Chapter 43: The meeting that decided the fate of Japan
Spring of 1946, Western Japan, Hiroshima Prefecture, Itsukushima Shrine
The tall vermilion torii gate stands in the middle of the rolling waves; the bells under the eaves of the five-layer pagoda make a sweet sound in the sea breeze.
The gorgeous temple with red pillars and white walls complements the green forest and blue sea, as if telling an ancient song.
——The Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture is a religious shrine with a long history. It was founded around 593 AD. During the reign of Emperor Suiko, it enshrined the three sea goddesses (the Munakata three goddesses) in ancient Japanese legends.
By the end of the Heian period, Itsukushima Shrine was respected and donated by the powerful Taira clan, and it prospered rapidly. Later, in order to expand ocean trade, Taira Kiyomori, the founder of the Japanese samurai regime, officially selected Itsukushima Shrine, which is dedicated to the god of the sea, as the place of worship for the Taira clan. He funded the construction of many magnificent buildings for the shrine, broadcasting the reputation of Itsukushima Shrine to the entire world. In Japan, incense is extremely popular. During the Warring States Period that followed, the Maori family and the Ouchi family fought for hegemony over the Western Kingdom, and the Battle of Itsukushima, known as one of the "three major surprise attacks of the Warring States Period in Japan," broke out here.
Since it is a shrine dedicated to the god of the sea, Itsukushima Shrine was built in the intertidal zone of the Seto Inland Sea in order to highlight the characteristics of the sea. The entire shrine is located on a high scaffold. It is the only maritime wooden building in Japan designed using the principle of high and low tides. Objects are also rare in the world. When the tide rises, Itsukushima Shrine will be covered by sea water, as if it turns into a giant ship drifting on the sea, or a mini water city Venice.
In the spring of this year, a major meeting to determine the fate of Japan was being held in this ancient and gorgeous Itsukushima Shrine.
In other words, the preparatory meeting for the founding of Red Japan!
The fate of this Eastern island country has once again reached a historic critical moment!
——The current urban area of Hiroshima, Kure garrison and Etajima Naval Academy have been repeatedly bombed by U.S. military planes. They are covered in rubble and ruins. There is no decent enough venue for the meeting. And the army representatives were determined not to go to the navy's warships for meetings, lest they be inferior to others. So the two sides had to compromise, and finally chose Itsukushima Shrine, which was far away from the urban area, not subject to air raids, had a quiet environment and beautiful scenery, as the venue for the meeting.
The warm spring sunshine is passing through the carefully carved window lattice and slanting into the courtyard of the shrine, filling the ground with bright golden light. The gentle breeze, carrying the fragrance of vegetation and the salty smell of sea water, quietly flows into the tall and majestic ancient halls and the winding and deep corridors. There is a faint fragrance of flowers or incense floating in the air, swirling and dancing messily. petals and fallen leaves, as well as a delicate witch wearing a red and white dress, Everything is as exquisite and beautiful as a gorgeous ukiyo-e... Only the heavily armed and heavily guarded Japanese navy and army soldiers inside and outside the shrine, as well as the anti-aircraft gun bunkers erected around the shrine, give this historical and religious holy place of Japan's sea goddess, It was dyed with a chilling atmosphere of iron and blood.
At this moment, in a spacious wooden-colored Japanese-style room at Itsukushima Shrine, a group of serious-looking men were sitting cross-legged and kneeling on tatami mats that smelled of straw, discussing how to build a revolutionary new government and how to restore the country. important topics.
The attendees here are all high-ranking officials in Japan today. Among them, Army members include former Kwantung Army Commander Umezu Yoshijiro, North China Front Army Commander Okamura Neiji, North Korean Governor-General Koiso Kuniaki, and General Secretary of the "Hokkaido Soviet Republic" Commander Kuribayashi Tadamichi, as well as Araki Sadao, the soul of the Kodō sect who was forced to retire due to the February 26th Mutiny, Jinzaburo Masaki and Toshishiro Obata; the Navy members include the current Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Narumi Inoue, the Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet, Shigetoku Kami, the President of the Etajima Naval War School, Takeo Kurita, the President of the Naval University, Ozawa Jisaburo, and the Chairman of Nanyang Heavy Industries, Horitsukichi... …Compared with the khaki uniforms of the army generals, the pure white military uniforms of the navy generals are particularly dazzling.
If the representatives of the navy and army are clearly divided, then the representatives of the Japanese Communist Party sitting below them are even more scattered and full of factions: among them are the "local grassroots" led by the founder of the party, Tokuda Kiichi, the Japanese Red Thought The "local academic group" led by theorist and Kyoto University professor Hajime Kawakami, the "international group" who fled to the Soviet Union to avoid arrest, the wild group The "Anti-War Alliance" faction developed by Ban Sanzo in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Yan'an, China; the "Nanyang faction" developed by Nakanishi Isao and Ozaki Hidemi in the southern occupied area under the shelter of the navy (ship girls to be precise)... In addition There were also liaison officers from the Soviet Union, several sporadic small groups that were not affiliated with each other, and even party representatives from Taiwan, who also sent representatives to attend the meeting.
The reason for this situation is that the Japanese Communist Party was destroyed by the government soon after its establishment, and its founder, Tokuda Kiichi, spent more than 20 years in prison. The central agency suddenly ceased to exist, and the party organization was fragmented and could no longer be pieced together. Several leaders could only find foreign aid to pull small groups offline. In the end, they turned into a bunch of small parties. So far, they have all failed. Before sorting out the organizational relationships, we were in a hurry to found the country!
In other words, today’s Japanese Communist Party is not actually a unified political party at all. It is just an alliance of small groups with scattered votes. There are several party chairmen who are self-proclaimed or appointed by China and the Soviet Union. The organizational level is Probably equivalent to Japan’s reformers at the end of the Tokugawa period...
However, today they are not empty talkers with no money or soldiers. Instead, they have seized part of the local power and established various Soviet regimes and powerful local Red Guard factions. Otherwise, they would not be qualified to come. A meeting was held here to discuss plans for the founding of the country.
In addition to the attendees, there were also leaders of some "vibrant patriotic social groups", county governors of more than a dozen counties in the Kansai region, CEOs of certain companies, and a number of prestigious private figures... Finally, there was Yan The priest of Shima Shrine was also able to attend the meeting as the host.
All in all, it is a hodgepodge of various resistance forces across the country, with almost no common ground except "resisting the United States and resisting the foreigners."
——If "White Japan" is indeed white enough, then this "Red Japan" is obviously not red enough...
Although the identities of these people and the forces they represent are confusing enough. However, this is not the most chaotic. What is even more confusing is the host of this preparatory meeting for the founding of the nation: the former Prime Minister of the Japanese Empire and the current Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Japan in Yokohama, Duke Konoe Fumima, who is sitting in the chair!
This messy feeling in the wind is almost the same as Chairman Chiang attending the founding ceremony on Tiananmen Square!
You are a great feudal aristocrat, a universally recognized civilian fascist, a direct descendant of one of the five major regent families of the Fujiwara family, and you are also the supreme leader of the puppet reactionary government supported by the US military. Why are you here to join in the fun? This is too much imagination!
But Duke Fumima Konoe said that he is really one of his own and has been closely related to Marxist thought from a very early age...
——No way, this guy really was once a famous Marxist! He is also an expert on Japanese Marxist theory and the protégé of Hajime Kawakami, an economics professor at Kyoto University... Although strictly speaking, he is just a Marxist mouthpiece of Mr. Ye... he is still self-proclaimed.
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——Anyone who has played the Japanese Sengoku game will probably have some impression of a man named Konoe Maekyu (the highest position among public ministers, similar to the prime minister). Among the ministers of the Warring States Period in Japan, Lord Guan Bai basically had the highest appearance rate: from Uesugi Kenshin's Kanto Strategy, to Oda Nobunaga's war with Honganji Temple, and then the burning of Oda Nobunaga. The incident at Honnoji Temple (Honōji Temple is right next door to his house)...and Konoe Fumima is a direct descendant of Konoe Maekyu. He belongs to a famous family. His mother is a descendant of the Maeda family. The third one can also be called noble.
However, although Konoe Fumima's family background was noble, his life was quite bumpy. Unfortunately, he lost his father when he was twelve years old. Next, I inexplicably found that I had a lot of debt on my head. Every three days, unknown people came to my house to move things as collateral...
The sudden decline of his family fortune made the young Konoe Fumimaro feel the harshness of the world, and he began to become cynical. Then, he accidentally came into contact with the Marxist works of Professor Kawakami Hajime at school, and was immediately attracted. He even transferred to Kyoto University to seek advice from Kawakami Hajime. At the same time, he also publicly spread a lot of radical remarks, and became a celebrity for a while. This caused a headache for the government that was severely suppressing the red elements at the time: a person of noble blood like Konoe Fumimaro would not be caught unless he actually committed something rebellious... In the end, he could only be allowed to talk randomly.
However, although Konoe Fumima said a lot of words praising Marxism, he actually did not join any party organization, and he felt a bit like Mr. Ye. Moreover, he is not so much in favor of Marxism ideologically as he hates the world hegemony of the American and British Anglo-Saxon nations. He strongly approves of anything that is objectionable to mainstream American and British thought... So, from the beginning, Konoe Fumima claimed to be a Marxist A righteous person; when Hitler came to power and Nazi Germany was born, he gradually became a supporter of fascist ideas; at the same time, in Japan's domestic political struggle, he tended to the Emperor's faction, vowing to serve the people at the bottom Talk, screw with the chaebol...
All in all, in the Japanese political arena before World War II, Konoe Fumima was basically equivalent to a modern public intellectual V. He represented "social conscience" all day long and made various radical remarks... But in the final analysis, it was just a matter of letting go. It's just talk. If you ask him what to do specifically, you will be blinded...
To say that he is a Marxist is not worthy of the name, and to say that he is a fascist is not quite correct. In short, he is just a famous talker.
After the February 26th Mutiny, the ruling faction within the War Ministry completely purged the Kodō faction and took over the power in one fell swoop. In order to balance the power, Emperor Showa decided to let Konoe Fumima of the Kodō faction organize a new cabinet. One month before the July 7th Incident, Fumima Konoe ascended to the throne of Prime Minister with great ambition, but then he found that he had simply jumped into a big fire pit. The army did not obey his orders at all, and cabinet members always lied to him about this. Prime Minister, let alone running the country, even the cabinet members are playing tricks on him all day long. As the prime minister, he was kept in the dark about most military operations. He even had to read newspapers to know the latest developments on the front line. He was so angry that he lamented all day long: "Even if there is an order from the emperor, there is no one within the army who can discuss policies." People.”
The whole process of the Sino-Japanese war was that the army or navy started the war by talking to themselves, and then reported it to him as the prime minister afterwards, asking him to fully cooperate. Faced with huge international pressure, he vowed to negotiate peace with the United States and Britain several times, and then tried to negotiate with Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, but was screwed up by the rampaging Army, making him a stranger inside and outside... Next, at the request of the Army , in order to fight against the Soviet Union, he single-handedly presided over the establishment of the Japan-Germany-Italy Axis Alliance, hoping to advance from east to west and attack the Soviet Union from both sides. Unexpectedly, he was tricked by Hitler, and he turned around and signed the "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact", putting Japan on the fire, and the blame was placed on him. Finally, he offered generous terms in an attempt to recruit Wang Jingwei to defect and undermine the National Government's will to fight. As a result, before Wang Jingwei could switch over, Konoe Fumima was already ousted from office by the cabinet, and all previous promises were naturally in vain.
Anyway, after a few years of becoming prime minister, Konoe Fumima's public image has changed from a talkative to a fool. The whole world knows that no one listens to Konoe Fumima, and his actions are unreliable. He guarantees nothing and spends all day. Being fooled, in fact, he was just a vase, but he had no self-consciousness about being a vase... From the emperor to the chaebols to the army and the people, everyone was disappointed in Konoe Fumima and ridiculed him as "the stupidest in the history of Japan" Prime Minister”…
Before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Konoe Fumima had been forced to leave the country and lived in seclusion in a country villa in Karuizawa. Just because of his identity and blood relationship, he was summoned by the emperor from time to time to ask for some opinions as a reference. Then, under the influence of Ozaki Hidemi, a famous leader of the Japanese Communist Party who once served as his secretary, he ideologically moved closer to Marxism. Later, he saw the incredible power of Miss Kanmu, and even more sincerely I was convinced, and then even talked to Soviet spy Sorge Got on the line - Originally, Sorge's special agent team would be cracked during the war, but in this time and space, with the power of the ship girl Miss Sophie, naturally she would not let this happen, and even in turn caused the entire The Imperial Navy provides them with cover...
The reason why he was elected as Prime Minister by the "Japan Provisional Government" that advocated surrender to the United States was actually purely accidental - at that time, the heads of several major Japanese chaebols held a secret gathering in Kyoto, and the Emperor actually listened vaguely. When I heard about it, I thought it was not a big deal, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I hope that I will be regarded as a fool who knows nothing, so I ordered my attendant to make a phone call and signaled Konoe Fumima, a layman, to come and join in the fun, so as to give these chaebols a slap in the face and prevent them from thinking that they had run out of Tokyo. Able to be lawless, talk nonsense and move...
As a result, just after Konoe Fumima drove his car to Kyoto and broke into the chaebol party uninvited, Tokyo, the emperor and the government were hit by atomic bombs... Next, before Konoe could wait, After Fumima recovered from his confusion, the "non-nationals" in Kyoto talked about themselves and set up a "Japanese Provisional Government" to preside over the surrender to the Allies. Because this matter will definitely lead to eternal infamy, a group of chaebol bosses pushed me and others, and finally passed the blame to Konoe Fumima, an outsider who had been prime minister, and planned to make this guy the prime minister before surrendering. Sign the book.
Forced by samurai swords and pistols, Konoe Fumima, who unfortunately threw himself into a tiger's den, had no choice but to lament that "he jumped into the fire pit again this time" and sadly took office as the provisional government. Prime Minister, and read out the proclamation of surrender to the United States... Then within a few days, Konoe Fumima took advantage of the group's lax defenses, found an opportunity to sneak away alone, fled all the way to Hiroshima, and met up with the organization head.
So, when the days passed and the Itsukushima Conference was held, all parties had a huge dispute at the preparatory meeting - if someone from the Army was asked to preside over the meeting, the Navy would not agree; if someone from the Navy was asked to preside over the meeting, the Army would not agree. ; If someone from the Japanese Communist Party is allowed to chair the meeting, neither the navy nor the army will agree. Moreover, the Japanese Communist Party itself is in a mess. It has not yet decided who is the real party chairman. It is waiting for this meeting. Solve it together!
As for those ordinary people who are just like cats and dogs, they are completely out of the spotlight. Someone also suggested that the host of the venue, the priest of Itsukushima Shrine, should preside over the meeting. No one objected to this. The problem is that the poor priest didn't know what to say at all...
In the end, Konoe Fumima, who was born into a noble family, had been the Prime Minister of the Empire, and had some affinity with the Japanese Communist Party, was elected as the host of the meeting. As for his other identity as the "Supreme Leader of White Japan" , everyone had to turn a blind eye intentionally or unintentionally.
In short, although from the perspective of Wang Qiu, who was holding a recording pen as a secretary, this meeting was so confusing from the venue to the participants to the host, no matter how embarrassing the above-mentioned things were, this The Itsukushima Conference, which determined Japan's fate, was successfully held.
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At the beginning of the meeting, as the moderator, Konoe Fumima first reported on the current severe situation on the domestic battlefield - previously, as the Japanese archipelago entered winter, the weather was freezing everywhere and the roads were covered with snow, which was not conducive to military maneuvering. Moreover, the U.S. military has yet to be gradually transferred across the Pacific to Japan, and the frontline troops are temporarily stretched. Therefore, the Red Guards and resistance forces in various parts of Japan have successfully blocked the continued invasion of the U.S. military with a very weak force. After the Battle of Nagoya, Japan There was a stalemate on the battlefield for nearly three months.
However, after entering March, spring flowers have bloomed and the ice and snow have melted in the Japanese archipelago. After this period of all-out efforts, the U.S. military has assembled approximately 400,000 to 500,000 troops in Japan, and has stockpiled enough ammunition and materials to launch a new round of attack.
Therefore, after entering March, the U.S. Army commanded by Patton once again launched a new all-out offensive on the Japanese battlefield. First, it annihilated the local Red Guards in Gifu City in central Japan and completely swept away the entire Nobi Plain; then in Shikoku A large-scale landing on the island took control of the four countries The island faces the southern half of the Pacific Ocean; at the same time, in the Battle of Utsunomiya, it defeated the old imperial regular army commanded by Kuribayashi Tadamichi, forcing it to retreat north to Aizu, relying on the Avukuma Mountains to continue to hold on, and at the same time, it had to worry about the U.S. Marine Corps in Sendai Port Threat from the side.
Currently, U.S. paratroopers are airborne on a large scale in Kofu, cooperating with the frontal offensive of the ANZAC mountain troops. They are about to take Kai, the place where Takeda Shingen started, into their hands. Although the local Red Guards are still trying their best to resist, they have been exposed The image of defeat... If the rugged terrain of the Japanese archipelago was not suitable for tanks, the complacent General Patton might have been planning how to march straight into the Hiroshima base camp.
Then, at sea, Japan is also at a clear disadvantage. Although the main force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet led by Admiral Halsey has returned to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for rest and recuperation, the main force of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet led by General Kent Hewitt passed through the Panama Canal last month and was transferred to the Western Pacific battlefield. , effectively filling the vacancy left after Halsey's fleet returned to the division, making it difficult for the combined fleet to take the opportunity to counterattack.
At this point, the United States has put almost all its maritime power on the front line against Japan. The total tonnage of combat ships deployed by the US military in the Pacific battlefield has reached more than 10 million tons. With a tonnage advantage of five to six times, the Japanese Navy has been forced to Failure to proceed with caution.
What is even more unfavorable for the Japanese resistance is that with the spread of Soviet power, although the people at the bottom have been successfully mobilized to join the resistance war. But it also prompted many traditional wealthy families with large amounts of land to switch to the side of the US military out of class interests.
Those powerful families whose family history can be passed down from the Heian period not only have a deep-rooted influence on the old imperial government, but also have a powerful and deep-rooted control over the people. Even in the current situation of betrayal of the nation, a lot of forces can still be mobilized to surrender to the enemy. They successfully launched many Japanese riots in Shikoku Island, Kyushu Island, Kansai and Hokuriku regions, seriously hampering frontline defensive operations.
Therefore, in order to suppress the traitorous reactionary forces more effectively and cope with the cruel war of national salvation, it is necessary for all the resistance forces to unify their thinking, clarify their organization, coordinate and unify, and continue the war as a normal country rather than a scattered country.
Finally, Konoe Fumima concluded, "...if we use the situation in the Warring States Period as an analogy, then the territory of the Oda family, the Takeda family, the Imagawa family, the Hojo family, the Date family, and the Nagasogabe family , have now become enemies. If we cannot unite as one, we will become enemies. If you continue to fight on your own, the result will only be that you will be crushed one by one. That’s why you will come here to discuss the future of the country..." Then comes the real drama - since it is necessary. To establish a new political power, how should the state structure be determined and how should power be distributed?