Chapter 36: The Collapse of the Empire and the Great Chaos (I)

After being ravaged three times by the U.S. and Japanese forces, and after being killed indiscriminately by their own people, Okinawa Prefecture, which had a population of only 470,000, is now full of mourning, and there is no one who does not hold a funeral, or has become a desperate household, so there is no need to do a funeral...... But even so, looking at the sun flag raised again, the surviving Okinawan citizens could only hold back the tears in their eyes and bury all their sorrow and hatred deep in their hearts. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

There is no way, just like the ancient Ryukyu Kingdom could not stop the Satsuma Domain's remote attack, and the current Okinawa does not have any power to rebel against the strong.

From the wharf of Naha Port, countless large and small steel ships cover the entire sea as far as the eye can see, and the masts are as dense as a jungle and even extend beyond the horizon, fully reflecting the power and charm of modern industry.

Especially when Rear Admiral Kamishitoku and his battleship formation rushed from Hainan Island to rendezvous, looking at the four majestic Yamato-class battleships on the distant sea, even those Ryukyuan people who had just been ruined by the scourge of the war could not help but be deeply attracted and their hearts fluttered.

-- The worship and pursuit of all kinds of powerful things have long been engraved in the blood of mankind, and it is by no means something that can be shaken by any propaganda.

However, although the four majestic Yamato-class battleships were so domineering on the sunny sea, they were like hills standing on the sea. But compared to another supership that looks like a steel floating island, it pales in comparison.

- 420 meters long, erected taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris; The full load displacement is 300,000 tons, which is more than the sum of the four Yamato-class battleships; With sixteen decks and a draft of nine and a half meters, it is impossible to dock at Naha Port at all, and can only anchor in the deep open sea.

This is the ship's mother, Miss Sophie, using the power of her faith, the rich iron ore in western Australia, and the Doraemon black technology props brought by Wang Qiu, the world's first super giant transport ship "Ocean Oasis" that has just been built, and now it is its maiden voyage.

Its prototype is the largest cruise ship of the American "Royal Caribbean" cruise line in the 21st century, and it is also the largest cruise ship in the world, another "Ocean Oasis" luxury cruise ship. The "Oasis of the Seas" of the "Royal Caribbean" cruise line, with 2,000 cabins and a capacity of 6,000 passengers, can definitely boast of being the "largest and most luxurious", which is undoubtedly another miracle in the history of cruise shipbuilding. In addition to the cabins of various grades, there is a large shopping mall, numerous bars and restaurants, an outdoor amphitheater the size of a football field, as well as fitness facilities such as swimming pools, carousels, climbing walls, and even a walking street on board and an open-air garden with hundreds of palm trees and thousands of shrubs and flowers on board! Hence the name of the ship, the Oasis of the Sea. When it sails on the sea, it is almost like a "traveling city".

Of course, the "Oasis of the Seas" on the World War II plane on Sophie's side, in order to adapt to wartime needs, did not have such luxury. After enlarging the hull to 300,000 tons in a certain proportion, Sophie unceremoniously cut down all the entertainment facilities such as cinemas, cafes, ice rinks, amphitheaters, swimming pools, and merry-go-rounds, especially the trees and flowers in the sea gardens that took up space and consumed water, and were among the first to be eliminated, thus freeing up a lot of spare space. Then, the original luxurious and comfortable hotel-level suites were all changed to cramped and crowded third-class cabins.

On top of the huge hull, except for the most basic canteens, toilets and shower facilities, only the cabins for passengers remained, and they were crowded like sleeper trains in order to carry as many people as possible - the 21st century luxury cruise ship "Oasis of the Seas" could only carry 6,000 passengers, while the "Oasis of the Seas" in the World War II plane could transport at least 80,000 people at a time!! The trade-off, of course, is that the standard of living of the passengers has dropped from the standard of a high-end hotel to the standard of a prison, and even the drinking water can only be drunk from the foul-smelling desalinated seawater......

However, for a refugee ship that was originally designed to evacuate expatriates and Rajandin, it really couldn't ask for more.

- No matter what kind of prison standards are, at least they are much stronger than the "piglet boats" that trafficked Chinese workers to the United States in the last century!

On the other hand, although the living conditions are a little cold, compared with the heavy oil cruise ship in the 21st century, the "Oasis of the Seas" in this plane can be called advanced in terms of power system, as if science fiction: energy is from the Marvel world's Iron Man masterpiece, a palladium metal fusion reactor that can provide almost unlimited power! The ship's engine is an all-electric drive that has not been widely used in the 21st century!

- Electric motor drives the propeller, electric heating, air conditioning throughout the ship, 24-hour hot water supply, and even the kitchen uses microwave ovens and induction cookers. What's more, the abundant energy brought by nuclear fusion has allowed this 300,000-ton super giant ship to run at a high speed of 35 knots!

In the era of World War II, this was already a very incredible speed for civilian ships. At that time, the "free wheel" mass-produced in the United States had a displacement of 7,000 tons and a maximum speed of only 11 knots...... Compared to the fusion-powered "Oasis of the Seas", it is almost like a turtle crawling slowly.

In short, when the Japanese expatriates who had evacuated Okinawa dragged their children and daughters, carried large bags and small bags, and boarded the naval landing craft of the cameo ferry, they all couldn't help but cheer excitedly and felt a sense of relief.

INTERVIEWER Even if Tokyo no longer exists, as long as the country still has such a large fleet, there must still be hope, right?

However, the commander of the 300,000-ton supership and the entire megaton transport fleet, Admiral Horikichi of the Japanese Navy, stood on the side of the 12-story top deck of the "Ocean Oasis" and looked at the endless stream of refugees on the docks and on the sea.

“…… The last group of refugees has been assembled at the pier and is expected to be embarking within two hours. ”

Ms. Sophie's newest doppelganger, the mother of the 300,000-ton supership "Oasis of the Seas", a brown-skinned bodybuilder wearing a straw hat, a garland around her neck, and a white sleeveless dress, raised her hand and saluted Admiral Horikichi.

“…… Got it! Alas, looking at the appearance of Okinawa Prefecture, it is obviously impossible to use this place as a base for counterattack. ”

In this regard, Admiral Horikichi just sighed and shook his head, "...... After such a catastrophe, the locals no longer have the slightest sense of belonging to the country, and it will take at least a few weeks to wipe out the guerrillas and the remnants of the American army on the island...... But do we have so much time? ”

- Obviously, there is not much time left for the Combined Fleet today, because the situation on the ground can no longer be sustained.

Although the capture of US commander MacArthur last month was a shot in the arm for the resistance movement in the Japanese archipelago, the defense of Nagoya was ultimately lost, and the US occupation zone in the Japanese archipelago was already connected from Osaka and Kyoto to Tokyo, which was the most industrial, agricultural, and economically developed and densely populated elite area of the Japanese Empire. As for the rest of the place, it is relatively poor and remote.

In other words, the strategic situation in the Japanese archipelago today is similar to that of China after its defeat in the Battle of Wuhan in 1938.

The loss of this most developed hinterland, coupled with the indiscriminate bombing of the remaining industrial cities such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US military, has completely halted the military industrial production system of the Japanese Empire. It was difficult for the Japanese resistance forces to replenish their arms and baggage, so they could only rely on the consumption of stocks to fight.

What is even more dangerous is that the US military has already found a number of powerful leading party and the fifth column in Japan, or the Japanese "Wang Jingwei......

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-- The so-called imperialism of modern countries is basically a combination of the aristocracy, the chaebol and the warlord, that is, the Leviathan in which a small group of people monopolize the political power and economic interests of the entire country and coerce the people of a country to war. Imperialism after the armed industrialization is inevitably belligerent and has to be belligerent, because only through war can internal contradictions be diverted, otherwise it can only sit back and wait for the revolution to come.

As an imperialist country, especially a late-developing imperialist country with a late start and small capital, the situation of the Japanese Empire is also the same, and the internal and external environment is even more severe than that of the European and American powers. And this determined the political structure and division of power in the Japanese Empire.

On the surface, the Japanese people revered the emperor: Muhito during the Meiji period, Kahito during the Taisho period, and Hirohito during the Showa period. Its roots can be traced back to the time when Emperor Jimmu founded the country 2,600 years ago. According to Shintoism, the emperor is the son of the sun goddess, and Japan is an island country under the protection of the sun goddess. Without this kind of deification and worship of the emperor, the Imperial Japanese Army would not have been able to tie 72 million Japanese people to chariots.

But in fact, not to mention the shogunate era, when the power of the imperial court was lost and the emperor was virtually nonexistent, even after the Meiji Restoration, the power of the emperor in modern Japan was still large and sometimes small, sometimes he was able to drive the country to run according to his own will, and sometimes he was completely overridden by the ministers, and he could not do everything.

In general, Emperor Showa's pre-war power was far from the level of Stalin and Hitler, and even much worse than that of Roosevelt. And in the midst of the war, they were also deceived by the army and navy, all kinds of anger, and all kinds of helplessness.

The forces that really dominated the political situation in the Japanese Empire forever were, like the monarchies of the West, the Japanese aristocracy, the chaebols, and the warlords.

First of all, the Japanese aristocracy, or large landowners. Although Japan has been "civilized" for more than 70 years since the Meiji Restoration, local feudal forces are still deeply rooted. Many wealthy families from ancient daimyo have been rooted in their hometowns for hundreds or even thousands of years, whether it is the abolition of feudal counties, the equality of the four people, or the occupation of the US military in later generations, they can not really destroy their terrible heritage, no matter when, they have their own spokesmen in the government. This force is indeed old and outdated, and it is scattered, and it is difficult to show it in normal times, but it still cannot be ignored.

Then there is the Japanese chaebol, although the history of the Japanese empire is only a few decades, but at this time the Japanese chaebol is no longer a yellow-haired boy who has not dried up, and has already completed the concentration and monopoly of capital, controlling the operation of Japan's economy from all aspects. Whether it was the old Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and other groups, or the "Manchurian Heavy Industries", "Nippon Nitrogen", "Nippon Soda" and "Sen" conglomerates, which were fattened with the resources of Northeast China and Korea, they all had a great influence on the political situation of the empire. At some point, even the emperor had to be at the mercy of their will.

And the only force that can compete with the chaebols is the Japanese military department. Any real empire must rely on a strong army to maintain and develop, and in order to build an army capable of expanding its territory with its limited national strength and relatively backward society, Japan has to use its strength and wealth to raise troops. At the same time, because of the tradition of advocating the samurai since ancient times, the status of military personnel was high from the beginning.

However, the chaebols and aristocrats who actually controlled Japan also knew very well that the military was a double-edged sword, which could hurt both others and themselves, so they paid great attention to the control of military power. Although in order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the army, it is not possible to engage in any "worldly officials", but still try to let the children of nobles and chaebols enter the army to gild, so as to grasp some military power. For those poor officers who climbed up through personal struggle, they did not hesitate to use methods such as marriage to entrap them. At the same time, it also fostered some bourgeois liberal political parties in society to prevent militarist education from going too far and completely depriving it of the right to speak in public opinion.

Therefore, although before World War II, Japan's navy and army had gradually begun to be unruly and often played against the government, in the final analysis, it was still only a struggle for power within the ruling class, and there was no real disagreement on the general policy of external expansion and internal repression.

The Japanese Communist Party, which represented the interests of the workers' and peasants' classes, was brutally and bloodily suppressed from the very beginning, and a large number of party members were either killed or detained. Although it has been difficult to truly ban the red ideology among the Japanese people and intellectuals because of the harsh exploitation and oppression and the miserable life of the day, and there are even some "socialists" in the top echelons of the country, it is difficult to shake the entire imperial structure unless it encounters drastic changes.

However, with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, as well as the lack of foresight and hasty decision-making of the Japanese rulers, this once rock-solid imperial structure has quietly undergone subtle changes - all imperialists like to use military force, and they all like war and conquest. But the question is, is it true that for the rulers of the imperialist regimes, the larger the army, the better, and the more troops, the better?

Apparently not, because soldiers are not machines, they have their own thoughts and demands. For the imperialists, the army exists, first and foremost, to safeguard the interests of the ruling class. If the army cannot be held in their hands, what is the point of the saber no matter how sharp it is? Of course, on the other hand, if the saber is so blunt that it can't cut anything, such a waste wood army is useless even if it is held in the hand.

So, how can we ensure that the army has a certain combat effectiveness and is firmly controlled by the ruling class? As an armed group that requires strict discipline, the most important soul of any army in ancient and modern times, both Chinese and foreign, is non-commissioned officers and officers. And for the sake of the interests of the ruling class, it is necessary to ensure that the majority of the officers must come out of the middle of the ruling class, or at least be co-opted by the ruling class with interests and marriages after they have come out.

But the problem is that in any country, the number of people in the ruling class is limited, and the interests that can be used to encompass the interests of the people are also limited.

If the size of the army is so large that the number of officers and non-commissioned officers increases in proportion to the fact that it is impossible to bring most of them into the upper class, then it may be okay to fight abroad, but when it is necessary for the army to turn around and target its own people, will such an army necessarily suppress the civilians for the benefit of the upper class, instead of decisively defecting and making a revolution with the people?

The European and American powers saw this very early on, for example, in the era of the Second German Reich, in order to ensure their firm control of the army, the Juncker officer corps deliberately limited the size of the German army for a long time - it stands to reason that after using universal compulsory military service to gather an unprecedented army of one million and successfully defeating France by virtue of a two-to-one superiority in troops, the Germans should always regard this magic weapon as a guideline. In reality, however, from the end of the Franco-Prussian War until the outbreak of World War I, the German Empire never really implemented universal compulsory military service.

At the time of the Franco-Prussian War, Germany had a population of only 43 million, but it still raised an army of 1 million. However, on the eve of World War I, Germany's population had grown to 67 million, and the entire navy and army had shrunk to only 890,000...... This was obviously not due to lack of money, at that time Russia was far more financially poor than Germany, but still maintained a standing army of 1.3 million, and had to support a large fleet to go around the world to fight the Japanese.

The real reason was that in the Second German Reich at that time, there were no longer enough Junker aristocrats and bourgeois children who could serve as officers, and for the fundamental interests of the brazen Junker officer corps, the so-called militarist Germany had to deliberately limit the size of the army.

Although the Junker aristocracy at that time put almost all of their qualified children into the army as non-commissioned officers, on the eve of World War I, in the German Empire, only about one-third of the officers and non-commissioned officers from the junior ranks and aristocrats, plus only two-thirds of the non-commissioned officers and officers from the bourgeoisie, could maintain the control of the ruling class over the army - of course, the positions of senior officers were basically monopolized and controlled by the Junker aristocracy.

However, with the outbreak of the First World War, Germany had to expand its army again and again, and finally mobilized a total of 13 million men in the four years of the war. Once the size of the army expands several times or dozens of times like this, it will have to make civilians the main body of middle- and low-ranking officers.

In this way, the crowns of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire fell and were shattered in the war—the downfall of these dynasties was largely due to defeat, but before World War I, whether it was the Hohenzollern dynasty of Germany (Prussia), the Habsburg dynasty of Austria-Hungary, or the Romanov dynasty of the Tsarist Russian Empire, they all fought many defeats in the past history. Especially during the Napoleonic Wars, all three were beaten to the brink by Napoleon the Great. Why was it that although they were defeated badly at that time, they did not destroy the entire dynasty, but the First World War allowed them to finally perish? Because before the advent of general warfare, war was a fierce sport in which only "professional players" could participate, and even if the war was lost, the army was still in the hands of the aristocracy, and it could still be used to suppress the revolting people, while the general war made the main body of the officers change from nobles to commoners, so that the army was actually no longer in the hands of the aristocracy, and could only fight externally, and could not suppress the domestic revolution.

To sum up, only those who wield the strongest force can hold the highest power. For an imperialist country, a general war of all-round expansion and general mobilization means that the army has actually slipped from the upper class to the hands of the common people, and if it wins, then it can also use the war dividend to alleviate domestic contradictions, and then by leading the post-war army recovery work, the upper class will regain the dominant position among officers and non-commissioned officers, and restore the old order of the empire; If the all-out war is lost, then the empire is doomed to the destruction of the civilian uprising, which cannot be suppressed by force.

That is, once the general mobilization begins, then the Imperial Chariot can only be victorious or destroyed, and there is no third way to go.

This is true in Europe as well as it is true in Japan. Before World War II, the population of the Japanese archipelago was 72 million, or about 100 million if you count Korea and Taiwan. Until the eve of the July 7 Incident, Japan's standing army was only 380,000 people, which is said to be a reckless force, but in fact, in terms of the ratio of soldiers to civilians, it was actually much lower than that of France and Germany - on the eve of the invasion of Poland, Germany had already expanded its army to 1.2 million!

Because the class contradictions in the Japanese Empire were so serious, even in the army of only 380,000 men, the revolutionary mood was already very serious, and its specific external manifestations were a series of bloody open and covert struggles between the imperial faction representing the lower strata and the ruling faction representing the upper strata. Although in the eyes of the Chinese, these two groups are the same fascists, for Japanese society, it is no longer a factional struggle between small political groups, but a class struggle in a sense. If you must give a similar example, it is probably similar to the dispute between the commoners and the aristocracy in the ancient Roman Republic: the grassroots royal faction demanded that the whole people share the dividends of aggression and expansion, while the ruling faction from the gate lords and elites controlled all interests and refused to let go at all.

-- According to the political spectrum that prevails in modern times, the former can roughly represent the "left" and the latter represent the "right".

Fortunately, at that time, the Japanese Army was still only 380,000 men, and although the idea of the Imperial Daoist School was very marketable among young officers from poor backgrounds, according to the proportion of numbers, it was still the officers and non-commissioned officers of the upper class who had a slight advantage. In addition, the imperial faction itself was in a chaotic organization, making the revolution not like a revolution and the party struggle not like a party struggle, and finally after a violent run out in the "226" mutiny, it was suppressed by the unification faction and temporarily died down.

But the problem is that next, with the full-scale outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the mighty Imperial Japanese Army had to gradually start a general mobilization while occupying a large area of land. By the end of 1937, Japan had expanded its military to 1 million, and by 1940 it was 1.5 million. Then, after declaring war on the United States and Britain, in order to open up the southern battlefield, it was expanded to 2.2 million at the end of 1941, followed by 3 million, 4 million, and 5 million......

As a result, just like the Second German Empire during World War I, the Japanese Empire, which launched a general war, gradually shifted the actual power of its army from the upper classes to the common people as the size of its army expanded rapidly...... Not to mention that the Japanese army before the war was already seriously unstable, and the imperial forces in the army have never been eradicated!

In other words, in the Pacific War, the Imperial Japanese Army, which was highly civilian because of excessive water injection, had turned from a tool of the ruling class of the Japanese Empire to suppress the common people into a potential revolutionary force! Just like the massively expanded naval and army of the Tsarist Empire before the February Revolution!

As a result, the Japanese Empire had no choice but victory and destruction. If a treaty of "loss of power and humiliation of the country" is signed to stop the war, it will inevitably be followed by mutinies and revolutions like when the Second German Reich fell - do not think that the Japanese are born servile and have no revolutionary spirit, in fact, the Japanese have been suffering from various incidents from ancient times to the present. Although it is indeed unlikely that the emperor system will be directly overthrown, there are many precedents in the history of Japan for the former emperor to be deposed and exiled and replaced by a single emperor.

Not to mention that due to the covert infiltration of certain forces, when the Pacific War was fought in 1945, the entire Imperial Japanese Army was already full of red brains that had been "poisoned" by Bolshevik ideology -- of course, it was mainly "Imperial Bolsheviks with Japanese characteristics......

Originally, because the war was still going on, the situation was barely good, at least it could be maintained by fighting to feed the war, and with the belief in the myth of the emperor, the revolutionary atmosphere in the army was not strong. However, with the two atomic bombs of the U.S. military turning Tokyo and the emperor into radioactive fallout, there is no longer any force in this world that can prevent the Japanese army from collectively "turning to the left" and turning around to change the lives of the chaebols and nobles!

At this time, the Imperial Japanese Army was no longer the pride and blade of the Japanese ruling class, but a talisman capable of overturning it!

The Japanese chaebols and aristocrats fully saw this, so they did not have the intention of continuing to resist at all, but as soon as the news of the emperor's death was confirmed, they began to betray the country and surrender unconditionally to the US army, hoping to rely on the US army to destroy the Japanese army and avoid the occurrence of revolution...... Just as the French bourgeoisie after the defeat of the Franco-Prussian War would rather cede land and pay reparations to Prussia than bloody the capital and suppress the Paris Commune.

As a result, after the collapse of the central government, the Japanese Empire was simply unable to elect a new leadership to continue to direct the war, but divided into two camps, red and white, at an astonishing rate. Only a few short months later, the old Japanese aristocracy and chaebol completely betrayed their own nation as a whole, determined to become lackeys of the Americans, and even did their best to assist the US military in massacring their own compatriots and destroying their own country and civilization. Any victory won by the Japanese on the battlefield would only in turn spur them to further intensify their efforts to surrender and kneel the American forces...... What is even more tragic is that even if they completely betray the emperor, the country, and the nation, relying on the historical heritage of these chaebols, families, and wealthy families, as well as the gun and artillery coercion of the American invaders, there will still be some soldiers who will support them and fight against the Japanese resistance forces that joined the revolution.

For the Japanese admirals, who were relatively accustomed to staying away from politics and had never thought of fighting a civil war, it was a bit sad that such a bloody future would have to kill each other. In the face of the almost doomed, no, strictly speaking, already begun roommates, the thought that the shells of the Yamato-class battleships were about to fall on the heads of his compatriots, and even his colleagues in the army, Admiral Horikichi couldn't help but feel his heart twitch.