Tokyo, Japan.

At noon, the sun was blazing. In the middle of April of the Chinese lunar calendar, the Western calendar has entered June. There were noticeably fewer people on the streets, and in some remote alleys, there were no pedestrians in sight, except for a few newsboys squatting under the eaves of a restaurant on the side of the street, gathering together to count coins and see who was doing better today.

There is also a stall selling grilled octopus balls at the entrance of the street, and the stall owner sits lazily with his legs crossed, leaning against the wall, with an empty bowl in front of him, and half of the leftover rice balls on the side, which is his lunch. Ask for a bowl of noodle soup and two rice balls from the restaurant next door. For North Japan now, it's already very good. Two rice balls will fill your stomach at least!

Every now and then, the stall owner opened his eyes to look at the empty street, which was almost empty, then closed his eyes, buried his head, and squinted.

This is Tokyo's Bunkyo district, a place where Japan's educational elite gather. It is home to many of Japan's national and private universities, junior high schools, and higher education institutions, including the main campus of Todai University, and has earned a reputation as a cultural and educational district in northern Japan.

It was a relatively quiet month in Tokyo. Because of Ito's informal contacts with Saigo Takamori in Beijing, the southwest government sold 10,000 tons of rice to Tokyo at a low price in order to show its sincerity. As a result, the price of rice in Tokyo has been reduced by 20%. The main thing is that there is enough rice, which gives confidence to the general public.

The turmoil in downtown Tokyo subsided a lot at once, the market came to life, and the crime rate was greatly reduced. Hawkers and snack stalls have also reappeared in the streets.

Finally, the scorching sun turned to the west, and at three or four o'clock in the afternoon. The whole of Tokyo seems to be rejuvenated. The newsboys began to hawk in the streets, and the small traders and vendors began to pull their throats.

In the train station in Tokyo. A passenger train was on the platform, and a crowd of blackened people poured down from the train.

"Extra! Extra! The North and the South are about to reach a peace agreement! The armies of both sides are being ordered to retreat! ”

"Let the war disappear completely in Japan. The people need peace! ”

"Great Japan must not compromise with a group of rebels!"

"To forget is to betray. The shame of the year must be washed away with blood! ”

In the midst of these shouts, one newspaper after another was bought by the people who stepped off the train, and the newsboys in the train station were all smiling.

A horse-drawn carriage pulled out of the train station and stopped at the street corner. A middle-aged man in the carriage poked his head out of the window and shouted to a newsboy closest to the carriage, who rushed towards the train station in pieces, then rushed back with five different newspapers in his hand, and excitedly took a yen coin from the middle-aged man's hand.

The middle-aged man who bought a newspaper in the carriage was not an ordinary person, this person's name was Akiyama Yoshiko. He is the backbone of Japan's new generation. He is now 42 years old and has already been appointed as a major general. His younger brother Mayuki Akiyama, a bright rising star of the Japanese General Staff, once studied in the United States at private expense, studying at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, where his mentor was Alfred Brown, the famous inventor of the theory of sea power. Thayer. Mahan, Meiji 32, visited England in January 32 and returned in August. In Meiji 33 (1900), he entered the first section of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of the Navy and became a staff officer of the standing fleet. He also served as an instructor at the Naval University.

In addition to the two Akiyama brothers, there was also their friend Masaoka Shiki. A poet and essayist.

There was silence in the carriage. All three of them were carefully looking at the newspaper in their hands, and even the coachman did not dare to drive the carriage too fast. so as not to affect the three people in the car.

It was at least half an hour before Akiyama raised his head. He'd gone through five newspapers. In addition to the World Games competitions and the economic issues that he did not want to care about, the largest and most important pages of the newspaper were comments on Ito's informal contact with Saigo Takamori. There are good and bad. For or against, but the former is far more than the latter!

The three men in the carriage were all embarrassed. Remember just around New Year's Day. There was still a majority of people in the Tokyo court who opposed peace with southern Japan, and even the Akiyama brothers themselves could not tolerate the concept of two Japans.

They also know the difficulties of the Tokyo government. Agreeing to peace can bring many benefits to the Tokyo government, and it can give the people at the bottom a breather. But they firmly disagree with the concept of two Japans, one south and one north! Both the Tokyo government and the southwest government are part of Japan. This is like Wanwan's 'one China, one Taiwan', which the Akiyama brothers absolutely cannot agree with.

The return of Yoshiko Akiyama from the front line to Tokyo has a lot to do with the current controversy. Akiyama Yoshikoku is a real major general in military power, and the cavalry unit he leads is the only formed cavalry in the Japanese Army, and his status is completely higher than that of other major generals. In the eyes of the Tokyo government, it is also something to watch. So it was proposed that he return to Tokyo and listen to his opinion.

Akiyama Shinyuki and his friend Masaoka Shiki came to greet Akiyama Yoshiko. He has great respect for his eldest brother. The Akiyama family was born in an ashigaru family and the family was poor, so when he was in college preparatory school, Akiyama Shinyuki always received help from his older brother Koko. His elder brother Akiyama helped boil water in the bathhouse when he was a child, earning a copper plate a day to subsidize the family, avoiding the fate of Akiyama Mayuki being forced to leave home because he couldn't support him. Akiyama Shinyuki is also out of the box now, but in front of such an older brother, he is still very well-behaved. As long as Akiyama didn't speak, he didn't dare to sit down.

"Brother, the comments in the newspapers cannot be fully trusted. The power was still in the hands of the senators and the emperor. "Akiyama Shinyuki is worried that his eldest brother will be hit, and he will enter the palace tomorrow to meet the emperor.

"So, what is the attitude of the emperor and the senators? Really, you've been in Tokyo, do you have any news about that? ”

Akiyama is not looking down on his own brother. Akiyama Shinyuki's military rank is only that of Shaozo, and although he has a great reputation in the staff and is known as a 'genius staff officer', his status is far inferior to his own. From this point alone, it would be crazy for Akiyama to ask about the attitude of the emperor and the senators. Akiyama Shinyuki's real capital was the many friends he had made in the navy, such as Oyamataka, the eldest son of His Excellency Oyama Iwa, who died in battle, such as Rear Admiral Gonbei Yamamoto, who is currently the deputy minister of the Admiralty. Mayuki Akiyama, who has a low status, is able to access a lot of news and intelligence that Akiyama can't get in touch with.

"The Approval faction is headed by His Excellency Ito and His Excellency Saionji. The opposition is led by His Excellency Katsura Taro and His Excellency Kiyotaka Kuroda. His Majesty the Emperor has not yet shown any inclinations. But the influence of His Excellency Saionji on His Majesty the Emperor. Definitely more than the Navy and Army. ”

Katsura Taro was the first representative of the army, and Kiyotaka Kuroda represented the power of the navy. When Okubo Ritsu was not speaking, they represented the Japanese Navy and Army in Tokyo. It's just that now the naval strength of Japan in Tokyo is too weak. It simply cannot be placed alongside the army and form a single force in the political arena. After the war that changed the fate of Japan, the political navy became a complete auxiliary force of the army. The Singapore incident completely destroyed the hope of a second rise of the navy.

The current situation is that the military does not approve of peace, while the political forces are in favor of peace, and they will negotiate peace at any cost. The rest of the forces are temporarily neutral.

"There are already voices among the people (especially in the Tokyo area) who are scolding His Excellency Ito and His Excellency Saionji as thieves. In the army and navy, many of the descendants of the survivors of the soldiers who died in the war were secretly moving. Akiyama Shinyuki's voice suddenly slowed down. Akiyama nodded understandingly, his younger brother has a close relationship with Oyama Gao. It's not surprising to know this.

"Brother......

"Don't worry about me. My will has never changed! "Akiyama is a good old man who resolutely disagrees with one south and one north.

But Mayuki Akiyama, who is familiar with his brother, can see from the whiteboard-like expression of Akiyama who closes his eyes and recuperates that his mood is by no means as calm as the expression on his face. The more complicated his brother's heart is, the more cold the expression on his face will become.

As a writer, Masaoka Shiki is very dissatisfied with Akiyama's persistence. But just met him, he was not in a bad mood. Until it was time to eat, Masaoka Zigui looked at Akiyama Haogu like a butcher, and asked him unceremoniously: "Akiyama-kun, you are the general of the imperial kingdom, and you know the military best." Dare to ask. The Civil War really broke out, did Tokyo really have a chance of winning? Can Tokyo really sweep away the rebellion completely under China's nose? ”

"How many valiant samurai do we need to die? 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000? ”

Masaoka Shiki's background is much better than that of the Akiyama brothers, and he graduated from Waseda University from a wealthy family. Studying in Europe and visiting China, I have clearly realized the huge and irreversible gap in national strength between China and Japan. Ideologically, he scoffed at the early ambitions of the military, and even more identified with Ito Hirobumi's dish cooking school.

He didn't wait for Akiyama Yoshiko's answer. Then he continued: "You haven't forgotten the war 26 years ago, have you? The imperial kingdom paid tens of thousands of warriors to die, but it did not stop His Majesty the Chinese Emperor, who was only a provincial governor at that time. How great were the losses of the Empire? How difficult it is for the bereaved families of those who fell in battle. Does Akiyama-kun really know? Even the 'bereaved family' in the mouth of the truth is only the descendants of the families of a small number of high-ranking officers, do you know the difficulties of those ordinary soldiers' families? "The 'face-saving work' of the Tokyo government group is still very good, but it is a pity that it is a little favoritive, only remembering to give priority to the fallen officers, and then investing a large amount of money in the construction of the military industry and heavy industry, while largely forgetting the ordinary soldiers who died on the battlefield for the imperial country.

After China launched the war in 1894, the situation in Russia turned around and the Tokyo government and the emperor had to abandon the war plan, and Japan never received a single pound of money from Westerners and loans again. The industrial market shrank dramatically, factories closed down, and workers lost their jobs. How many women have had to leave their dignity and shame to go to the women's branch for the sake of their families?

In the following five years, there was no large-scale war between the north and the south of Japan, but there were also tensions, and border conflicts broke out from time to time. How are the bereaved families of those fallen in battle being treated?

The Japanese government in Tokyo is in serious financial deficit, and the army itself has eaten one meal but not the next, and the overstretched financial situation has made it even a problem to ensure the salaries of the existing troops, so where is the surplus money to pay the bereaved families of those soldiers who have died in battle?

The country has reached the point where it is going to send troops to 'work' for the enemy, and the senior officers are still thinking about the war, and Masaoka Zigui only feels ridiculous! (To be continued......)