepower. It also became the firepower pillar of the Japanese army on the two islands of Hengsha and Chongming.

The battle line revolved around the Iwate, and the artillery fire on both sides was grounded. Although the Japanese had little land firepower and limited ammunition, the Ibate's naval artillery support was very strong. The Japanese were desperate to hold these two beachheads, which had been captured at great cost, in order to preserve the two bridgeheads for the comeback of their main forces. And China's Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou Garrison Command has a purpose to drive away these Japanese troops blocking the Shanghai gate as soon as possible.

At the front, commanding the attack of the first squadron was Lieutenant General Liu Zhi, commander of the 20th Army. No matter how bad this cousin was in the War of Resistance and Liberation in history. But in the twenties of this time and space. His cousin in the Wehrmacht was quite competent. After receiving the task, he moved the military headquarters from Wusongkou to Chenjia Town, which was close to Chongming Dongtan. He also personally led the staff officers of the military headquarters to the front line, lying in a forest to observe the Japanese battle line.

It was found that the Japanese beachhead was in shambles. On the two small mudflats, a large amount of supplies were scattered and piled up, some in wooden boxes, some in pouches, and some in wooden barrels. Don't know what's inside? A little farther afield, there were a lot of miscellaneous supplies floating on the water. Probably left behind from the dozen or so sunken transport ships, dozens of small sampans were struggling to salvage. The Japanese soldiers who have landed are about 10,000 people, most of them are in Chongming Dongtan and a small part are in Hengsha, digging fortifications on the mudflats, and it seems that they are ready to hold out here for a long time. Wehrmacht's long-range artillery fire continued to fall on the beachhead and around the stranded Japanese warships, and the unsplashed columns of muddy water were not too large, and it seemed that the mudflats had absorbed considerable explosive power. There were also shells that hit the Japanese warship, but after the explosion of fire. It just left patches of charred black on the steel armor of the warship.

"Throne, this is this warship!" The commander of the 59th Division, who was holding gauze on his head, pointed to the Pante, and said to Liu Zhi through gritted teeth: "The brothers rushed three times and were driven down by it with artillery, and there was really no way to ...... it."

"There's no way, you still let people rush?" Liu Zhi glared at him. Then he turned to a captain in a blue navy uniform next to him. "Staff Officer Li, is there anything the Navy can do?"

The captain surnamed Li kept frowning, as if he had been thinking hard for a while. "It's definitely not going to work, it's an Izumo-class armored cruiser, and the broadest part of the side armor is 175mm, and the infantry can't deal with it anyway...... At least a 7-inch heavy cannon should be used to fire directly at a relatively close distance. But ......" his eyebrows tightened, and he looked like he wanted to speak.

"But what?" Liu Zhi asked.

"Commander Liu, looking at the posture of the Japanese, it seems that they are still unwilling to give up, and they are afraid that the Japanese will continue to use other old warships to implement this tactic when they see that the tactic of using warships stranded as fixed batteries is effective, and they have a lot of outdated battleships and armored ships!"

Just when Liu Zhi was sneaking close to the Japanese front to reconnoitre. The commander of Japan's Third Army, Lieutenant General Suzuki Soroku, known as the "Suzuki who shouted for help," had rebuilt his military headquarters aboard the Iwate. In fact, the division headquarters of the Guards Division was used as the army headquarters, and the original chief of staff of the Guards Division, Hasunuma Domain, temporarily took on the job of chief of staff of the army.

The war room of the new Third Army Headquarters was set up in the officers' lounge of the Iwate, and the "Suzuki, who shouted for help," sat listlessly in front of the map desk, looking fixedly at the dense Chinese army symbols marked on the map, muttering something in his mouth, and listening carefully to the dejecting words that seemed to be "I can't fight," "I can't do it," and "what should I do." It seems that the experience of losing the army headquarters on the 21st was too great a blow to His Excellency the lieutenant general. However, the other officers in this war room don't seem to have much energy, they are no better than the soldiers below, these people are well-informed people, and they have long known about the disasters faced by the Japanese army in the Far East and Korea! Coupled with the setbacks that the Navy has encountered in the past two days, it seems that this war really cannot be fought, maybe the order to retreat will come down soon, right? The iron walls of Shanghai are clearly difficult to fight, and instead of wasting precious troops here, it is better to transfer troops to North Korea for emergency relief.

At this moment, the captain of the Iwate, Saburo Yakaku, suddenly pushed the door and walked in, gave a military salute to Suzuki Shonroku, and said: "Your Excellency, the Nagato has just sent a telegram, Commander Takeshita has decided to launch another landing this evening, and at the same time, he is also preparing to let the battlecruiser Tsukuba run aground near Yokosha Island as a fixed battery. ”

Hearing this news, Suzuki Shoroku seemed to be stunned for a moment, and it took a long time to react. "Ah, so the Navy still won't give up, right? Well, then the army will sacrifice his life to accompany the gentleman! (To be continued.) )