Nagumo walked over the hangar with the fleet's staff team, which immediately attracted a burst of non-commissioned officers on duty, the command of "stand upright" and "salute", which was an inevitable part of daily life on the flagship.

He saw that the stern-faced team members were doing their best to make final preparations, and he naturally felt comforted in his heart.

Within 24 hours, the huge fleet was about to cross the line of nationality date, perhaps just a coincidence of time, and the news that the fate of Japan would change and whether to go to war or not would also come after this date.

Now he began to worry about two things: first, what would be the fate of the fleet, or the future, of Japan in the event of war?

The second thing is that if the news of the war never comes, and eventually the fleet must be turned back, and the high morale will inevitably turn into anger that is difficult to vent, how can he restrain these soldiers?

At the same time, the last Imperial Council was taking place in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Sure enough, as Tojo expected, at this meeting, there was a new addition to the change that was enough to influence the decision, that is, the two telegrams from last night. Nakano's optimistic predictions caused not only the emperor but even some cabinet members to waver. Tojo regretted letting Konoe insert a Nobusuke Kishi, obviously this Professor Nakano was his man, and he actually said an illusory thing as if it were true; Of course, Nakano's report ended with some truth, Japan does not have enough equipment to extract oil, and these equipment need to be imported from the United States, and if it needs to be replaced, it can only be considered by the United Kingdom, and it is clear that neither path will work.

The meeting lasted until the afternoon, and in the absence of the emperor's position, the cabinet did not reach any decisive result, and although the main station had the upper hand, it was completely suppressed by the emperor's silence. Anyone can see the wavering of the Divine Will, as well as the inclination. Although Hirohito did not make a clear statement, he has been asking about the various conditions of oil field exploitation, and the Minister of Commerce and Industry Nobusuke Kishi and the Minister of Finance Kaya seem to have some understanding (or rather prepared) in this regard, and their explanations are very detailed, and through various data, it is shown that Japan can imitate the deep well equipment similar to the Xiuce Company in about a year; This is more than half the time it takes to make imitations of more than two years mentioned in the previous discussion.

In Tojo's opinion, even if these guys were right, they didn't think about one thing, the fact that the army had been dispatched was irreversible, and the emperor himself didn't seem to be willing to face it squarely.

The new national focus meeting will continue the next day, December 3, Japan time, and December 2, fleet time. Because the fleet is still on the way, it seems that it is too difficult to be a day or two late, and there is nothing wrong with getting a decision.

No one saw the significance of the postponement of the decision, except for Makino. For him, it was clearly the biggest victory since the crossing, a remarkable step towards his goal.

With the strength of his and Hasegawa (excluding Asano, of course), the war, or the fate of Japan, was pulled back from the edge of the cliff, and generally looked less dangerous.

Dozens of kilometers away, Lin Xiuxuan, who was squatting on the top floor of a madhouse on a barren mountain, was chewing a biscuit, and today, he finally confirmed the fact that there has been a huge deviation in history. Time had passed the moment when the decision should have been made to go to war, but nothing happened. Qin Xiaosu can intercept all electronic signals in Japan except for a few long-wave communications; And did not find the communication of climbing the new high mountains. Of course, it could not have been an equipment failure, because at the same time a large number of communications sent to the army and navy in other places were intercepted, including guidance on the upcoming Battle of Changsha, and the production of oil fields sent back from the communications department of the Kwantung Army was also updated at a rate of twice a day. Judging from some details, the two wells drilled by the enemy can produce more than 20 tons of oil per day, and local decision-makers are becoming more and more concerned about the situation there.

"It seems that I was unfortunately guessed, and those few things were still done." He snapped a cookie.

"Team leader, it's not a big deal, isn't there still Captain Cheng's side? We can give orders to the Japanese fleet alone. Lu Qingshan said and handed over a kettle.

Having said that, in fact, it is still a decision, and not only will it bear a certain moral responsibility. Moreover, will expose itself. The enemy, if not foolish, would have immediately judged that the false telegram had been sent from a ship that had been tracking the mobile forces, and that the ship had a secret word that had never been made public; For the traversal trio, this feedback makes it easy to guess what the situation is. So far, they probably haven't thought about what happened to the 10,000 tons lost in the Sato formula, but ......"

"Team leader, suspicious communications have been spotted."

Qin Xiaosu suddenly had a situation there.

"What's the situation?"

"There are a lot of voice calls in the vicinity, what appears to be military operations."

"We're exposed?"

Lu Qingshan's first reaction was like this.

"No, no, it seems to be a drill." Qin said, stuffed a headset to Lin, and after Chu Aiyun left, the best Japanese here was the team leader himself.

Lin put the earphones to his ear and carefully identified them. There was the shouting of Japanese soldiers from inside.

"Engineer wing, please reply when you hear it."

"The 1st Engineer Wing hears the call."

"The staff wants to verify that you are carrying*."

"On the truck."

"Please stand by and wait to join up with the reconnaissance squadron of the 57th Infantry Wing of Xi Shino."

"Understood."

Lin put down his headphones and quietly moved to the window to look around. To receive such a clear call, the two Japanese troops on the call should be within visual range.

"What's the situation with Xiao Qin."

"4400 kHz, small knapsack intercom device. It should be within 2 km, in the north. ”

Lin carefully took out his telescope and searched around, and sure enough, he found that less than 500 meters away from the Funabashi communication station, a convoy had stopped on the side of the road, and the soldiers were jumping from the car, as if they were preparing to act.

"Team leader, what's wrong?" Lu asked.

"The 1st Engineer Wing, which corresponds to the 1st Division of the Army, must have some kind of exercise. It should not be directed against us, otherwise sappers would not have been sent. ”

"But there are no bridges around here, so why come here? And so close to the communication post on the bridge? ”

"Well, that's a good question."

Lin praised and did not explain further, but continued to observe.

Soon another motorized convoy of cars, about 200 men and machine guns, appeared to be about 200 men and armed with machine guns. It can be seen that the officers of both sides quickly established simple communication, and then together they began to set up a joint command post outside the communication post, and some people began to dig and stand up, as if to strengthen their defenses.

"Xiao Lu, what do you think?" Lin suddenly wanted to hear Lu's opinion.

"I think it's not going to be easy; It is said that this area is the defense area of the 1st Division, and they have a wing near Xi Zhiye, so this communication post also belongs to the 1st Division. ”

"Well, go on."

"Maybe the purpose of their coming here is something related to us, I can't judge for the time being, why it's an engineer unit is also a question. But in any case, it will make it very difficult for us to blast, and now the number of garrisoned enemies has increased from 15 to 400. ”

"yes, things are changing."

Just as they were talking, the communication was intercepted again. The garrison team of the Funabashi Communication Post was asked to hand over defensive responsibility to the 57th Infantry Wing and to follow the command of Captain Watanabe. Immediately afterwards, the sappers were seen cutting through the barbed wire, and someone carrying boxes ran towards the bunker building below the launch tower, as if to install it*.

"I think things are starting to get interesting." Lin sneered.

At the back door of the Minister of Commerce and Industry's palace, Ishihara Waner, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying a top hat and carrying a broken suitcase, pressed the doorbell. The door opened almost immediately, and Makino and Sato, who had been waiting here for a long time, immediately welcomed him in. The whole process is swift and unobtrusive. However, an idler, who had been squatting at the corner of the street all afternoon, suddenly stood up, and he had to return to the gendarmerie headquarters immediately and report to his superiors what was going on with him.

In the living room, a few people involved in the matter sat down and began to discuss action.

"General, it's a great honor to have you on the horse." Sato Sakae made a polite opening remark.

"Where, it was Makino-kun's sincerity that touched me. Even if I fight for my life, I will fight that superior soldier again. By the way, I've been on the road all day today, and I don't know how the situation is going at the Imperial Council? ”

"As you expected, the Holy Lord has not expressed his position, obviously he does not want to go to war, if it can drag on like this, it will be very beneficial to us." Nobusuke Kishi said. Makino nodded vigorously next to him, this day was too nervous and exciting for him.

"It would be good then, with the oil of Manchuria, the situation would be very different, and we could immediately disassociate ourselves from Germany, ease the contradictions between the worlds, and then skillfully maneuver with the United States and Britain; By the way, there is also that ship, which can also be salvaged quietly. ”

"But General, I don't think the Tojo side will give up, and there will definitely be action these days."

"That's for sure. Before I went out, I called a few of my former colleagues, and if nothing else, the current commander of the Nakazawa Division had taken over the communications post at Funabashi in the name of the exercise. If necessary, a precision blast can be performed to paralyze it for three to four days. ”

Ishihara said calmly, as if he were talking about something very ordinary.

Everyone looked at each other, but they didn't expect this old guy who had no military rank to do things so neatly, and before he arrived in Tokyo, he had already quietly arranged everything.

"Also, these days, I don't go to the official residence of the Ministry of War, so as not to leave a handle, and the hotel and the minister's residence are too eye-catching, it would be nice to have a place where communication is smooth and there are no idle people waiting."

"Then go to my house, far away from the city, and no one will notice it as my minister's secretary." Sato said.

"Okay, that's good. By the way, why isn't Kagesa-kun here, I was just going to discuss the situation with him. ”

"Actually, it's been a long time since I've seen Shogun Kagesa, he's currently in Kagoshima, painstakingly researching salvage techniques," Makino shook his head, obviously very disappointed with the recent changes in Kagesa Yoshiaki, "Since the last time he salvaged those key materials, he has been staying on Sakurajima, preparing for his next trip to sea, and doesn't seem to care so much about other things anymore. ”