Chapter 573 The Battle of Land and Sea
“I’m sorry, Minister Card, my rank is too low to make such a promise, and the Sakishima Islands are not as simple as a few islands. It concerns the palace. The security of the ancient strait and maritime border issues, so I can’t give you an answer now, but I have to report it to the government,” the Japanese diplomat said.
As Card said, Japan can indeed not get the Southern Ryukyu Islands first, because Japan has not declared sovereignty before, but compromised with the Far East Empire and created a nondescript dichotomy.
This makes Japan psychologically believe that the Ryukyu Islands can be used for trade, instead of insisting that they are its own territory.
So, Japanese diplomats are quite excited about Card's proposal, but now that the matter has become big, it is not easy to solve. Is it possible to really fight a war for the Southern Ryukyu Islands and East Africa?
It would be fine if East Africa was really a weak country, but East Africa has the image of a powerful country that is not easy to mess with. After all, East Africa had such serious conflicts with the United Kingdom and Portugal before. Japan would never be able to be like East Africa if it puts itself in their shoes. So poised.
Of course, East Africa is backed by Germany, especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is an unavoidable and important factor. This is also what makes the Japanese envious and jealous. This sense of achievement of chickens and dogs rising to heaven is indeed rare. .
The three major German countries are like three brothers. Of course, only Germany is more orthodox, but only more orthodox. After all, Prussia was not originally a part of Germany. Less than 30% of the Germans in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were German. East Africa is also very excessive. Even if all white people are considered Germans, that is only 50%. However, considering the fact that East Africa is fully Germanized and more than 70% of the population of the right age are intermarrying, East Africa calls itself a German country more than the Austro-Hungarian Empire. More convincing.
East Africa is more like the previous Austrian Empire. The Austrian Empire under the leadership of the Austrians has no sense of violation in participating in HRE affairs. This is almost the same situation in East Africa now, and East Africa has cut off the hidden dangers of future national independence.
In short, none of the three German countries can represent Germany in essence. They are all mixed with other ethnic groups. East Africa is the most extreme, directly hybridizing human races. But now everyone considers themselves German, and the relationship between the three countries is maintained. It is the cultural and aristocratic group.
The most important of them is the aristocratic group. The relationship between the rulers is the main reason for maintaining German culture in East Africa. For example, the largest ethnic group in the United States was German, but the United States is indeed an English-speaking country.
"Okay, but I hope your government can give a reply as soon as possible. After all, my personal time is precious and I don't want to waste my breath on this kind of thing." Card said.
In Kader’s view, Japan does not need to fight to the death with East Africa over the Southern Ryukyu Islands. Even if East Africa does not intervene, isn’t there still the Far East? It's never the Japanese's turn to take advantage of this.
After all, at this time, the Far East Empire still had an easy time talking in this region of the Far East, and Japan's ability to become a great power in its previous life was mainly due to two wars, one was the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and the other was the Russo-Japanese War.
Although Japan is now jumping up and down in the Far East, plotting against the Ryukyu Islands, the Korean Peninsula, and the Far Eastern Empire, it has nothing to show for its success.
This is not the case in East Africa. Many countries that have fought with East Africa have perished. Some people may say that Africans are not good at fighting, but East Africa can occupy such a large area of land, and its war organization ability definitely conforms to people's stereotypes of Germans.
In addition, East Africa defeated the Transvaal Republic and the Kingdom of Portugal, which were also white regimes. Therefore, East Africa's strength is at least considered a military power in the eyes of other countries.
So East African people have a sense of psychological superiority towards Japan. This is inseparable from the influence of European civilization-centrism in this era. In addition, Japan itself is very strong-minded, and there is also the idea of "leaving Asia and joining Europe" Ideally, Japan has its own strong filter for all Western countries. When it comes to East Africa or all white countries, Japan is still relatively blind mentally, just like many people in the West in later generations who have no brains and arrogance to believe in American liberal democracy.
Freedom is freedom, but there is absolutely no freedom without money. Democracy is what the United States shouldered after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was indeed democratic. This is true in the system, but people have selfish desires and blind obedience. Sexual, so that Soviet-style democracy would be unsustainable unless all members of the Soviet Union were saints and selfless, which is obviously impossible. The 19th century was the era of white people. Even white people’s farts smelled good. The Japanese couldn’t help but take a few more puffs of the black smoke from the big chimneys in the industrial era. Therefore, countries like East Africa, especially with the two world powers, Countries with important connections, not only because of their strength, are respected by others, but at least they will not be ostracized overseas.
Therefore, in the eyes of Japanese officials, Minister Kade is extremely arrogant. However, the Japanese do not think of this arrogance as rude, but as a matter of course. This is a sign of confidence in their own strength.
“Of course, we do not want a real conflict with East Africa. We hope that the two countries will each take a step back and find a solution acceptable to everyone and put aside the dispute.”
Kad : "It's best this way."
Soon, the Japanese government started discussions on the Southern Ryukyu Islands, which is what Japan calls the Sakishima Islands.
"The Sakishima Islands must not be given away. East Africa is not the Far Eastern Empire. If we give it to East Africa now, it will not be easy to get it back in the future."
"Eda Shoji, I understand your feelings, but the current situation is that the enemy is strong and we are weak. We must face up to the strength gap between the two sides, and the Sakishima Islands are not worth gambling on our national destiny."
"Congressman Yamamoto is right. The East African Navy is one of the top ten most powerful navies in the world, and we may not be able to win if we concentrate all our efforts. It is not worth sacrificing the fate of the Imperial Navy for the ownership of the Sakishima Islands. " said someone from the naval department.
The Japanese Navy does not want to fight to the death with the East African Navy, because the East African Navy has very strong paper data and is not confident in defeating the East African Navy and the Japanese Navy.
And what if we win? This is the issue that the Japanese Navy attaches most importance to. Even if Japan can win, there is a 100% probability of a tragic victory. Most of the East African Navy's strength is in the Indian Ocean. Even if the East African Navy in the Southern Ryukyu Islands is annihilated, it will not cause too much damage to East Africa. Big loss.
The East African Navy has a strong ability to withstand pressure, but the Japanese Navy is not like this, because the Japanese Navy has a competitor, that is, the Japanese Army. If the Japanese Navy suffers huge losses, how can the army's "red deer" It is not that the Japanese navy will have to sit on its own head for the next ten years or so. This is the most unacceptable thing for the Japanese navy.
The spokesperson of the Army Department saw through the Navy's thoughts and provocatively said: "It seems that some people only know how to enjoy coffee and Western food with the Empire's taxpayers' money, but cannot guarantee the interests of the Empire. I think the Navy's funds are better left to us." Management, so that it can be used in the right way."
"Tsurao Ichiro, this is a slander. The Imperial Navy's funding is pitiful. Look at our ships, they are two generations behind East Africa. This is the reason why the empire is now unable to deal with East Africa on the Sakishima Islands. Is it like using fishing boats to consume East Africa like Tao Fever Morita? Moreover, without our navy, your army will only be in a nest, and it will still be up to us to expand the territory. Navy, so in my opinion, your army is the most useless department. We should reduce military expenditures and supply more warships to the empire.”
(End of this chapter)