Chapter Twenty-Three: The Spark (I)

As mentioned earlier, the Japanese are a very hierarchical people who pay special attention to the superiority and inferiority. Even now www.biquge.info when it is time to rebel, whether it is those Japanese Communist Red elements who engage in military movement, or the Yamato samurai who are sharpening their knives and preparing to "punish beautiful animals in heaven", after considering their status, experience and fame, they generally feel that they lack confidence, so they subconsciously want to promote a big man who knows how to fight as the leader.

This thing is just like the reason why the revolutionary soldiers in Wuchang wanted to elect Li Yuanhong as the governor when the Xinhai Revolution broke out in China and the Wuchang Uprising fired the first shot. It was not that these revolutionaries were so pure-hearted and did not seek fame and fortune for the great cause of the revolution, but because if they could not put forward a famous man as their leader at that time, then they would not be able to quickly stabilize the situation and integrate manpower and material resources to deal with the fierce war that was about to break out.

Besides, for such a professional thing as arranging troops and commanding operations, those big-headed soldiers and low-ranking non-commissioned officers who were born in the military movement could not do it by themselves, and even if anyone jumped out and wanted to be the leader, everyone would not dare to put their lives in his hands. So after thinking about it, everyone felt that it was more appropriate to nominate a veteran general who could convince the public to be the leader, otherwise according to the current scattered appearance, this battle would not be able to be fought at all.

At present, in the entire Hokkaido region, the highest-ranking active Japanese generals, in addition to the commander of the Soya Fortress who abandoned his post and absconded before the Soviet army moved south, and is currently missing, are the commander of the 7th Division, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, and the commander of the Tsugaru Fortress, Lieutenant General Tanaka Takayoshi.

At first glance, Lieutenant General Takayoshi Tanaka is more senior, and he once served as the director of the military affairs bureau in the Ministry of the Army, so it seems that he should be more prestigious.

But the problem is that although Takayoshi Tanaka is a soldier, he is engaged in intelligence and administrative work, and basically has no experience in commanding operations, and the only battle he has fought in his life is the Battle of Zhanggufeng, which was beaten by the Russian old Maozi. In addition, he is also lustful by nature, and is the boyfriend of the famous female spy Yoshiko Kawashima, and it is said that he has a lot of history of corruption and bribery. Obviously, such a poor record and discipline are really difficult to convince the officers and men at the bottom.

What's worse is that in the early days of the Pacific War, Takayoshi Tanaka went against the will of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo because of his strong opposition to war with the United States, which caused Hideki Tojo to be furious. In order to make an example of the monkeys and deter the thorns in the army, Hideki Tojo actually invented the trick of "being mentally ill" without a teacher, and insisted on giving Tanaka Takayoshi a diagnosis of "suffering from mental illness", and then stuffed him into an insane asylum, and lived with a group of madmen for three years......

It was not until the spring of this year that the hapless Takayoshi Tanaka was released from the madhouse and sent to the idle post of commander of the Tsugaru Fortress, which was a consolation: this fortress was located in the hinterland of Japan at that time, far away from the border and the battlefield, and was basically a warehouse.

It's just that Takayoshi Tanaka has been in the madhouse for too long after all, and although he hasn't been tossed to the point of total madness, he is already a little nervous. In addition, when he was the director of the military affairs bureau, he presided over the arrest of military discipline, checked many people, and took off a lot of unlucky official hats, so he formed a group of enemies, and at this time his rivals took the opportunity to spread rumors everywhere, so the entire Hokkaido soon became a household name, and a mad commander came to Tsugaru Fortress!

Before Lieutenant General Takayoshi Tanaka took office, the entire fortress garrison had already regarded him as a madman, and the prestige of such a commander could be imagined.

As a result, when it came time to nominate a general who could fight as the leader, all the soldiers and civilians invariably excluded Takayoshi Tanaka. And Takayoshi Tanaka is also self-aware, knowing that he is indeed not the material for war, and secondly, he can't convince everyone that he is mentally fine. Therefore, instead of being angry and dissatisfied, he took the initiative to express his willingness to act as a lobbyist to persuade Lieutenant General Kuribayashi Tadamichi to accept everyone's support.

“…… Kuribayashi-kun, you should have seen the photos of the Osaka tragedy, right? It's shocking! ”

Looking at Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was obviously at a loss, Takayoshi Tanaka said sincerely, "...... The military boots of the American and British ghost animals have set foot on the soil of Japan (Australia and New Zealand were members of the British Commonwealth at this time, and the whites of the two countries were still regarded as British), and five million citizens have been shattered! The crisis of the life and death of the Yamato nation is just around the corner! Regardless of other places for the time being, the life and death of the military and civilians of Hokkaido will all be entrusted to you! Kuribayashi-kun! ”

“…… I know all of that...... But can we win? Lieutenant General Kuribayashi Tadamichi smiled bitterly, "...... The empire is gone! The tide is gone! Besides, after all, this war was triggered by our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States, and I am afraid that world public opinion will only think that it is the Japanese who are to blame...... At the beginning of the war, the people of the military department thought only of the wine of victory, but now they force the whole people to swallow the bitter juice. ”

“…… Kuribayashi-kun, no matter whether we win the war or not, no matter how the responsibility for the war is calculated, we must fight! Is there another choice? ”

Takayoshi Tanaka also smiled wryly, "...... The Pacific War has dragged on to this point, and how can we not know that the United States is so powerful that it can retaliate fearfully? At the beginning, I was put in an insane asylum by Prime Minister Tojo because I opposed the war! But what's the use of talking about it now? We want to end this war now and take a breath. But the enemy, who had already set foot on the Japanese archipelago, refused to agree at all!

Do you have to kneel at the feet of the Yankees like a woman, crying and begging for forgiveness? But can people spare us now?

Don't look at the Yankees' propaganda full of human rights, democracy, and freedom, as if they are compassionate and benevolent. But this is the same as our Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Circle, which can only be listened to casually, and must not be taken seriously! When they slaughtered Indians and skinned them to make boots, did they ever think about respecting the human rights of the indigenous Indians? They believe in their bones that white people are the best in the world and should rule the planet. All other colored people, including the Japanese, are inferior and must be eliminated. Allowing us to live as slaves is already a gift.

Take the current Pacific War as an example, how perverse it is for white Europeans and Americans to accuse us of provoking war, destroying peace, and seizing their territory. But the question is, which of these European and American colonies in the Pacific Ocean did not come to them with massacres and shells? Why are they allowed to divide the world according to latitude and longitude on a globe, and we are not allowed to drive them back to Europe?

Four years ago, when our mobile fleet attacked Pearl Harbor, the Americans were so angry that they accused us of violating their sacred homeland, as if it were an unforgivable sin. But who remembers when Pearl Harbor and Hawaii became American soil, and it seems like only 50 years after the Stars and Stripes were planted there? When the Americans openly captured the Queen of Hawaii and invaded the Hawaiian Islands, the young Marshal Heihachiro Togo once took a warship to rescue Hawaii, trying to punish the strong and help the weak and uphold justice? Unfortunately, it didn't work out in the end......

Hey, history has always been written by the strong, and no one sympathizes with the weak. The world has always been so cruel, survival of the fittest, the jungle eats the strong, the cannonball is the truth, and the butcher's knife is justice! If we fail to resist and surrender on our knees, the fate of the North American Indians and the Hawaiian Kingdom will repeat itself in today's Japan! In a few decades, the Japanese archipelago will become the legal territory of the United States, and we will all be driven into the 'Yamato reservation' in the backwoods, and all the best land of the Japanese archipelago will be given to the Yankees to live in! Kuribayashi-kun, can you endure this kind of thing? ”

“…… Of course not! As long as there is a bullet in the chamber of the gun, no bloody Yamato man can watch this happen! ”

Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi said in a deep voice, "...... But this is our own business, so why should we stand with the Soviets? ”

“…… If we do not accept the assistance and intervention of the Soviets, will we be able to beat the Yankees on our own? ”

Takayoshi Tanaka shrugged, "...... This time the world war has been fought so far, Germany and Italy are finished, and the Japanese Empire is now tantamount to extinction. The next general trend in the world will inevitably be the struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this worldwide battle for hegemony, those remote and small countries far away from the line of fire may be able to stand alone. But the Japanese archipelago has now become a wrestling arena between the United States and the Soviet Union, where is there room for impartiality?

Kuribayashi-kun, if you are dedicated to respecting the emperor and being loyal to the monarch, then now is the time to try to kill the Americans and avenge Your Majesty! If you care about the future of the nation, then you should take over this important task and fight to preserve the living space of our Yamato nation! ”、

Just when Lieutenant General Kuribayashi Tadamichi was still hesitating, he received two new pieces of news: Tokuda Koichi, general secretary of the Japanese Communist Party, launched an uprising in Kanazawa and announced the establishment of the Echizen Soviet Republic! A sailor revolution took place in Maizuru Town, on the coast of the Sea of Japan, and a red flag was hung on a warship!

At this moment, Lieutenant General Kuribayashi Tadamichi finally understood that he could no longer wait and hesitate.

“…… That's it! It seems that I must pick up this burden of opposing the United States and saving the country! I would like to invite the Soviet negotiators to come over, and on the basic premise of not ceding the inherent territory, I am willing to take the lead in organizing the Soviet power in Hokkaido and leading the people to resist the invasion of the American and British troops......"

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Nagoya, an important industrial center in central Japan

The smoke of gunpowder covered the sun, the cannon roared, the corpses were strewn all over the field, and the blood flowed like a river.

A week of fierce fighting has turned this large industrial city on the Pacific coast into a pile of tattered ruins.

At the command post on a hill on the outskirts, Marshal MacArthur held his corncob pipe in his mouth and looked down on the battlefield in the city with a telescope, his brow furrowed.

At the beginning of the Battle of Nagoya, everything went well, and after a series of indiscriminate bombardment by the Air Force, the tank assault team of the 1st Marine Division rushed directly into the center of Nagoya. But when the infantry followed, everything changed: thousands of Japanese troops emerged from the cracks in the ground and rained down steel and flames on the negligent Yankees, starting a painful but inevitable bloody street fight.

Nagoya was originally an important military production center of the Japanese Empire, and there were a large number of arsenals all over it, so the Japanese army defending the city had a serious surplus of guns and ammunition, and the stocks of food and fuel were quite abundant. The trouble for the defenders was that no one had expected to fight in Nagoya, there were no permanent fortifications in and around the city, and the strength of the only division was too tense for a defensive battle in the city.

Therefore, Lieutenant General Mori Shigeki, commander of the 65th Division, urgently recruited retired veterans, volunteer citizens, and young students before the start of the war, and finally even recruited some women to serve as nurses with the army, in a generous tragedy, ready to fight to the death with the US army.

Originally, Lieutenant General Shigeki Mori wanted to name the auxiliary unit the Iron and Blood Imperial Army, but considering that the entire Japanese imperial family has now turned to ashes, and what will become of Japan's national society in the future, I am afraid that only God knows.

At first, Vice Admiral Mori thought that the enemy would only land from the sea, so he devoted his main efforts to building coastal fortifications and port fortifications. Unexpectedly, the surrender of the Kanto region and Osaka Prefecture was tantamount to a blow to the back of the Nagoya defenders. In this way, the U.S. forces could attack Nagoya from any direction, but the Japanese troops defending the city had to be deployed everywhere, and their forces were outstretched.

As a result, before Lieutenant General Shigeki Mori had time to complete the adjustment of troops, the US armored troops, who had been ordered to conduct "fire reconnaissance," took advantage of Japan's good highways to launch a lightning assault on Nagoya, inserted a gap in the defensive line, and rushed into the city center in one go, thus making a mess of the command system of the 65th Division. MacArthur took the opportunity to mobilize a large number of infantry to follow, trying to tear through the defenders' defenses in one fell swoop and crush the recalcitrant Japanese army as quickly as possible.

If it had been the Italians with a weak will to fight, or the soldiers and horses of the "party-state" who were even more in the streets, I am afraid that they would have collapsed in this case. Unfortunately, the Americans' opponents are now the Japanese army, which is deeply influenced by militaristic ideology, and the battlefield is the home city they are most familiar with. As a result, the U.S. troops who broke into Nagoya soon fell into a nightmare, and cold guns were being fired from every door and window, and even every sewer, making them dizzy.

Moreover, the premature involvement of ground forces in street fighting prevented the US Strategic Air Force from massively using nerve gas against Nagoya, otherwise the largest accidental injury in the history of American warfare would have occurred. On the contrary, the Japanese army set traps many times and used old-fashioned mustard gas on a small scale to deal with the enemy...... Shells flew and machine guns swept away, tall factories were reduced to ruins, and gorgeous villas were reduced to rubble. The streets are clogged with rubble and corpses.

Under the repeated casualties of the Japanese army's dense automatic firearms, mortars and grenadiers, the casualties of the besieging American troops skyrocketed. Although the enraged MacArthur sent in dive bombers in an attempt to raze the city to the ground, the number of anti-aircraft guns in the city of Nagoya was staggering, and the dive bombers were ineffective and suffered heavy losses. Later, the U.S. forces switched to 155mm "Long Tom" field guns and 105mm howitzers to carry out surgical and devastating shelling of Japanese resistance strongholds, but the Nagoya defenders also used artillery fire to counterattack, and even dispatched tanks, and the two sides fell into a stalemate.

Although the number of planes was limited and there was a lack of coordination between each other, they could not really seize air supremacy in Nagoya, but at least they were able to sneak up a few sneak attacks, which brought a lot of trouble to the US bomber units and ground troops in the Nagoya battlefield.