Chapter 35: War in East Asia (Part 2)
Early January 1946, Okinawa Prefecture, Naha Port
While the Korean Peninsula is already experiencing heavy snowfall, dripping water turning into ice, and bone-chilling cold, Okinawa Prefecture on the Ryukyu Islands is still as warm as spring.
Under the clear blue sky, the rippling sea reflected the golden light of the sun, like an extremely huge sapphire.
However, the island of Okinawa, just a few feet away, is filled with smoke and dilapidated, which is in sharp contrast to this beautiful sea and sky.
Naha Port, the largest city on the island, was already covered in rubble. Among the dilapidated streets and alleys scattered with countless bomb craters, there are piles of ruins of dilapidated buildings everywhere, many of which are still smoking. The corpses and bullet casings littering the streets, the fragmented sunken ships in the port, and the scattered burnt Stars and Stripes and Sun Flags all fully demonstrated that this place had just experienced the ravages of war.
Until now, in the countryside far away from the port, sporadic gunshots and screams can still be heard from time to time.
——That's the Japanese Marine Corps that landed, continuing to clear out the fleeing enemy troops.
Those Okinawans who were lucky enough to survive were now like walking zombies, wandering over their homes that had been burned to ashes, trying to dig out some useful things from the collapsed ruins and thick ashes. Other islanders who still had houses to stay in for the time being blocked the doors and windows with wooden bars and furniture. At the same time, through the narrow door cracks, they looked at the rising sun flag rising again on the pier with complicated eyes... …
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Going back to three months ago, when news of the nuclear explosion in Tokyo, the genocide of the imperial family, and the collapse of the empire came in last October, people in Okinawa Prefecture, like other prefectures in Japan, also fell into huge chaos and confusion. among. Next, when the "Japanese Provisional Government" that appeared out of nowhere issued an announcement, claiming that it would endure the humiliation, negotiate a truce, and unconditionally surrender to the U.S. military, the vast majority of the originally hesitant people in Okinawa Prefecture He responded enthusiastically to this announcement almost without thinking, without any thought of revenge for the emperor.
——Unlike the prefectures on the mainland of the Japanese archipelago, the relationship between Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands to the Japanese Empire is more similar to that of Ireland to Britain. It is not so much the mainland as it is a colony that was annexed relatively early. The indigenous people of this island are not part of the Yamato nation. They have their own language and civilization. Between the 13th and 14th centuries, three primitive tribal states emerged in Okinawa that implemented aristocratic enfeoffment system: Beishan Kingdom, Zhongshan Kingdom and Nanshan Kingdom. Next, as the saying goes, a storm can arise in a teacup, a series of wars broke out between these three mini-countries. Finally, the Zhongshan Kingdom ruled by the Shang family completed its unification and established the Ryukyu Kingdom, which lasted for five hundred years.
However, although Niubi boasts the name of a "kingdom", Ryukyu is after all a small place isolated on the sea, with barren land and a small population. If you want to measure the strength of Ryukyu, an ancient country, it may not be easy to compare it with the example of China. If you use the example of Japan, the Owari Kingdom, where the Warring States overlord Oda Nobunaga was founded, has an Ishiga (annual rice output) of 50 Seventy thousand stones. What is the height of the stone in the Ryukyu Kingdom? Only 120,000 stones!
In other words, the so-called Ryukyu Kingdom is only equivalent to one-fifth of the strength of Owari Kingdom's daimyo Oda Nobunaga at the time of the Battle of Okehama. This country basically does not have any mines worth mentioning, nor does it have any lucrative specialties. Even iron tools basically rely on imports. There was not enough food to eat. Before the introduction of sweet potatoes, Ryukyu civilians had been grinding cereals and even cycad fruits to satisfy their hunger, which was called the "cycad hell".
Fortunately, the geographical location of the Ryukyu Kingdom itself is a very valuable bargaining chip. In the early days of the Age of Discovery, Ryukyu Island was once a very important transit trade port in the Far East. Relying on the rich income from multilateral trade between China, Korea, Japan, Malaya and the Spice Islands, this small Ryukyu Kingdom once had a golden age of prosperity for hundreds of years, with various tall temples and pagodas. , stone tortoise-shell tombs have been erected one after another.
However, this also aroused the covetousness of the evil neighbors in the north - in the early seventeenth century, the Satsuma Domain located at the southernmost tip of Kyushu Island sent three thousand troops to cross the sea to expedition to Ryukyu. Only a few miscellaneous soldiers died, and they easily conquered this country with almost no standing army. of islands.
However, after all, Ryukyu and Satsuma are far apart, with very different languages and races. Moreover, with the size and heritage of the Satsuma clan, it is difficult to swallow such a self-contained island country for a while. In addition, if the shell of the Ryukyu Kingdom is preserved, the merchants of the Satsuma Domain can also use it to bypass the shogunate's national lock-down order and the Qing Dynasty's sea ban, and continue to trade with China under the banner of "Ryukyu Tribute Envoy", thus seeking huge profits and making up for the loss. Fiscal deficit in the territory.
Therefore, although the subsequent Ryukyu Kingdom had to pay taxes and tribute to Satsuma, and allowed a group of Satsuma warriors to be stationed in the country, it basically maintained its independence in internal affairs and culture, and even the language was not assimilated. Probably similar to the US military stationed in South Korea and the South Korean government in later generations.
After the Meiji Restoration, the truly unified Japanese government could no longer tolerate the continued existence of the semi-independent Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1879, it officially annexed Ryukyu, turned it into Okinawa Prefecture, and imposed restrictions on the islanders. Beginning to implement Japanese education... In this way, the Japanese Empire incorporated Okinawa into its territory, which was only more than ten years before it invaded Taiwan, which was not enough for the survivors of the Ryukyu Kingdom to regard themselves as Japanese.
——Both the feelings for Japan as a country and the loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor are very weak in the hearts of people in Okinawa Prefecture. Both the Satsuma clan and the later Meiji government focused on plundering and exploiting Okinawa. Therefore, in Okinawa at this time, except for a few Japanese immigrants who later moved in, most of the native-born locals, or the survivors of the Ryukyu Kingdom, had no sense of belonging to Japan.
Therefore, when the news of the collapse of the Japanese Empire reached the Ryukyu Islands, except for a few "ball traitors" who were deeply educated by the imperial people and Japanese expatriates who later immigrated, the vast majority had already been subject to forced conscription, levy of support troops, war taxes and The citizens of Okinawa Prefecture are tortured to death by the national defense debt. They breathed a sigh of relief, and then they couldn't wait to rush to the county hall together to petition the county governor, asking him to send a telegram as soon as possible to recognize the "Japanese Provisional Government" that surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, and then stay away from the war, so as not to suffer any consequences. Okinawa attracted poison gas bombs and atomic bombs from the US military.
However, as an official loyal to His Majesty the Emperor and in charge of Okinawa Prefecture, Governor Shimada did not want to express his position so quickly. On the one hand, I can't get over the hurdle in my heart yet. On the other hand, the US military is still far away after all, and there seems to be no need to rush out. Moreover, although the palace in Tokyo and the wartime headquarters are all gone, the empire's million-strong army is still there, as is the invincible combined fleet. Who knows what will happen in the future?
But public opinion cannot be violated: Seeing Governor Shimada always dragging his feet and showing little affection for the Japanese Empire, the people of Okinawa Prefecture, who were afraid of being bombed by US nuclear bombs, suddenly became anxious. I don’t know who incited him to do this. Riots broke out, and even local police officers took their side. Moreover, since it was a rear island far away from the battlefield, Okinawa Prefecture did not have any garrison at all at this time. There are two divisions of troops stationed on the nearby island of Taiwan. The problem is that the governor of Taiwan was the first to accept the surrender announcement... Where can the governor go to ask for help?
The governor of Okinawa Prefecture, Mr. Shimada, who was unable to do anything after being called out every day, hung up his seal and left home in anger. He went home and stayed behind closed doors. A group of "revolutionary masses" rioted in the Okinawa Prefectural Hall for several days and found it very boring. Finally, they elected a "highly respected" elementary school principal, who was said to be a descendant of the Sho family of the former Ryukyu royal family, to serve as the "Regent of Okinawa" , while issuing a call for unconditional surrender to the Allies.
At this point, the riots in Okinawa Prefecture seem to have come to an end, and the situation has temporarily calmed down. Although the relationship between Japanese immigrants and Ryukyu natives became extremely tense during this turmoil, after all, both sides were in panic all day long, waiting for the judgment of fate, and no one was in the mood to fight.
However, the good times did not last long. In late November, two destroyers, a gunboat and two merchant ships, carrying hundreds of Japanese navy, army officers, soldiers and expats, arrived at the Naha Port in Okinawa. They were all Japanese officers, soldiers and expatriates who had escaped from Taiwan Island. They refused to surrender to the Allied forces and would rather return home on their own. I originally thought that when I arrived in Okinawa Prefecture, I would be mostly on the mainland. I didn’t expect to come here to take a look, but I found a group of "non-nationals" entrenched in the Okinawa Prefectural Office: In order to welcome the Allied forces to come to occupy and take over, the islanders even Various handmade stars and stripes are hung on the streets of Naha!
The warriors of the imperial army were furious when they saw this, and when they were deceived by several radical staff officers, they immediately began to kill people and carry out divine punishment. After some people died, the local Okinawa islanders who couldn't bear it took out their inventory of weapons and started fighting with the returning imperial army. Even the survivors of the Ryukyu Kingdom in Okinawa Prefecture had fully received militaristic education and training in this era. , have you ever done anything for the emperor? Deathly loyalty aside, at least the basic combat capabilities of the militia level are still available... The scale of the battle soon became larger and larger. Facing the swarming "armed mob", the Japanese Navy's destroyers had to use naval guns to bombard the dock. , and it exploded into bloody pieces for a while. Many Japanese immigrants who had settled on the island for several generations were also involved in this bloody dispute and were helplessly involved in the expanding vendetta. Suddenly the whole county was filled with smoke, like pirates attacking a city...
Then, before the Japanese Imperial Army, which "protected the country with iron blood," could fight with the Ryukyu people who "did not live up to the emperor's kindness," could come to a conclusion, the Americans also came here.
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——Almost at the same time as the Battle of Nagoya was going on, MacArthur, who was commanding the battle, also assigned some small troops to take over the surrendered local governments of the Japanese Empire. Afterwards, although MacArthur became a prisoner and was paraded in an iron cage, the surrender work continued.
Among them, because Okinawa is a transportation hub between Japan, mainland China and Taiwan Island, its geographical location is relatively critical, so the US military mobilized an escort aircraft carrier, a heavy cruiser, a tank landing ship, four destroyers and several The merchant ship formed a small squadron, carrying a regiment of the Anzac Corps, plus a battalion of the 1st Marine Division, all the way from Tokyo to take charge of the surrender of Okinawa Prefecture.
As a result, the "die-hard Japanese fascists" who were still showing off their ferocity on Okinawa a moment ago were immediately subjected to all-round brutal suppression by the US military, from aircraft bombing to cruiser shelling to tank crushing. Two destroyers, a gunboat and two merchant ships parked in the port were all blown up or captured before they had almost time to react. The Japanese soldiers who had already landed were also quickly expelled from the city and dispersed in a chaotic manner. Among the countryside.
Next, the Japanese immigrants in Naha Port City who had moved to Okinawa for several generations were also picked up from their homes one by one by the red-eyed Ryukyu people, and executed collectively in broad daylight by the equally red-eyed US military... The island was full of corpses and seas of blood, and the scene was like purgatory.
But the problem is that after killing several groups of Japanese immigrants that could be found, the US soldiers, who had completely lost control during the massacre, began to point their guns at the Ryukyu natives - in their eyes, these damn yellow-skinned Monkeys are no different. In particular, the Anzac soldiers burned, killed, and looted everywhere on the island, committing all kinds of evil, which soon aroused the resistance of the Ryukyu people. Suddenly, gunfire broke out in the streets and alleys were littered with corpses.
Then, as the saying goes, the mantis stalks the cicada, but the oriole stalks behind. Just when the island was filled with smoke and fighting continued, a group of Japanese naval aviation bombers and torpedo planes suddenly appeared on the skyline over Okinawa, and countless steel battleships also appeared on the distant horizon!
——After receiving the distress message from the trapped Japanese troops in Okinawa, especially the naval officers and soldiers on the two destroyers, commanded the combined fleet aircraft carrier mobile fleet and transport convoy to go north from Truk anchorage, and was about to head to Hainan Island to meet the battleships General Horikichi, who had joined the formation, hurriedly ordered At that time, he changed his route to Okinawa to save his comrades and compatriots from the butcher knife of the "American and British white beasts"... At this time, although he did not have the most powerful-looking battleship in his hands, he concentrated the essence of the naval aviation of the Combined Fleet and a large number of escorts. of cruisers and destroyers...
As a result, on the battlefield of Okinawa, the positions of hunters and prey were once again reversed... The changes in the world are really dizzying. In this way, in less than a week, Naha Port, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, was plowed three times by naval guns and bombs, completely turning it into a pile of ruins. As a result, the population of Naha Port, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, was reduced. Almost a third of the world has evaporated...