Chapter 291: Myth Busting (10)

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Yaga ()!

At the foot of the Ferris Ridge, the furious Sadao Araki jumped up and slapped Captain Yamazaki a few times, he had long expected that the Wehrmacht would definitely outflank him, so he deliberately left the Yamazaki Brigade and 12 field guns, and after the support arrived last night, he also deliberately left 2 heavy artillery pieces in order to leave a way back for the troops, but he didn't expect that Lin Jiatai would be captured by the Wehrmacht in just half a day, resulting in his retreat being completely cut off.

Knowing that all the remaining 14 cannons would be mobilized in this way, Motianling would have been breached long ago.

After being driven down from Xiaoguling by the Wehrmacht support forces at the last moment, Hanada Shaozuo had already held his breath and said: "Your Excellency Dazuo, please allow me to attack again, and after opening the road to Baofen, we can jump out of the encirclement." ”

Although Yamazaki's cheeks were red and swollen from being slapped, the heavy artillery just now made him feel uneasy, and reminded: "Your Excellency, the Chinese used at least 20 heavy guns in the attack and sank two gunboats of His Excellency Komatsu, so I think we should prepare as soon as possible and build a pontoon bridge over the river just in case." ”

"20 heavy guns?" Sadao Araki was also taken aback by this number, he didn't know that the enemy in front of him had long been different, and it was obvious that he had lost a thousand people in two days and launched seven charges without taking Motianling, but he didn't expect that there would be so many heavy artillery! Could it be the Germans? This is possible, since in the Far East also only Germany has such a large number of heavy artillery.

"Report! Chinese cavalry was found on the east bank of the river, numbering about a battalion, and more than a dozen troop transport trucks. ”

"Damn it!" Hearing this, Sadao Araki's face finally changed. If it is impossible to build a pontoon bridge to break through to the east, the troops will be left in two directions, one is to forcibly break through the Ferris Ridge, and the other is that it is definitely impossible to turn back, if there are really 20 heavy guns, it is not enough to pull up their entire wing, then they can only storm the Ferris Ridge to break through! But the problem is that if it is really the elite German units that control these heavy guns, then there should be () in other directions. So his tone suddenly became much more severe: "Continue to attack Ferris Ridge, be sure to open the breakthrough passage before sunset tomorrow!" Find a way to send the news back to them that we are likely to be attacked by the German artillery regiment and ask for immediate support. ”

It was not clear to Sadao Araki what a strong reaction his telegram had provoked.

Shigenobu Okuma sat in the prime minister's office, looking at the secretary general who brought Araki's telegram, his expression became extremely ugly: "Nobunaga-kun, is this true? ”

The Secretary-General nodded: "It's true!" The 38th Wing had been surrounded, and the War Department was doing everything possible to send troops to the rescue, and had already offered to charter ships from British and American shippers, and they even pleaded with the Navy for the first time to escort the Army directly from Jinzhou. ”

Lease ships to Britain and the United States? Landing from Jinzhou!

Even if he was reluctant, Okuma realized that things were completely out of control, and that a conflict that had been artificially suppressed was slowly sliding in the direction of all-out war. Seeing his pale face, the Secretary-General, who had followed him for twenty years, had to remind: "Your Excellency, please forgive me, the anger of the War Department is unstoppable, and the Araki Wing is an infantry wing with the flag awarded by His Majesty the Emperor, not those miscellaneous railway guards. Moreover, the War Office has begun to investigate whether the Germans will take action, because Araki Daisa said that there are a lot of heavy artillery in the squadron, and the only people in the Far East who are likely to provide them with heavy artillery fire are the Germans. ”

"What about the Admiralty?" Shigenobu Okuma tried to grasp the last straw, but the secretary-general's answer was also ruthless: "After the Navy lost two second-class gunboats, there were also voices of punishment inside, and although they had not yet made it clear that they were willing to declare war, they had promised the War Department to immediately send a transport ship to transport the 24 15-mm guns needed by the Army and the two 24-mm guns newly developed by our country to Lushun." ”

The war has expanded!

Shigenobu Okuma closed his eyes in pain, and the tsunami of war outside his window made him realize that he had no choice this time, and that if he did not declare war again, domestic pressure alone would be enough to lead to a coup d'état, which he would never want to see.

In the evening, the city of Nanjing finally ushered in the long-lost rainstorm, the wind wrapped in the rain to extinguish the heat in the air, the flow of people in front of the Nanjing Presidential Palace was also sparse, the guards hid under the canopy and chatted, and the topic was almost all the war in the northeast ().

How's the fight going? Have the two important places of Benxi and Anshan been taken down? Has the Manchu Lijun been killed? To what extent did the Japanese intervene? How many divisions entered the Northeast? Doubts burst out of their mouths, but unfortunately because the Ministry of Defense blocked the news, most people only knew that the Japanese had intervened, and two wings entered the northeast, but they didn't know exactly how many people there were and where they went.

The time limit for the nationwide telegram sent by the vice president and hundreds of thousands of soldiers is approaching, how will the Japanese reply?

The more unknowable things are, the more people want to dig into the roots, but it all comes to an end in a few minutes. The car with the Japanese flag slowly stopped in front of the presidential palace, and Matsudaira Tsuneo, who was scolded by Yang Qiu in front of him, pushed the car door, and when the counselor was about to hold an umbrella for him, he also pushed it away, and walked into the presidential palace in the rain and with anger.

Ten minutes later, he walked out of the presidential palace and left, and then a message exploded from the palace.

"The Japanese have declared war!"

"Japan has declared war on us!"

A thunderbolt of lightning pierced the twilight, and rolling thunder exploded over the Yangtze River, as if to tell people that after nearly a year of brief peace, this troubled country will once again enter the flames of war and face another choice of life and death.

In the temporary parliament building, the parliamentarians who rushed to get the news gathered in twos and threes, anxious, cursing, indifferent and quiet, even those who supported Yang Qiu were a little nervous at the moment, Japan had declared war! It is no longer a skirmish, but a declaration of war in the form of a state! This means that the elite Japanese Army Wing will step into the vast land of China one after another, and the scene of hundreds of thousands of troops fighting each other will come to this suffering country again in the First Sino-Japanese War 20 years ago and the Russo-Japanese War 7 years ago.

"No declaration of war! War should be avoided and peace talks should be avoided. A Kuomintang congressman suddenly shouted: "I studied in Japan, the elite of the Japanese army is unimaginable to you, Russia had hundreds of thousands of troops at that time, and the artillery and machine guns were several times more than the same. His voice echoed through the conference room, and he even stood in his chair in the depths, preaching the idea of the invincibility of the Japanese army. His words resonated with many parliamentarians, especially those from the north and northeast who had experienced the Russo-Japanese War, and their scalps were tingling and gloomy at the thought of the invincible flag of the wing.

Suddenly, a series of crisp leather boots suddenly pierced into the voice of the shouting councillor, cut off like a sharp sword and thunder. When everyone turned their heads to look, Li Yuanhong and Yang Qiu had already arrived at the venue together, and the sound of military boots hitting the ground came from the young man who exuded a sharp glow.

"President." Yang Qiu made a gesture of please, Li Yuanhong nodded and walked on stage first with a solemn face: "Everyone, I got bad news. Li Yuanhong officially introduced Japan's declaration of war to the Congress, and patiently explained the situation in the Northeast and other issues, but his soft tone made Yang Qiu frown. And the parliamentarians in the audience also noticed that there was a lack of confidence in the president's tone, so more people began to clamor and talk about tunes.

Li Yuanhong probably also found that he was too weak to speak, but it was too late to put it away at this time, so he immediately glanced at Yang Qiu after stepping down: "Chenhua, I." "The president said very well, you are the president and need to think about the overall situation, as for the war, it is the business of us soldiers." Yang Qiu smiled slightly, turned his head and walked towards the podium firmly.

The entire large conference room was calm after the sound of leather boots, a pair of eyes with different thoughts focused on the figure standing upright, Yang Qiu held the podium with his hands, his eyes were sharp, his tone was deep, there was no opening remarks, no politeness, and he entered the speech so straightforwardly: "In front of me, standing is a nation, a nation moaning in humiliation!" After the Opium War, everyone! Every country comes here to get a vote! Others have bullied us, even the weakest nations have come to trample on us, and we will only protest with our mouths, we will only express our indignation, but we will not dare to throw our fists. ”

"Such a person has no bones!" Yang Qiu waved his arms vigorously, and his voice suddenly became high-pitched, hitting the chest of the congressman and the reporters who rushed to the door like a hammer, and the KMT lawmaker who advocated peace talks turned even pale.

"A country that only knows how to protest is a country without bones! A government that only knows how to protest is a government without bones ()! No one needs a government that shamelessly protests when our dignity, territory, and people's right to life have been trampled upon! The people will abandon them in the end! ”

"Japan has declared war, and behind us is a cliff! The future of 40,000,000 people lies here, and a hundred years of humiliation need to be bloodbathed! The future fortunes of the country are not poked out of the mouth! If we don't fight today, then tomorrow we will perish! It is not only the land that is lost, but also the soul of the nation that is lost without a fight. Right now! In the past three years of the Republic of China, we have been cautious, but what we have gained is still humiliation and aggression! So the mouth can be closed! The enemy should be made to tremble with a cannon! Bloodshed the enemy with machine guns, we should pull out that mythologized banner and let them know that we are no longer a mediocre Manchu government that only knows how to protest! We should fight to the last soldier, so that we can retain the unyielding spirit of our Chinese nation, and only then can our children and grandchildren bathe in freedom, not be oppressed, and straighten their backs! ”

Yang Qiu slowly straightened his waist, his eyes were red, he had completely substituted into this era, the reality of humiliation, sadness and enslavement made him extremely indignant, and his words suddenly rolled and stirred like thunder outside: "Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are waiting for the battle, and blood is flowing on the black soil outside the Northeast Pass!" Tens of thousands of citizens are being slaughtered and ravaged by the enemy! What you have to do now is to give a name to those soldiers who are fighting bloodily, so that they know that they are fighting for their country! ”

"As a soldier, my brother has already gotten permission from the president to go to the front line, and as long as the plaster flag on the land of the Northeast is still fluttering, I will never return to the division! Because" Yang Qiu opened his arms and raised his right hand to his eyebrows a little bit: "This is my country!" My compatriots! Our territory! It's the mission of our generation! ”

On the night of May 21, 1914, three hours after Japan declared war on the government of the Republic of China, Yang Qiu delivered a speech entitled "My Country" at the Diet, which was later recited by countries around the world. At the same time, the Presidency authorized the Ministry of Defense to crush the enemy as soon as possible, regain territory, and begin the conscription of 300,000 reservists in accordance with the Act on National Defense and Conscription.

At three o'clock in the morning on May 22, the Ministry of National Defense issued a telegram strictly ordering all departments in the Northeast Theater to encircle and annihilate the 38th Wing at any cost, breaking the myth that the Japanese army was undefeated!

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