In the Seto Inland Sea in the deep night, the waves are roaring, the sea breeze is howling, and the stars are sprinkled down, reflecting a faint silver glow on the waves.

A cruiser flying the Navy's Japanese flag is cleaving the waves in this narrow sea area. The rounded bow of the ship undulated into the dark sea, and the dizzying snow-white spray splashed on either side, and the three twin 203 main turrets on the foredeck of the cruiser were particularly majestic under the cluster of anti-aircraft guns on both sides. The towering pagoda-shaped bridge, which resembles a towering mountain, makes it easy to be mistaken for a battleship, and its 15,500-ton displacement when fully loaded makes it proudly the most powerful cruiser on board.

This is the Atago, the most powerful Kaohsiung-class heavy cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet.

Every time he stands on the deck and admires the majestic posture of the cruiser Atago galloping across the sea, Moritaro always feels a sense of heroism.

——He is confident that he has encountered a great era, the empire is rapidly marching towards unprecedented glory, and as a glorious member of the imperial navy, he will also have the honor to contribute to the hegemony of the empire.

What is hateful is that those narrow-minded and stubborn Shina people on the other side of the sea still cling to the outdated ideas of the boss country, are hostile to the Japanese Imperial Army, and have failed the good and painstaking efforts of the empire to promote the common prosperity of its neighbors, which not only hinders its own progress in becoming a civilized country in East Asia, but also hinders the empire's strategy of conquering Shijie...... Although the Japanese Navy has always felt that it is a head above the Army, it is concerned about the recent setbacks suffered by its Army colleagues on the battlefield in Jiangnan. The naval officers on the Atago, including Moritaro, were also deeply anxious. Because it is at stake in the supreme interests of the Empire.

However, after lamenting the glory and splendor of the empire, Moritaro can only return to the trivial reality of the little people, and once again enter the hatch, put on his chef's hat, and prepare to start his work tonight, making supper for the sentry on duty, who is one of the cooks on this battleship.

Next. Moments later, the smell of grilled salted fish and rice wafted from the galley of the cruiser Atago.

A cylindrical marching cauldron. A chowder miso soup with seaweed, shrimp skin, potatoes, and salted radish strips is boiled on the electric stove on the other side. The salted fish is grilled with a fragrant flavor. Zuihou on a large tray, there are also dozens of Moritaro who have just kneaded haode rice balls.

Under the bright electric light, looking at the fruits of his labor, Moritaro wiped his sweat with the white towel around his neck, and at the same time took a piece of hot dried salted fish, put it in his mouth and chewed it lightly - although the daily tasks in the army are very hard, and the perennial sea life is also very lonely and boring, if he does not join the navy. How could a farmer like him from a poor background eat fish so luxuriously every day?

——The invincible imperial army of the Japanese Empire conquered China and conquered the continent one after another. Although the Japanese people of this era cheered with joy and tears of excitement, and felt deeply honored, after shedding tears of excitement, they still had to continue to return to the fields to work hard, pay sixty or seventy percent of taxes and rents, and rarely eat meat once a year; Or in a noisy and hot factory, doing 12 or even 14 hours a day of hard labor, no vacation, no labor insurance, and even the salary is so meagre. Endless sweat, inadequate waist pole - this is the hard life of the vast majority of ordinary laborers in the Japanese Empire in the era of militaristic wars.

There is no way, the war machine that has swelled wildly with the victory needs more resources to continue to operate, and the little capital accumulated by the Japanese empire's conquest and plunder, I am afraid that it will not be able to make a splash and disappear, so it can only continue to desperately squeeze the blood and sweat of the working people to supply the consumption of the war machine - in this way, compared with the Western countries that have begun to transform into welfare states, the exploitation of their own people by the Japanese chaebols, landlords and militarist governments is even more cruel and bloody. And most Japanese people live a very simple life.

Especially in most rural areas of Japan, ordinary farmers can only eat beans, grains and radishes, and they can't even eat serious rice, and only during festivals can they eat a little brown rice and fish, as for fresh meat, eggs and polished rice, it is simply the existence of delicacies from the mountains and seas.

The food standard of Japanese soldiers is significantly higher than that of ordinary Japanese, which is basically equivalent to the level of well-off families among Japanese people - even if it is the army with poor food, it is enough white rice, there is meat to eat every day, and the non-staple food is also quite rich, at least salted fish, fresh meat, eggs or canned meat can be eaten for lunch and dinner, and pickles and miso suitable for Japanese tastes, as well as toffee, fruit candy, starch sugar, chocolate, jelly, persimmons, canned fruit, condensed milk, Yokan and other sweets were extremely luxurious in the eyes of the Japanese people at the time. As for the Japanese navy, which is known for its "aristocracy", its daily diet is even more luxurious, and even the lowest-class recruits can often enjoy foreign dishes such as chicken stew with cream and beef curry, as well as Japanese cuisine such as miso soup, fish, pickles, etc., and occasionally get some "good ingredients" such as lobster and sea bream for tooth sacrifices.

After a while, several sailors on night duty poured into the hatch and took the special evening snack from the kitchen to their posts to enjoy it. Chef Moritaro, who was temporarily idle, once again walked to the deck, facing the cold sea breeze, while leisurely smoking a cigarette while admiring the sea view under the moonlight -- today it was his turn to be on duty at night, and after making two batches of supper, he had to work with several other early cooks to make breakfast for all the officers and men of the ship before returning to his hammock to sleep.

The cruiser Atago is currently passing through the Sekimon Strait, also known as the Shimonoseki Strait, the westernmost point of the Seto Inland Sea, which connects the islands of Honshu and Kyushu. Since ancient times, it has been a key point of sea and land transportation in western Japan, and has been the site of many famous historical events. The Battle of Tanoura during the Genpei War, in which the famous swordsman Kojiro Sasaki fought a decisive battle against Miyamoto Musashi's Yanryu Island. All happened near this section of the strait. The Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the Sino-Japanese War and symbolized the decline of the Qing Dynasty and the rise of the Japanese Empire, was also signed on the Chunfan Tower facing this strait.

However, although it is an important sea communication artery, the strait itself is quite tortuous, with the narrowest sea area only about 600 meters wide and the strong currents are famous. Coupled with the heavy traffic and the large number of ships, you want to sail through this strait at high speed in the dark night. Not an easy task...... Fortunately, with the Japanese Navy's year-round training, high-speed night navigation in its own waters was not a problem at all.

Just as Moritaro was holding the railing with his hands on the railing, with a cigarette in his mouth. Gazing at the sparse lights and dark mountains on both sides of the strait. And when he saw the battleship gradually sailing out of the narrow strait and about to enter the vast open sea, a spectacle from the edge of the sky made him no longer able to remain calm and calm.

“…… Nani? Is it dawn? Wrong! What's that, exactly? ”

Looking at the blue sea and sky that suddenly became bright, Moritaro first rubbed his eyes, and after confirming that this was not an illusion, he couldn't help but be stunned for a while, and he didn't even notice that half of the cigarette in his mouth fell on the deck. And the screams of the soldiers on duty at night. It also came faintly from not far away.

Immediately after that, I don't know how long it was. A deafening roar like rolling thunder swept across the face, as if 10 million bombshells were exploding in one place at the same time, making the entire sea seem to tremble in horror. A huge ball of bright and dazzling fireball soared into the night sky from beyond the horizon, like another sun rising from the southwest, illuminating the cruiser Atago and the surrounding sea...... Many sailors, awakened by the explosions and flashes, poked their heads out of the portholes, looked at the wonders in the sky in the distance, and were so surprised that they could not say a word.

At the same time, millions, if not tens of millions, of Japanese people saw this world-shattering spectacle......

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

At 3:40 a.m. on April 7, 1935, in the dead of night, a bright white light suddenly erupted from Sasebo, Kitakyushu, and swept across the whole of western Japan, turning night into day in an instant...... From the port of Hiroshima in Honshu, the port of Kagoshima in southern Kyushu, the port of Uwajima in Shikoku, and even the port of Pusan in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, there are people who claim to have seen this dazzling light!

- Sasebo Shofu, one of the four major domestic military ports of the Imperial Japanese Navy, is located at the northwest tip of Kyushu Island, about 50 kilometers from the city of Nagasaki. Surrounded by lush mountains and surrounded by islands of all sizes in and around the bay, and the Goto Islands to the west of the entrance to the channel, Sasebo was a natural harbor for ships to gather in concealment, and a key point of communication between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, as it was the throat of the Tsushima Strait, and was established as a base for Japanese attacks on Korea and landing on the Asian continent as early as the Meiji Emperor's time

In the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Japanese Combined Fleet also set sail from here, won brilliant victories again and again, and finally won the hegemony of East Asia in one fell swoop. At this time, the port of Sasebo is also full of warships, and the masts are like a forest, filled with a mighty and murderous atmosphere.

However, this military port, which embodies the glorious history of the Imperial Japanese Navy, has quietly ushered in its end at this time.

Because, accompanied by a command hidden in the radio waves, a violent flash of light suddenly erupted in the sky over the battleship-filled port of Sasebo, whose brightness far exceeded a thousand suns—it was a dazzling light of death!

In that white light, which illuminated the heavens and the earth, everything around the Sasebo Naval Port, whether trees, houses, ships, people or animals, would be scorched on the spot in the fierce light as long as they were swept by this terrible light of death—before people could react, they were burned to charcoal, Japanese houses were reduced to ashes like paper money from graves, steel battleships melted like candles, and trees all over the mountains turned into a sea of fire...... In just a few tens of seconds, all the living beings in the Sasebo Military Port were wiped out in this light of death, and not even a single corpse was left!

- When a high-yield hydrogen bomb is launched, about 35% of the energy of the nuclear explosion will be converted into light, but this is not the warm sunlight. It's not a faint light, it's the light of death from hell! Anything that is illuminated at close range by the light of death will reach an unimaginable temperature in a short period of time. Rapidly carbonized, burned, zuihou turned into an unrecognizable pile of ashes.

As this unimaginable light of death pierced the silent night sky without warning, a terrifying catastrophe descended on the world—everything within a radius of 1 kilometer, centered on the detonation point of the hydrogen bomb, was reduced to powdered ashes. bones, teeth, muscles, nerves, skin, ...... of humans and animals All of them absorbed a huge amount of radiant energy in an instant, solidifying, boiling, and vaporizing like meat in a microwave oven, and Zuihou turned into countless atoms in a matter of milliseconds. Be part of the blast dust. No living creature could be found anywhere within a 5-kilometer radius, the fragile papier-mâché houses were reduced to ashes in an instant, and the people and animals in the houses were completely burned to the point of char and tree roots. Even if it's hiding in the strongest steel battleship or concrete building. At most, it can only delay the pace of death slightly.

Within a radius of 15 kilometres, the sturdiest concrete buildings can be burned beyond recognition, and anyone who stays outside will be burned on the spot and permanently blind in both eyes, charred and carbonized skin, and large swaths will fall off, and then die in extreme pain...... Unless you're lucky enough to hide in a sturdy reinforced concrete building, a thick cellar, or a deep cave, and stay in it for a long, long time. It is possible to escape.

Even within a 30-kilometer radius of the detonation point of the hydrogen bomb, all Japanese residents who stayed outside or in front of their windows. They will also be blinded in the flash, suffer third-degree burns, and then fall into a fire storm with great lethality because of the fire of the paper and wood structure of the house......

At the same time, a violent electromagnetic pulse storm erupted rapidly with Sasebo as the center, breaking through the insulation, burning the circuits, and seriously damaging all the components of electronic equipment...... Not only did the entire western Japan radio equipment be scrapped in an instant, but radio communications within a radius of 3,000 kilometers were seriously disrupted, and it was impossible to shoot or send telegrams normally for several hours in a row. Its destructive power even radiated to Shanghai and Zhoushan on the other side of the East China Sea, causing irreparable damage to at least 100 military radio stations, so much so that the headquarters of the Red Fifth Front Army in Shanghai actually cut off contact with the front-line combat units that night, causing Wang Qiu and others to lament that this was simply "lifting a stone and shooting themselves in the foot."

At that time, a war correspondent for the Washington Post was staying on a US destroyer that had fallen behind due to engine failure, and was able to witness the explosion of the hydrogen bomb from a "safe distance" hundreds of kilometers away...... We had no idea what was happening, except that the sky suddenly became brighter, even dazzling, as if we were being hit head-on by a searchlight, and the lookout on duty on the bridge let out a miserable cry and rolled to the ground in pain, covering his eyes with his hands......"

In a later report, the war correspondent wrote, "...... Then, as soon as I rushed out of the hatch, I saw a huge fireball appear at the end of the horizon, rushing into the air in an instant...... It glows brightly, and its color changes constantly, from deep purple to orange, and it spreads outwards and grows larger and larger, illuminating the ocean and the surrounding sky as bright as day......

Everyone on the destroyer was as stunned as I was, and I felt as if I was back in the book of Genesis in the Bible, and at that moment I heard God say to me: Let there be light, and there was light in the world...... It wasn't until much later that I learned that this was a terrifying liliang that had been imprisoned by nature for thousands of years, like God's doomsday miracle of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah......

Then, an earth-shattering bang came from afar, and it shook my ears on the spot, and my whole body bounced......"

All in all, from the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan to the Seto Inland Sea, in all the seas surrounding the northern part of Kyushu, countless captains, sailors and passengers of different nationalities had the privilege of seeing this cruel and beautiful spectacle: the dark and deep night became as bright as day in an instant, and the vast sea was illuminated by a dazzling light far greater than the scorching summer sun, and the brilliant light of gold, crimson, purple, gray and blue was mixed together in an indescribable and gorgeous posture. It illuminates every sky, every sea, every reef, every stretch of beach in their field of vision, and decorates all the scenery with brilliance and dreams...... Even after the dazzling light finally faded, the distant clouds still shimmered with eerie colors, like festive night fireworks and colorful neon lights.

Some people can't help but immediately take out their cameras and "click" to try to record the scene, unaware that the radiation has already exposed the film in advance.

They watched the spectacle in amazement, completely unaware of the brutal catastrophe it meant, and even less aware that this terrible catastrophe, which had lost countless lives, was about to befall them......

Just as the first wave of the hydrogen bomb – that is, light radiation – descended on the earth, an even more terrifying second wave of attacks followed! (To be continued......)