Aizu Wakamatsu, also known as Tsuru Castle and Kurokawa Castle, was the castle town of the Aizu Domain during the Edo period. About 10 kilometers to the east is Lake Inawashiro, the fourth largest lake in Japan, with a population of more than 100,000 people, which can only be regarded as a small city in Japan, where there are many people and little land.

However, Aizu Wakamatsu Castle was built on the flat ground between the Echigo Mountains and the Ou Mountains on Honshu Island, and held the main communication route between the east and west of Honshu Island, especially after the Allied landing in Niigata, the 40th Army of Ishu crossed the Shinano River, Japan's largest river, to seize Aizu Wakamatsu Castle, which made the Japanese army lose the only opportunity to block the Allied forces west of the mountain range, and surrendered the strategic initiative to the Allied forces.

Once the Japanese army was left with Nasudake to defend against the danger, the next thing the Allies would face would be the Great Plain of Kanto, the political and cultural core of Japan.

Mt. Nasu is a general term for a volcanic group, which belongs to the Nasu Volcanic Zone, another name for Mt. Chausu. Consisting of the three Hongun volcanoes and the Nangetsu volcanoes, several active volcanoes contain large amounts of sulfur in their fumata, and are important minerals for Japan. Seventeen regular divisions of the Japanese army were arranged according to the volcanic group and the railway line, forming several intertwined defensive lines. The chief of staff of the Japanese army, Ishihara Waner, personally led four divisions to garrison the Baihe River to guard the flank of the Japanese defense line in the mountainous area.

"Give all your strength to the best of your ability. Success, leaving the last dignity of the Japanese Empire; If you lose, it is not a pity for the minister to die, I hope Your Majesty will make a decision as soon as possible! ”

Before the decisive battle of life and death, Ishihara's decision book was still relatively obscure. Wise as Ishihara, he has already seen through that no matter how this resistance battle goes, Japan's defeat is decided. The war was fought for the empire and the dignity of the soldiers, and the twenty-one divisions on the Nasutake defense line were already all the military forces around Tokyo. If you lose, there will be no more troops to defend in Tokyo, and Ishihara said, "I hope Your Majesty will make a decision sooner", which is nothing more than hoping that the emperor will surrender or continue to resist, and make a decision earlier, there are still more than a dozen divisions in southern Honshu, and there are still nearly ten divisions in Kitakyushu that Ugaki is entangled in and cannot be withdrawn at all. Of course, in Korea, in the Chinese theater, in Manchuria, the empire still has many troops, but without aviation, without navy, those troops will not help the domestic war situation, and can only be used as bargaining chips, at least they are loyal to the emperor.

Jiang Yunzhi was not in a hurry to attack, and the landing campaign went a little unexpectedly smoothly, but the follow-up troops were a little delayed. The 1st Nanyang Regiment had to board ships from Jeju, while the 1st Coastal Regiment had to depart from Perth in the western part of the mainland and arrive in Niigata even later. With the Yizhou Army and the Judah Army on the island of Honshu, plus less than 400,000 troops such as the Three Guards Army, the 1st Marine Division, and the SS, it is not enough to penetrate Ishihara's fighting defense line or fight with a small number of people, and the casualties will be relatively large!

In other words, the composition of the Japanese front army is really a bit complicated, Han troops, white troops, South China natives, Jewish troops, party prisoners, and troops of the Nanyang Colonial Area...... Your Majesty, this is an iron heart, and you want to build a frame for the "Eight-Nation Alliance" to invade Tokyo.

Small-scale firefights occurred from time to time outside Aizu Wakamatsu Castle, and the 40th Army of Yishu of course resolutely fought back and resolutely repelled! It is clear that Ishihara is also testing the combat posture of the Allied forces. The five divisions formed in Hokkaido have already crossed the Tsugaru Strait and are on their way south to reinforce them.

Although the strength of these new divisions is not necessarily much better, they are still stronger than those militias! Moreover, these soldiers are from Hokkaido, where the weather is frozen, and their combat power has been worth looking forward to since ancient times.

Both sides were building up troops, and the Aizu-Wakamatsu front maintained an eerie calm. Only the scouts on both sides were quietly fighting to the death in the dense forests of the mountains and the Nogawa Pig Lake.

Although this kind of special forces-level contest will not be as earth-shattering as the charge of a large army, it is often bloodier and more brutal. A mountain unit of the Japanese army is more accustomed to the environment here, using traps, traps, and blowing arrows, and is proficient in lurking, camouflage, and blocking. The Allied scouts suffered from their unfamiliarity with the geography and suffered relatively large losses. The 40th Army reported this situation to the General Headquarters in a timely manner, and Jiang Yunzhi became interested in the mountain troops for the first time. There was no training place for mountain troops in Nanhua itself, and most of the Han troops were mainly motorized transportation, and no one could afford to take a group of mules and horses with them everywhere before.

In Nanyang, in Taiwan, such skirmishes are carried out by professional special forces. For example, the Steppe Wolf Commando once beheaded the leaders of opposition forces in the rainforests of the South Seas, and annihilated the Alpine Volunteers in the bamboo forests of Taiwan. Even in areas with complex terrain, Jiang Yunzhi once firmly believed that the tasks could be completed by the army aviation units and the air force, but now it seems that the formation of elite mountain troops is also a matter of urgency. Others don't know, as one of the few cronies who can often stay in Jinhua Hall to drink, Jiang Heimian is very clear about His Majesty's lofty ambitions. "The Guards Corps needs a mountain army!" This idea led to the formation of the Mountain Division of the Guards Regiment, which is the origin of the later famous Royal Mountain Division. There have always been many people who believe that the North American Indian Kingdom was created by mountain agents.

With the arrival of the First Army of the South Seas and the Coastal Army, the strength of the Allies on the west coast of Honshu Island has reached 700,000.

Japanese reinforcements from Hokkaido also arrived in Fukushima Prefecture, and Ishihara ordered them to garrison the Suka River as a general reserve for the campaign. The total strength of the Japanese army on the Nasutake defense line also reached 900,000, of course, this refers to the number of regular troops, and if you count the militia and volunteers on the Kanto Great Plains, it can only be countless.

But when the war is fought, the power of the people can really be said to be ...... Incalculable. Just like the Chongqing Army in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, it had the support of the people, the number of ten times that of the Japanese army, and the spirit of the Sichuan Army to fight to the death, but the result was still to lose the city and land, and the officers and deserters were defeated.

On March 12, the tranquility of the battlefield was broken by the Allied fighters, and the Third Army of the Royal Air Force of the Han Dynasty and the Air Force of the Kingdom of Judah jointly fought a joint operation, and 600 bombers bombed the Japanese Nasudake defense line indiscriminately, and the towns of Shirakawa, Heiiso, and Teimoncho on the railway line were not spared, and the bomber pilots even had to go out more than three times a day to implement an air blockade on various communication arteries and key positions. Utsunomiya, an important transit city on the Kanto Great Plains leading to the front line, was reduced to ruins almost overnight. Railways are paralyzed, roads are blocked, not to mention cars, even horse-drawn carriages, bombers will dive and strafe. Three days later, the Navy's carrier-based aircraft unit joined the bombing operation, and the entire Fukushima and Tochigi prefectures were included in the bombing range.

Mr. H. of the Strategic Bombardment Unit also began to visit the area, and the Helleye bombers dropped more than 1,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Teimon Town, one of the storage sites for Japanese supplies, and burned the centuries-old town to ashes along with tens of thousands of tons of grain. The Japanese sadly call it "Iron Burning"!

Ishihara finally couldn't bear it, and if he continued to bomb like this, he would collapse without fighting the Japanese army. If there is no counterattack in the air, then a big victory on the ground must be achieved to support the confidence of the military and civilians to hold on. Five Hokkaido divisions on the Suga River and three divisions in the Nasudake Mountains were ordered to move closer to Lake Inawashiro and storm Aizu Wakamatsu.

The Yizhou Army alone defended the main road, with a force of 120,000 troops of one army, blocked the onslaught of eight Japanese divisions for several days, and the Judah Army and the Coastal Army bypassed Lake Inawashiro and appeared in Koriyama, cutting off the connection between these eight divisions and the White River. The coastal army then went north to the Suga River, and a Suka River blocking battle was a shocking battle against the world and weeping ghosts and gods.

It was the first time that the predominantly white unit of the Han Imperial Army had proven itself to be equally trustworthy in war. Ishihara's reinforcements set out from the Shirakawa River, only 47 kilometers from the battlefield of Aizu-Wakamatsu's annihilation, and even the rumbling of artillery could be heard there. But at the end of the world, the six divisions led by Ishihara were blocked by the coastal army with only tens of thousands of people. With the support of powerful artillery firepower and the assistance of the air force, the coastal force fought a textbook classic blocking battle. In two days and one night, the coastal army paid more than 3,000 casualties, making it difficult for Ishihara's rescue corps to advance an inch, and watched as its eight divisions as reserve troops were surrounded and annihilated by the Allied forces.

The battle report was transmitted back to Chang'an, and when General Hans walked, even his waist was much straighter. The Coast Corps finally got rid of the unpleasant name of "being able to fly planes but not firing guns", and after the air cavalry troops, another iron army was produced.

His Majesty did not hesitate to reward, in addition to the general order of the whole army to commend, but also awarded the Third Army of the Coastal Corps the title of "Iron Guard", in fact, His Majesty almost shouted out the "Tower Hill Heroic Regiment" when thinking about this title, is this a repetition of history in another way? The same less than 50 kilometers, the same outnumbered, the same successful blockade, and even the same outcome - the besieged troops were completely annihilated. The difference may be the balance of forces between the two sides, the Third Army on the coast is stubbornly resisting with the superiority of ground and air firepower, while Tashan ...... Those warriors are even more worthy of singing and crying.

After this battle, Ishihara lost all his reserves, and it seems that the Japanese army still has nearly 20 divisions, which can be distributed on a defensive line nearly 100 kilometers wide, and each of them cannot be restrained. From the point of view of the battle, Ishihara has already been defeated, and if the commander of the Japanese army is replaced by the chairman, if the Japanese army is the Chongqing Army, then the next thing will definitely be a retreat. If one is not done well, it may even lead to a big rout. But Japan is not China, and the island country **** does not have the vast strategic depth of China, and they can't do it like the chairman, and they can still shout "I am the leader, I will lead you to counterattack......

Ishihara has long had no way out, and behind him is the Kanto Great Plains, Tokyo, and the Emperor! As he himself said: "If you lose, you will die for your country!" ”

However, Ishihara did not know that when the news of the annihilation of more than 100,000 Japanese troops on the front line once again reached Tokyo, Hirohito had already begun to "make a decision early". Emperor Showa is not military blind, and it can even be said that he is rough in military affairs, and he doesn't need to be told by others, he also understands that Nasutake is difficult to defend, not to mention, even if Ishihara can win a battle against the sky, but the allies can increase their troops from the coast at any time, and the final outcome is still that the Nasudake defense line is broken.

Hirohito thought about surrendering, but the emperor himself couldn't say it, otherwise he, the emperor, wouldn't have to do it again. Moreover, Uncle Dongkure means that he can't easily surrender at this time, which will give up a lot of bargaining chips in vain.

"Since Chief Ishihara can still resist for a while, why doesn't Your Majesty go south? General Itagaki still has hundreds of thousands of troops in the southern part of Honshu, which is enough to ensure the safety of the imperial family, and the matter of staying in Tokyo to negotiate will be left to the ministers! ”

Minoru Higashikure said that Emperor Showa, who had long been distraught, believed his uncle's words and fled Tokyo with Empress Ryoko with his four inner princes (princesses) and his only son, the crown prince, under the escort of the emperor's attendant guards.

When he walked out of the Imperial Palace, Emperor Showa was still a little reluctant, and the virtuous Empress Ryoko took off the emperor's glasses and helped him wipe away the tears from the corners of his eyes, "Your Majesty, we will come back!" ”

Will it? After receiving the news that the Emperor had left Tokyo, His Majesty in the Weiqing Pavilion smiled, "Mu Yu, call the Prince back, we are very satisfied with his work, and we will definitely meet all his requests in the future!" Seeing Mu Yu nodding, His Majesty comfortably twisted the swivel chair under his buttocks, "Vivian, telegraph Jiang Yunzhi: Attack with all your strength and kill Ishihara!" Before the end of the month, Director Mu will hold a reception in Ginza! ”