In the conference room of the Eighth Front, there were not only the generals of the troops who arrived later, but also some officers of the Seventeenth Army who had originally stayed in Rabaul.

Hearing Shao Zuo's analysis, a major general of the Seventeenth Army in Rabaul glanced at this Shao Zuo with some disgust, pointed to the tip of his nose and said:

"Nonsense! Our army is one to ten on the battlefield of China. Even in the battles of Singapore, Burma, the Philippines and Dutch East British India, there were more victories with less. General Imamura, who dared to slander the might of the army, I suggest that His Excellency the General should be relieved of his post and let him be sent to the Guadalcanal battlefield as a soldier. At that time, he knew that when Paozawa was starving, bleeding and dying, he should not talk nonsense like flies. ”

Without waiting for Imamura to speak, this young man was not afraid of the major general who pointed at the tip of his nose and said: "The victory of our army in the South Seas in the past was due to the supremacy of the sea and the air, and the enemy was surrounded and demoralized. This is not the case at all in Guadalcanal. Who here would dare to deny the courage and strength of the pilots, sailors, and marines of the Red Alert Empire? We had no air supremacy, and after three battles of the Solomons, we lost five battleships, and then lost sea supremacy. Therefore, the 38th Division was attacked by air strikes, and all its equipment and a large number of personnel sank into the sea. If we don't acknowledge these facts, we will fail. ”

Imamura listened, and waved his hand to signal both of them to sit down.

The bejeweled hall of the meeting room is furnished with old precious mahogany furniture, stained glass embedded in the windows, and large crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The atmosphere was heavy and oppressive, and the elegant Imamura could not ease the tension of the staff.

"His Majesty the Emperor has sent me here to settle the war on Guadalcanal, and you can tell me what is needed to conquer Guadalcanal and recapture Guadalcanal's airfield?"

No one can answer this question head-on, in the Guadalcanal battlefield, Japan has already invested more than four divisions, and who can say how many more troops are needed to fill this big hole.

Outside the window of the conference room, Fan Yize listened with great interest to the discussion inside, some people said that at least six missions were needed, some people simply said that they wanted ten divisions, and some people even said that at least twelve divisions were needed, and they needed the full cooperation of the Navy Combined Fleet.

Not to mention that Fan Yize wanted to laugh when he heard it, as the protagonist in the conference room, Imamura had already laughed: "All the forces of our army in the entire South Pacific and Southeast Asian theaters combined, there are only twelve divisions, according to your words, not only do you need to draw troops from the China battlefield, but you also need the last main force of the navy to come out, otherwise you will not be able to recover Guadalcanal?" ”

Everyone in the room fell silent, suggestion was one thing, in fact it could be another.

Talking about a military map is as simple as drinking water, but once you are on the battlefield, it is a completely different matter to actually deploy the army and command the war.

"If there is the cooperation of the combined fleet of the Navy, four divisions will be completely sufficient." Shao Zuo, who had been speaking before, stood up and faced Imamura Jun and said: "And the naval aviation needs to ensure that the Red Alert Empire is suppressed in terms of battlefield firepower and aviation superiority. ”

Imamura shook his head and said slowly: "The navy can't do it, after the failure of the Nagoya division, the navy has refused to send a fleet to the waters of Guadalcanal, and the navy has proposed to the base camp that the remaining forces of the navy should look for opportunities to seize sea supremacy, instead of sacrificing precious warships in that narrow sea area, in the past few months, the losses of the navy have already reached the point where they can not be bearable, and the words of Admiral Nagano Shufu blocked all possibilities." You can't lose the entire United Fleet for the sake of one airfield.' ”

At Imamura's side, a staff officer of the Osaku followed Imamura's words and said: "Due to the war on Guadalcanal, the ships requisitioned by the army cannot be returned, and it is even necessary to re-requisition civilian ships, and the Planning Institute will not approve more requisition. In addition, the army and navy are required to dismiss the 180,000-ton civilian ships that have been forcibly requisitioned next year, because all the shipyards in the country are producing warships, and the civilian ships cannot be numbered at all, and if they are sunk, they will be one, and it will be difficult to replenish them, which will seriously affect the domestic economy and may even lead to the collapse of the domestic economy. ”

Oil, coal, iron ore, grain, and other materials that are urgently needed for production and daily life in Japan must be transported by civilian ships.

Due to the frequent submarine activities of the Red Alert Empire, the total tonnage of Japanese civilian ships has dropped rapidly, and it is already impossible to guarantee the production of 3.5 million tons of steel planned for next year, and without these steel products, it will be difficult for Japan to maintain the operation of the battlefield next year.

In this war, Japan has not yet been defeated militarily, but its economic defeat has already begun.

No matter how much gold property Japan plundered in the occupied areas, there was no material to bring it back, and everything was in vain.

However, for the soldiers, war is not an arithmetic problem, because if war is an arithmetic problem, then for Japan, how dare it attack the United States, which has an annual output of 40 million tons, with an annual output of 40 million tons, and thus trigger a war.

War is never a one-to-one outcome.

Fan Yize, who was outside the window, just listened, but did not speak, he knew that yesterday, the Japanese cabinet had made a compromise, and the Planning Institute had also allocated 100,000 tons of civilian ships to the army.

But this did not solve the problem of the Japanese, which meant that the war on Guadalcanal was really going to end.

Fan Yize has a full understanding of this person, whether it is in history or in this time and space, the investigation has shown an unchangeable result, and the front line of the battlefield needs to be advanced.

Most of the other Japanese officers within the window were reluctant to accept the defeat in the Guadalcanal War, but this did not help.

The defeat in the Guadalcanal War was not the defeat of the Japanese officers and soldiers at the grassroots and front, but the failure of the decision-making of the Japanese military department.

The victory made the Japanese military somewhat blind, even in the face of the powerful Red Alert Empire, there was no fear.

In terms of military morale, this is indeed an advantage, but for the overall military strategy, it is a hidden danger of a huge failure.

In the conference room, the discussion continued, Fan Yize had quietly left the conference room, the sky was overcast, and the thunder was accompanied by dense raindrops.