Chapter 809: The Japanese and Soviet Wars (1)

On the night of 24 August, gunfire was everywhere along the several hundred kilometers long border along the eastern section of the Sino-Soviet border, and important towns and military points in the northeast and in the Soviet Union along the border were attacked.

For the whole day of 25 August, the Sino-Soviet border was surprisingly calm, and there was no tension in the confrontation situation, nor could we see the movement of troops and horses before the advent of the big war, and the Japanese and Soviet sides seemed to deliberately maintain a certain sense of restraint.

Moreover, there was no reason not to fight, so he sent a telegram to the division commander Tang Qiuli, with only four words: "The rose withered", which means that the ignition stage of provoking the war between the Soviet Union and Japan has ended, and he asked for instructions on the next action task and direction.

In the outer western part of the ancient west, in the Sutai area of Uriya, Tang Qiuli, who commanded the troops and was still besieging Zhukov's First Army, received the telegram, and there was a chilling smile, Brother Qiuquan did a good job, more than a thousand people, attacking from multiple directions for two nights in a row, provoking a war between the two countries, this is definitely a superb director, and the mastermind behind the scenes is himself, how can he not be surprised.

To tell the truth, he really didn't want to take the method of completely destroying Zhukov and the hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops he had become a turtle in the urn, although this was an extremely easy battle, judging from the combat effectiveness and combat will of the Soviet soldiers in the encirclement, it would not take half a day for Zhukov and his men to become corpses, except as prisoners.

Tang Qiuli did not want to do this, there would be casualties in the war, and it did not conform to his overall strategic plan, encircling but not fighting, was the best strategy, and the Japanese and the Soviets went to war, which added a lot of highlights to his strategy, encircling Zhukov's troops, and ordering Liu Tiehan to retreat from Liaoxi, are the continuation and improvement of this strategy.

He sent a new order to Tang Qiuquan, "Captain Tang and all the special combat troops, your unit will continue to stay in this place and closely monitor the movements of Japan and the Soviet Union, according to your intelligence, this battle is inevitable, at the beginning of the war, in order to avoid the Japanese army from suffering severe blows from the Soviet army, your unit can take various ways to secretly help the Japanese army, it is best to take the beginning of the war, the Japanese army can push back the Soviet army to the area of the Outer Xing'an Mountains, and the specific action plan can be formulated according to the actual situation, and there is no need to report to the division headquarters. ”

This is Tang Qiuli's latest mission to the special operations detachment, and it is also the most difficult task, he didn't want the Japanese to be beaten by the Soviets at the beginning, spitting blood, which would lose the meaning of this operation, and also put an end to the ambition of the Japanese to go north, and turn all out to deal with China.

Historically, the war between Japan and the Soviet Union will inevitably break out, in the Nomén Kan area on the border between China and Méng, General Zhukov, commander and political commissar of the First Army of the Soviet Far East, commanded the troops, in the vast Gobi and steppes outside Méng, to the Kwantung Army, which had deep ambitions to advance northward, and dealt a heavy blow, in this battle, the Soviet army killed more than 50,000 soldiers of the Japanese Kwantung Army with more than 5,000 casualties, and more than 100,000 wounded.

This is a duel between aircraft, artillery, tanks and the god of bushido, Japan suffered a heavy defeat, this battle completely buried the ambition of the Kwantung Army to advance north, and instead put the main forces in China and Southeast Asia, conquered the city, invincible, swept away the traditional forces of Britain and the United States in Southeast Asia, expelled from Southeast Asia, and finally had a fundamental conflict of interests with Britain and the United States, and then the Pacific War broke out.

When Tang Qiuli saw this period of war history in later generations, there was a doubt that always bothered him: since the Japanese took the initiative to provoke the war between Japan and the Soviet Union, why did they choose the battlefield in the area of the ancient Gobi and the steppe, which was most conducive to the Soviet mechanized corps and giving full play to its advantages, Japan was the first-class military power in Asia at that time, and compared with Europe and the United States and other countries, it was a whole era behind in terms of tactical guiding ideology and weaponry.

Pulling hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the Gobi and steppe, which are flat and undefended, just gave the Soviet army under Zhukov's command a chance to give full play to its advantages, tanks, planes and artillery, for the Japanese army that advocates white-knuckle warfare, it is tantamount to a disaster, the Japanese used more than 50,000 lives, proving that bushido can not withstand aircraft, artillery and tanks, this battle. It also achieved Zhukov's prestige and finally entered Stalin's sight.

Whether it was the arrogance of the Japanese or the incompetence of the senior commanders, Tang Qiuli did not know, however, after countless times with the Japanese, he really did not dare to compliment the military quality of the senior commanders of the Japanese army, but found that the more middle and lower-level Japanese officers, the stronger the military quality and will to fight.

Now, the Japanese and the Soviets must go to war, but for the sake of two ambitious countries, he chose the eastern section of the Sino-Soviet border, an area covered with swamps and rivers, as a battlefield for polar bears and Japanese wolves, so that the Soviet planes, artillery and tanks lost more than half of their role, and fought a war of equal strength with the Japanese.

Moreover, Tang Qiuli didn't want the Japanese to be beaten by the Soviets from the beginning and knocked him to the ground, so that he would lose the biggest bargaining chip for using the Kwantung Army to contain the Soviets and add unnecessary difficulties to his future plans, so he ordered Qiuquan to help the Japanese army fight more smoothly.

Emperor Hirohito's mood was nervous, excited, and extremely irritable, and he had already received a report from the Kwantung Army, in which the commander of the Kwantung Army, Kenkichi Ueda, wrote: "On the night of August 24, the Kwantung Army's important towns and military facilities on the border with the Soviet Union were attacked and destroyed by the Soviets, and the Kwantung Army lost more than 1,400 killed, more than 200 missing, and countless wounded. ”

"Based on the reports of the situation in various places, I have come to the conclusion that this was deliberately provoked by the Soviet army and violated the territory of our Empire, and all the evidence collected shows that this is the regular troops of the Soviet army, which entered the territory of Manchukuo, and in response to the aggression launched by the troops of our empire, and based on the unreasonable protest of the Soviet army on the 23rd, it can be concluded that the Soviets have created incidents and excuses for invading the territory of Manchuria, and I implore Your Majesty to allow the Kwantung Army to move its main forces eastward to the border area of East Manchuria, and make preparations for battle."

In his report, Ueda Kenkichi also listed in detail the list of fallen officers and soldiers of the Kwantung Army, the situation of the lost materials, and the long list, which made the fire in Emperor Hirohito's heart arch straight upwards for a while.

The main force of the Soviet army in the Far East, Zhukov's First Army, was still surrounded by Tang Qiuli in the Uriya Sutai area, and even had the heart to stir up trouble on the Manchurian border. Take me Hirohito as a soft egg? He has a deep feeling of being insulted and bullied,

Emperor Hirohito, with a belly full of anger and a wounded heart, immediately convened a military meeting in front of the Emperor, and the meeting was on one topic, to fight or not to fight with the Soviets?

The military council was immediately divided into two factions, the Army advocated an immediate war with the Soviets, and to remain silent about such a blatant act of aggression was an insult to the Imperial Japanese Army, and it would also affect our image in the world.

The navy, on the other hand, advocated restraint and saw what attitude the Soviets had, and used guò foreign means to settle disputes, and now that the war against China was in a difficult situation, it was not appropriate to clash with the Soviets again, or to pour the main military forces into the Chinese theater and Southeast Asia, where there were various strategic resources that the empire urgently needed.

From the very beginning, the army and navy quarreled fiercely, and the essence of this was the long-standing land-sea dispute within the Japanese military circles, and the navy could not rely on the side at all when it entered the Siberian region of the Soviet Union in the north, and the credit for laying down a large area of Russian land belonged to the army, which made the arrogant navy, how could it swallow this breath.

The Japanese Army has always advocated a strategy of advancing northward, and the vast land and abundant resources of the Soviet Union's Siberian region are in the best interests of the Japanese Army, which is in the best interests of the Army, so that the Japanese Army can conquer the Siberian region, turn south to China, occupy all of its territory, and open up territory around the four Japanese islands.

Emperor Hirohito was just silent, and Foreign Minister Ishishè Inotaro, who attended the meeting, saw that it was not a solution to continue arguing like this, and that the problem could not be solved at all, so he proposed a compromise plan, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs first came forward and lodged a strict protest with the Soviet Union through the guòwaijiāo channel.

If the Soviet Union accepts the protest and compensates for the losses, there is no need for war, and if the Soviet Union flatly refuses to apologize and refuse to compensate for the losses, it is ready to go to war. ”

As soon as these words were finished, the senior generals of the army, the more they listened to it, the more they didn't feel it, and their hearts were on fire, this guy has always been in a hot fight with the navy, and he usually does some dark things for the navy, and now he jumps out to be a good person, isn't it obviously biased towards the navy?

War Minister Sugiyama Mototo stood up, first bowed deeply to Emperor Hirohito, and then said: "Ishishi-kun, let me remind you that the so-called stern protest put forward by the Soviet side on August 23 has already shown the attitude of the Soviets, that is, the determination to occupy the territory of Manchuria of the Japanese Empire is just an excuse. ”

Just kidding, such a big event, who can guarantee it, and who dares to guarantee it? Neither can the demigod and half-human emperor.