Late at night on June 1, 1935, Tokyo, the capital of the Japanese Empire, was still in a state of calm.

Carrying his long saber cross-legged, Major General Ishihara walked out of the Army General Staff Headquarters building with a gloomy expression and jumped onto the military vehicle to which he was attached.

Driving through the bustling streets and looking out of the car window, Tokyo is still a bustling scene of glittering lights and drunken money.

Although the wealth consumed by the war in just a few months was already a lot, the death of the war did not cause a significant shortage of goods in the Japanese market.

Although on the other side of the Japanese archipelago, the people of the five northern prefectures of Kyushu Island and the two prefectures of Yamaguchi and Hiroshima on the island of Honshu are struggling in agony with an unknown terrible "plague", and thousands of people are festering and dying; Although on the other side of the sea, 100,000 imperial troops had been trapped on a low-lying sandbar at the mouth of the Yangtze River, crushed into meat sauce by bullets, artillery fire and poison gas...... But it all seems to be too far away from Tokyo.

For them, the feelings of war and disaster seem to come only from newspapers, radios, and rare newsfilms.

On the other hand, they bid farewell to the vast land on the other side of the sea, full of hope and disaster, and away from the terrifying battlefield of artillery fire and murder. Major General Ishihara found that he was starting to become a little uncomfortable with the peaceful city life in Tokyo.

The streets of Tokyo are still littered with propaganda banners touting the war and boasting of victories, as if to stop time a few months ago when the "bloodless opening of Nanking" – since the Sasebo catastrophe, the Cabinet announced a press control law. The domestic press was strictly restricted, reporting good news but not bad news, and vigorously preaching "war achievements" and "the victory of the great cause of the emperor." Let Ishihara, who claims to be a "sober faction", look worried.

-- The situation has clearly reached such a critical level. The military department is still dreaming of dominating East Asia!

In the opinion of Major General Ishihara Wan'er, this battle on Chongming Island should not be fought at all!

No matter how much the willpower of the Imperial Japanese Army was boasted, the catastrophe that occurred in Sasebo had already destroyed the main force of the Combined Fleet in one fell swoop, seriously interfered with the transportation and supply of the mainland to the Jiangnan battlefield on the mainland, and temporarily eliminated any military assistance that Britain, the United States and France might provide. The setback of the tentative attack on the Taihu Lake area has also fully proved that the Shanghai Communist Army is powerful and cannot be underestimated.

According to the opinion of Major General Ishihara Wanji. The most advantageous response of the Japanese Empire in this situation was to take the opportunity to withdraw the troops invading Jiangnan under the pretext that the supply lines were cut off. Jump out of the quagmire of fighting the communist army in the south of China, and let the American and British powers and the Kuomintang army fight hard against the Bolsheviks on their own; At the same time, Japan could concentrate on North China and seize Shanxi, a natural fortress, so as to complete the suppression of North China.

But. The South China Army, which was eager to make meritorious contributions, did not think so. The upper echelons of the army, who were carried away by the victory, did not approve of Ishihara's "cowardly" idea -- they had long coveted the prosperous and splendid "magic capital" of Shanghai, and they were even more reluctant to let go of the rich land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, and at the same time they were unwilling to bear the bad influence of discarding the Wang Ching-wei regime: If they did too much of this kind of thing, they would make the pro-Japanese faction in various places centrifuge.

In this way, if we want to maintain the survival of Wang Jingwei's regime in Nanjing, it is necessary to ensure that the transportation lines of the Yangtze River waterway are unimpeded. If you want to ensure the smooth passage of the Yangtze River, you must defeat the Bolshevik regime in Shanghai...... As a result, all the problems were returned to the original point, and the South China Dispatch Army completely ignored the vague instructions of the General Staff Headquarters to "focus on securing Jiangbei". Again and again threw heavy troops into Chongming Island. The Imperial Navy, which was eager to show its liliang and the value of its existence after the catastrophe, also gathered light warships and combat planes that could be collected to join in the fun.

However. Despite the repeated increase in aircraft, warships, and troops on the Japanese side, they could not withstand the fierce offensive of the Shanghai Communist Army -- Chongming Island was located next to their base camp, and the Communist Army was able to easily throw it all into Liliang -- and finally, in the fierce war of attrition that lasted for a month, the naval and army flying teams were broken their backbones, and the precious elite soldiers of the three permanent divisions were also trapped on this narrow island, unable to fight or withdraw. It can only be slowly exterminated one by one like cockroaches in the cupboard.

At present, the 13th and 14th divisions on the island have lost contact, and it is estimated that there is more luck than luck. The Fifth Division was also besieged in Chenjia Town, at the eastern end of Chongming Island, and several attempts by the Navy to rescue were repulsed by the enemy. The commander of the 5th Division, Lieutenant General Koiso Kuniaki, had already sent a telegram "announcing to the military headquarters that the jade was broken," claiming that although he had run out of ammunition and food, he was still "ready to fight to the end and die for the great cause of Emperor Bixia!" ”

This tragic telegram of death once again stirred up an uproar in the General Staff Headquarters -- in the face of the greatest defeat in the history of the Japanese Army, the staff of the General Staff Headquarters were like red-eyed gamblers, and they actually wanted to collect more troops, continue to reinforce Chongming Island, and fill this terrible flesh mill in order to save face. And Ishihara Wan'er, who advocated a comprehensive retreat, was almost killed on the spot by these radicals who drew their sabers!

“…… What 'a thousand achievements are now'? What is the 'rise and fall of the imperial kingdom in one fell swoop'? What's 'work harder, take down Chongming Island'? It is clear that he is unwilling to take responsibility, unwilling to face up to failure, and wants to drag everyone to the funeral together, it is best to get the law not to blame the public! ”

Stroking the bruises on his forehead that were punched out with fists by his colleagues at the General Staff Headquarters, Major General Ishihara couldn't help but mutter.

Fortunately, the Navy, which had almost lost all of its capital, had no intention of cooperating with the Army's insane idea -- the Navy Ministry resolutely refused to send any more ships to the waters of the Yangtze River estuary, which had already been jokingly called the "Iron Bottom Bay." They believed that surface ships were used for naval warfare, and that valuable battleships, cruisers, and destroyers could no longer be sacrificed as targets at the narrow mouth of the Yangtze River, and that they could be easily sunk by the small boats and shore guns of the Chinese people.

-- After a month-long fierce battle at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the Japanese Navy, which lost more than 150,000 tons of ships of various types and more than 200 aircraft, was tossed and lost a little of its wealth after the Sasebo explosion, and basically there was not much left to show for it.

In fact, according to the most pessimistic thinking of the cabinet officials, now is not the right time for war at all - the Sasebo catastrophe not only destroyed the elite backbone of the Japanese Combined Fleet, but also turned large swathes of the country into purgatory, with at least millions of people struggling to die.

Saga and Nagasaki prefectures, which are closest to the center of the Sasebo disaster, are now almost a place of death for ghosts, and the port of Nagasaki, once prosperous and full of merchant ships, has almost become a ghost town. Fukuoka and Kumamoto prefectures, a little farther away, are also littered with corpses and miserable...... The death toll alone has exceeded two million, and only God knows how many will die next. The resulting loss of tax revenues and surging relief expenditures have left the government miserable, and the astronomical reconstruction costs are still unclear where to go. Under such an embarrassing and difficult situation, the government still has to do its best to collect manpower and material resources to supply the huge war in Chinese mainland, which is really overwhelming.

――As the ultimate victors, the traversers are lamenting that the battle of Chongming Island has almost brought them to bankruptcy. And the Imperial Government of Japan, as the loser, was even more tormented by this war of attrition, which cost the people and money, and sacrificed a huge amount, and it was really choked, and it was about to be empty.

Therefore, despite the severe repression by the militarists, there were some anti-war shili in Japanese society who advocated "domestic affairs first".

As a soldier who made a living from war, and as a descendant of samurai who worshipped swords, Ishihara naturally scoffed at such "cowardly" peaceful rhetoric. But as a rational strategist, Ishihara also understands that Japan is now overdrawn and somewhat unsustainable.

Helplessly, no one in this world is willing to give up the territory and wealth that has been swallowed, and most Japanese soldiers will persist in the war to the end at all costs. In the thoroughly fanatical staff headquarters, the calm opinions of his conservative are always overwhelmed by the crazy words of a group of radical staff officers to "punish the Chinese and conquer Shijie". Even if he is in a high position, he still can't twist his arms around his thighs.

Speaking of which, although it has been nearly two months since the Sasebo disaster broke out, no one can say exactly what it is all about - even the General Staff Headquarters, which has a lot of secret information, only knows that a white light swept across the island of Kyushu that night, and some towns were directly burned by the light. And then...... Well? Wait, how did it get light up outside?

-- With a burst of exclamations, brakes, and the sound of vehicles clashing with each other, the seven million citizens of Tokyo were stunned to see a brilliant flash of light pierce the sky. Immediately afterwards, the surrounding scenery became brighter, and there was a strange scene of night turning into day!

“…… Stop the car! Stop the car! I'm going to see what's going on...... Oh, you stupid driver! ”

Ishihara, who had his head on the roof of the car due to the sudden braking, grinned and rubbed his re-injured forehead and cursed in a low voice, stumbling through the car door, getting out of the car, and standing on the streets of Tokyo, which had suddenly turned to daylight.

Then, as soon as he looked up from the narrow side of the street, he saw the majestic Mt. Fuji rising from the top of the horizon, illuminated by a huge fireball rising from the top of the mountain! (To be continued......)