Episode 57 Tsushima Strait: Ready to Fly

On June 28, at the invitation of the British Royal Navy and the German Navy, the battleship squadron "Yongle" of the Ming Imperial Navy sailed away from the main base on Zhoushan Island and began to go to Europe.

This detachment consisted of the battlecruiser "Zhurong", the battleship "Yongle", the heavy cruiser "Yue Fei", the heavy cruiser "Shizhong", the light cruiser "Mengtian", the light cruiser "Leyi", and 12 destroyers.

But at the same time, the Ming Ministry of Foreign Affairs was still negotiating with the secret envoy of the Soviet Union. The strategy of the Ming Dynasty is to drag it out first, prolong the negotiations as much as possible, and whether the Soviet Union declares war or not, it must first get as many American supplies as possible. At the same time, sending the fleet to Britain and Germany for a "friendly visit" was also to put pressure on the Soviet Union, so that Moscow would not dare to declare war lightly during the negotiations, and let Stalin know that the Ming Dynasty was not without countermeasures.

And Stalin completely saw through the Ming Dynasty's "dragging" formula. Over the course of several days, the secret envoy was repeatedly forced to demand that no further imports of materials be allowed during the negotiations. In addition to a few ships that have already been shipped, the remaining cargo must no longer be shipped from the United States. This Da Ming will definitely not do it. What Nanjing wants is to drag, and the purpose of towing is to get as much war materials as possible. The Soviet Union's request was tantamount to seeking the skin of a tiger.

The so-called "concessions" proposed by the Soviet Union, that is, the Soviet Union ceded Hami and Turpan, which had already occupied, in exchange for the Ming Dynasty's recognition of the "Ili Kingdom", which was also unacceptable to Nanjing.

So two days later, on June 30, another detachment sailed out of Zhoushan Port. The flagship of this second detachment was the battleship "Zhengde", accompanied by the heavy cruiser "Li Guang", and six destroyers. After leaving the Zhoushan Islands, the eight warships headed directly to the northeast, that is, the direction of the Tsushima Strait.

The destination couldn't be clearer. It was clearly aimed at Vladivostok. For a time, the atmosphere in Northeast Asia became extremely tense. The eyes of the whole world are on this detachment.

At noon on the same day, the Minister of the Ming Navy announced on the radio that in order to test the combat capability of the Ming Navy in different sea conditions, the Ming Navy will conduct a military exercise in the northern waters at high latitudes. The Sea of Japan will be selected for the entire month of July.

"Given that the Sea of Japan is on the high seas," the Secretary of the Navy said, "any country can conduct exercises in this area." It is hoped that the parties or countries concerned will refrain from making unnecessary far-fetched arguments, so as not to adversely affect peace and stability in the region. ”

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On the evening of the 30th, Stalin also made a rather tough speech on the radio. He said that although the Soviet people were peace-loving, they would never be intimidated by imperialist military intimidation. If the Ming fleet sailed through the Tsushima Strait and stepped into the Sea of Japan, it would be seen as a challenge to the Soviet Union, which would see it as an act of war.

So, this bomb, which would explode at any time, was thrown back into Da Ming's hands. Now the Ming government is faced with two choices: one is to conduct "exercises" through the Tsushima Strait and into the Sea of Japan as usual. Then it was possible to trigger a declaration of war by the Soviet Union. The second is to turn around and return to the sea without entering the Sea of Japan. That would ease the tension, but Da Ming would slap himself in the face in front of the whole world and make him disgraced.

No one in the Ming government expected that Stalin would be so reckless. According to the normal international concept, military exercises are nothing more than a form of "dialogue" and are far from escalating to the brink of "war", and both sides still have a lot of way to go. Unexpectedly, Stalin would cut off all the back roads of both sides at once.

Obviously, the Ming side did not want to be "declared war". Although the two sides are already at actual war, once war is officially declared, it is very likely that the supplies from the United States will not be able to be transported. Of course, from another aspect, the Ming Dynasty can also let go of its hands and feet and deal with the Soviet Union in various places outside the Central Asian theater. This is tantamount to a lose-lose, "lose-lose" approach. And the USSR clearly did not care.

If the Ming wanted to avoid a declaration of war, they could only make up their minds here in Japan.

On the morning of 1 July, when the Zhengde detachment was still 10 hours away from the Tsushima Strait, a destroyer of the Ming Nanyang Fleet seized a Japanese cargo ship in the Strait of Malacca, under the pretext of receiving a tip-off that it was suspected that it was carrying smugglers from the Dutch East Indies and wanted to smuggle these East Indian natives to the Ming island of Sumatra. Of course, since Sumatra became the territory of the Ming Dynasty, it has gradually become one of the candidates for smuggling of people of all ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. This is not unfounded.

Then, the Ming spies who were lurking in Tokyo began to distribute leaflets in various ways. Secretly distribute them by themselves, hire people to distribute them, sneak into newspaper offices and clip leaflets in consignment newspapers...... The blood written on the leaflet was boiling, as if the Ming Dynasty had reached Japan's neck to, and Japan would be ruined if it continued to be cowardly. In particular, the spies lurking in the Japanese Army fanned the flames even more impassionedly, arousing the indignation of a group of young Zhuang faction officers, and there was a great tendency to repeat the situation on 26 February.

Sure enough, as the politicians in Nanjing expected, before noon on July 1, the whole of Tokyo was boiling. Angry Tokyo citizens roared in the streets and rallied in front of the Diet and the Prime Minister's official residence, unanimously demanding that the Reich take steps to declare war on Ming.

Of course, many level-headed politicians, scholars, and experts, although they do not approve of declaring war on the Ming, they also feel that some tough measures should be taken against the Ming State. For example, the Ming fleet was forbidden to pass through the Tsushima Strait, and the Ming fleet was forbidden to enter Japan for exercises.

And those Japanese angry youths wore white cloth of the sun flag on their foreheads, and surrounded the Ming Embassy. Stones, slabs and bricks kept being thrown in. There are also people burning the Ming flag.

There was even a Japanese high school student kneeling in front of the Emperor's Palace, pouring gasoline on himself and lighting a fire......

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The Japanese prime minister was anxious for a while. He summoned several relevant ministers to an urgent meeting to discuss countermeasures. Nanjing's trick has already been seen clearly by several old foxes in the Japanese cabinet. They knew that the Ming Dynasty wanted to provoke Japan to take "tough measures" and prohibit the Ming fleet from passing through the Tsushima Strait. In this way, the Ming fleet can justifiably go home - it's not that we don't dare to go to the exercises, it's that Japan won't let us pass, we can't help it, and that's why you, the Soviet Union, are cheap.

Japan has long wanted to let the Ming and the Soviet Union fight as big as possible, and it is better for both sides to fall into the quagmire of war and fall into the mud. The more this happens, the better the chances of Japan winning if they join in. Now it is clear that the Ming fleet must be allowed to enter the Sea of Japan. Not to mention that the Ming Dynasty detained the Japanese cargo ship, even if the Ming planes ran into the sky over Japan and dropped bombs, Japan would have to endure it now and greet the Ming fleet across the strait with a smile.

But now the whole country is outraged. Especially in the Army, the mood of the officers of the Young Zhuang faction has been difficult to suppress. These politicians are really afraid that their heads will fall off again, as they have done in previous coups.

Now they looked at the clock on the wall, and the clock was passing by minute by minute, and in four hours, the Ming fleet would sail into the Tsushima Strait. If you don't let it go, you have to come up with an accurate idea right away.