After the Second Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army captured the three towns of Wuhan, but the Nationalist Government did not surrender as the Japanese army imagined, but withdrew government agencies and most of the factories and enterprises to Chongqing and continued to persist in the War of Resistance.

Due to the extremely heavy losses of the Japanese army in the Second Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army in central China was no longer able to continue to launch a large-scale offensive, not to mention that there were still a large number of Chinese troops in Jiangxi and Hubei, which could launch a counteroffensive at any time, so the General Headquarters of the Chinese Dispatch Army ordered the next task of all troops to consolidate the occupied area and not to clash with the government forces in China for the time being.

The threat of the Eighth Theater was too great, and in less than a month, the North China Front lost more than 30,000 men, which made General Binshan Yuan extremely annoyed, so he asked the base camp for help in the name of the commander of the North China Front, requesting that more troops be mobilized to North China, otherwise the North China Front would lose its offensive capability.

The Japanese army base camp also attached great importance to the telegram sent by General Binshan Yuan, and they also saw the threat of the Eighth Theater of Operations, and more importantly, Chen Feng had frequent activities with the United States, the Soviet Union and the Australian government during this period, which in itself made the sensitive Japanese government feel threatened.

The resistance of the Chinese is not terrible, after all, where China's national strength is, it is a hard wound, and without the assistance of external resources, China cannot be the opponent of the Great Japanese Empire. But in fact, Japan has already felt tremendous pressure from the outside, not to mention the Soviet side. After all, the hostility between the Soviet Union and Japan was already clear, and no matter what the considerations, it was normal for the Soviet Union to assist China in resisting Japan.

But now, Japan is feeling not only deep pressure from the Soviet Union, but also a faint hostility from the US government and the Australian government, which the Japanese government is last willing to see.

The United States has been Japan's most important trading partner for decades, and in recent years the United States has become Japan's largest trading country and the main source of imports of Japan's military supplies, including steel and oil, which are most scarce in Japan. It can be said that the scrap steel of the United States and the large amount of crude oil support Japan's high-speed war machine.

However. This trade has changed since last year, when the U.S. government began to reduce the total amount of exports to Japan, and then stopped exporting strategic goods such as steel to Japan, except for non-essential civilian goods. Japan can hardly buy any strategic materials from the United States.

These things can be seen from the total trade volume between the United States and Japan in the past three years. In 1937, Japan's imports from the United States totaled $270 million. Among them, the total amount of military goods was $180 million; in 1938 the total trade between the two countries was $190 million, of which the total amount of military goods was $50 million; in 1939, the total trade volume between the two countries fell again, only $90 million. Among them, the turnover of military supplies is almost zero.

In the past three years, the US-Japan trade has continued to decline, and the United States has become less and less supportive of Japan, but the trade with Chen Feng's department has become bigger and bigger, and the total amount of transactions between the two sides in 1938 alone has reached $2.2 billion, a figure that the Japanese government obtained from a high-ranking official in the United States at great expense.

Not to mention the Australian government, the sale of New Guinea and Tasmania entrusted by the League of Nations to Chen Feng has touched Japan's bottom line, and it can be said that the Australian government does not take the Japanese government seriously at all.

All this annoyed the Japanese government, and it was with the support of the American, Soviet and Australian governments that that the hateful and bastard Shina could grow so quickly in such a short period of time, especially its air force and tank units.

According to the statistics of the North China Front, Chen Feng's division in China had no air force at all in the 12th year of Showa (1937), let alone charioteers, and only a few regiments of ordinary infantry under his command, but now, that guy not only has a huge number of air forces, but also hundreds of powerful chariots. The reason why the Imperial Japanese Army suffered such huge losses this time was directly related to the fact that bastard transferred the air force in his hands to Wuhan, if it weren't for the empire to produce new fighters in advance, the second Battle of Wuhan would definitely be even more difficult than this, and the losses would be even greater.

Now that the government of China has been driven to Chongqing, although it still has the strength to fight a war, it is no longer enough to fear, so this hateful general has become the greatest threat to the Japanese Empire, and it must be dealt with quickly.

On 2 November, the Japanese army headquarters convened a meeting of some officers above the rank of lieutenant general to discuss how to solve the problem of Chen Feng in China, and the vast majority of officers believed that it was necessary to increase troops in the North China region with all their powers, and then concentrate the Kwantung Army and the North China Front Army to jointly attack the Eighth Theater of Operations in China, and to annihilate Chen Feng's headquarters in China.

However, there are still some officers who believe that they should not make a big deal against warlords like Chen Feng. The reason is that Chen Feng is now full-fledged, and he is by no means comparable to ordinary Chinese officers, so to deal with such a large people, the Japanese Empire should mainly rely on co-opting, supplemented by military strikes. After all, from the perspective of national unification and personal goals, Chen Feng, a warlord whose main goal is to be the emperor of the country, is on the opposite side of the government of China, so the Japanese Empire has every possibility of cooperating with him.

As long as the Empire of Japan does not threaten the survival and development of the Ministry, and even supports its claim to the founding of the Emperor if possible, it should be possible to reach an understanding with it, of course, this requires the Empire to abandon its hatred with Chen Feng's Ministry.

However, the vast majority of Japanese officers were unwilling to reconcile with Chen Feng's department, as for the reason, let's not talk about it, there are too many, there are no less than 20 Japanese generals who have lost in Chen Feng's hands alone, not to mention ordinary Japanese soldiers, and there is also an imperial aircraft carrier and a large number of naval officers and soldiers killed in the hands of Chen Feng's department, even if the army is willing to give up hatred, I am afraid that the navy will not forgive.

The army and navy have already reached the point where water and fire are incompatible, and if the army insists on going its own way without regard to the feelings of the navy, it is very likely that the navy and army will completely turn their faces with the smell of gunpowder, and that is not what the army top brass wants to see. After all, the full support of the navy is still needed on the battlefield in China, and if there is no navy to help transport troops, the land forces that rely on China alone will not be able to withstand the crazy attack of the people.

After several days of deliberation, the Japanese base camp finally decided to immediately carry out the fourth national mobilization in the country, with 10 infantry divisions as fast as possible, to deal with the situation in China, and at the same time to reinforce the North China Front as quickly as possible.

In view of the large number of chariot units in the 8th Theater of Operations in China, the Empire of Japan immediately formed a large-scale chariot unit, and at the same time transferred the newly formed 3rd Chariot Division to the North China Front Army under the command of General Binshan Moto.

In addition, there are at least 1,300 fighters in the Eighth Theater of Operations, and although they shot down more than 200 of them during the Second Battle of Wuhan, there are still nearly 1,000 fighters.

However, the new fighters newly produced by the Japanese Empire have already passed the test of actual combat, and their performance is really too good, far from being comparable with the Yi-15 and 16 fighters equipped with the Eighth Theater of Operations in China, so it is necessary to strengthen the strength of the aviation regiment, so the base camp of the Japanese army is ready to add 800 fighters to the four aviation wings of the North China Front, including 200 new fighters, and then look at the opportunity to annihilate the air force of the Eighth Theater of China in one fell swoop.

At the same time, the base camp of the Japanese army concentrated on discussing the final direction of the Sino-Japanese war; according to the ideas of the top level of the Japanese government, this war could not be fought again in any case, and the great Japanese empire must end this war as soon as possible on the premise of obtaining the greatest benefits, and in the past three years of the war, the great Japanese empire has invested a total of more than 240 billion yen in military expenditure, which is 1.5 times the national fiscal revenue of Japan in the past three years. As a result, the economy of the Great Japanese Empire fell into an extremely difficult and dangerous situation, and if it continued like this, the Great Japanese Empire would not only not reap the benefits, but would probably be dragged down by the Shina people, and in the end it would only be cheaper for the Western powers.

The vast majority of officers do not know much about Japan's economy, so there are not many officers who are in favor of ending the war as soon as possible, and many officers believe that the Imperial Japanese Army has now defeated the second capital of the Shina government, and the Shina government army has suffered heavy losses, and as long as they persist in holding on, the Shina government will be completely defeated, and when the time comes, surrender is their only way out, and the Great Japanese Empire will realize the dream of landing on the mainland for thousands of years.

Therefore, the final result of the discussion was that the base camp would make a proposal to His Majesty the Emperor, continue to increase the number of troops in China, and at the same time support the anti-Chiang forces in China, such as Wang or Zhou, and establish a government that was completely subordinate to the orders of the Japanese Empire, so as to divide the government of China, and at the same time to digest the occupied security areas as soon as possible.

The main thing is to bring back the materials of the occupied territories as soon as possible in order to compensate for the losses and attrition of the civil war. In addition, it is necessary to send people to continue to communicate with the US government, even if it is to bribe those US congressmen, there is no need to restore US-Japan relations to the pre-war level, that is, the United States supports the Japanese Empire's war against China.

As long as the U.S. government is willing to support the Empire of Japan, then the Empire will have the capital and guarantee to continue the war, and the benefits of the Empire will be greater by the end of the war. (To be continued......)