Chapter 50: The increasingly bizarre era
On the other hand, although I feel very broken by the current "Girls' Yamato" and even can't accept it, human beings' ability to adapt is generally very strong, especially in the cruel and turbulent war years. in this way. Therefore, after being in a daze for a while, the senior navy generals finally thought about it and accepted this embarrassing reality willingly or unwillingly. In order to smooth things over, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Narumi Inoue, even took the initiative to laugh at herself: "...With Japan's poor and weak national power, we took the initiative to go to war with the powerful United States four years ago. This was something only a madman could do. In this case, it was all done anyway. I have been crazy for so many years, so I might as well just keep going crazy all the way to the end..."
In short, no matter how depressed my mood is, after the flag-raising ceremony, I still have to eat breakfast at the "Yamato Hotel".
When the female sailors with no military appearance on the front deck of the Yamato finished singing the military song and performed a set of naval gymnastics, they dispersed in a hurry, each with their arms around each other, and even dragged their children to the cafeteria to eat their share. While the "cat rice" with dried bonito flowers was being spread, all the well-dressed senior navy generals on the bridge of the Yamato also walked into the commander's suite of the Yamato and sat down, preparing to have breakfast together.
As the most luxurious place in the entire "Yamato Hotel", the restaurant decoration in the Commander's Suite is naturally as luxurious as a high-end hotel. The floor is covered with a silver-gray wool carpet, the bulkheads are made of brown chestnut wood panels, the long dining table is equipped with shiny silver tableware, and even the porcelain plates and bowls are made of high-end "Mino ware"... After everyone took their seats on both sides of the long table, the female soldiers in sailor uniforms brought out the fragrant meals.
——Although the current military professionalism of these "Yamato Nadeshiko" on the Yamato is almost too bad to be seen. But as the basic literacy of traditional Japanese women, at least their skills in housework and cooking are full of points: white rice sprinkled with sesame seeds makes people very appetizing at first glance, and the oily salt-grilled saury smells delicious. The miso soup with tofu, scallions and diced pork is also very delicious, and there is also the "water steamed bun" made of arrowroot powder and sugar as a dessert after the meal... Everyone is eating an exquisite Japanese breakfast like this, While chatting about the current war situation.
Currently, on the Japanese battlefield, the main force of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet has withdrawn to Pearl Harbor for rest and recuperation. The front-line troops are relatively insufficient. The Japanese Navy is in a state of paralysis after frantically bombing warships. Therefore, both fleets are temporarily unable to dispatch large-scale deployments, and can only let the army and air force Come and play the leading role. As far as the scope of Japan's four mainland islands is concerned, according to ancient Japanese geographical concepts, it can be roughly divided into two main theaters, Kanto and Kansai.
On the Kanto battlefield, the Battle of Aizu, which lasted for more than a month, has come to an end for the time being. Relying on the elite reinforcements of the Kwantung Army constantly mobilized across the Sea of Japan, and the staggering amount of arms assistance, under the personal supervision of Army Deputy Chief of Staff Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was always known for his good defense, the Japanese army on the eastern front finally managed to withstand the defeat. General Patton's fierce offensive, which was like a violent storm, defended Aizu Castle in the inland mountains, but lost the Avukuma Highlands adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, allowing the U.S. Army to open up a land passage between the two major landing sites in Tokyo and Sendai.
After the Battle of Aizu, according to rough statistics, the Japanese army suffered about 40,000 casualties, more than 100,000 civilian casualties, lost 1,500 tanks of various types, and 3,000 artillery pieces of various types. In addition, more than 5,000 Japanese troops were shot down and destroyed. An aircraft... If it were in the past, the loss of such a large number of technical weapons would have been enough to drive the entire Army Ministry crazy. But with the advent of the "era vending machines", all you need to do is print some money and you'll have everything.
Therefore, during the war, the headquarters not only readily approved a supply of 10,000 Type 3 medium tanks (medium tanks) for Tadashi Kuribayashi, but also stated that these losses were nothing, even if it required one million tanks and 10 billion rounds. Only artillery shells can crush the American and British monsters, which is completely acceptable...
In addition to the main battlefield of Aizu, between the mountains of Kai and Shinano, various irregular armies, mainly the Red Guards, also relied on the mountains and canyons to resist the repeated offensives of hundreds of thousands of American troops. However, due to the lack of training and fortifications, overall they have suffered repeated defeats. Strategic locations such as Mount Fuji, Kofu Castle, Mount Shirane, and Mount Asama have been lost one after another. The forward defense line has retreated north to Nagano. If it retreats further, it will be driven in. Sea of Japan.
Then, in the occupied areas behind enemy lines, the resistance movement organized by the Japanese Communist Party was also in a bad situation. The U.S. military, which has completely exceeded the lower limit, on the one hand organized puppet troops to raid the countryside, massacred everywhere and released poison gas, and implemented the three-guang policy on the entire Kanto region. On the other hand, it planned to drive the remaining "submissive people" in the countryside into areas surrounded by barbed wire, trenches and The "strategic village" of the bunker was built, and then the remaining empty villages were burned down. This was used to cut off the connection between the resistance guerrillas and the people. Well, in fact, the US military has a plan that has not yet been implemented, which is to move a large number of extremely poor black Africans into the Japanese-occupied areas. Each of them will be given a certain amount of ammunition, and they will make a living by killing, setting fire, robbing and stealing. They do not ask for any achievements, but only Just make sure that the Japanese outside the strategic village cannot survive.
As a result, the guerrillas behind enemy lines of the Japanese Communist Party were completely in trouble - even if they had sufficient logistical supplies and did not have to rely on the food and money provided by the people in the occupied areas, without the cover of the rural people, a small group of rookie guerrillas would There is no way to survive in the cruel battlefield behind enemy lines.
There is no way. Strictly speaking, the Japanese do not actually engage in guerrilla warfare in the modern sense: in another history of time and space, the Japanese Empire prepared for the "Decisive Battle on Homeland" at the end of the Pacific War and mobilized its citizens to engage in the "One Hundred Million Jade Crusade" period. Those military training basically emphasize how to use crude weapons to kill people, or It talks about how to drag someone on your back when you are bound to die. Apart from that, there is no training related to guerrilla warfare at all on how to protect yourself and hide yourself in battle, what guerrilla tactics to use, etc. , has nothing to do with real guerrilla warfare training - where is this preparation for guerrilla warfare? They are basically preparing for a nationwide suicide attack!
In this time and space, the situation is actually similar. The Japanese army has sufficient experience in anti-guerrilla warfare on various battlefields, but it has never fought a real guerrilla war. The Japanese Communist Party is better at propaganda and strikes, and its ability to engage in guerrilla behind enemy lines is really not its strong point... In the end, the battered wartime base camp had no choice but to invite General Okamura Neiji, who was recognized as "the most familiar with guerrilla warfare", to go to the Kanto front. Provide supervision and guidance.
Although Okamura Neiji felt very embarrassed about this and muttered: "... In the security war in North China, I went to mop up the Chinese Eighth Route Army, and in the Honshu security war, I was mopped up by American and British ghosts. Can such completely opposite experiences be applied?" But After all, there is no other way but to bite the bullet and take office.
Compared with the retreat and repeated defeats on the Kanto battlefield, the situation of the Japanese army on the Kansai battlefield is much better.
On the north side of the Kansai battlefield, a mixed force composed of the Red Guards, Marines and "Soviet Volunteers", under the command of the governor of the town, Masaichi Shinmi, relied on the indiscriminate bombing of naval aviation and battleship formations The crazy bombardment successfully shattered the U.S. military's ground attack on the Maizuru garrison in the Kyoto area and defended the largest fortress port base of the naval fleet on the Sea of Japan coast
In the middle section of the Kansai battlefield, the combined fleet organized a landing, easily recaptured Awaji Island, and completed a complete blockade of Osaka Bay, thus cooperating with the frontal counterattack launched by the army. Although more than 20,000 Anzac officers and soldiers and almost the same number of U.S. Army troops are still firmly anchored in the forefront of Kobe, fighting to the death. However, their retreat has been cut off by the outflanking Japanese army, and all sea and land supply lines have been cut off. They rely on sporadic airdrops to survive, and they have to withstand repeated "influence" of various nerve gases... They probably won't be able to hold on. How long. According to the army's plan, after conquering Kobe, it will continue to advance into Kinki, go straight to Kyoto, and finally drive the US military out of Kansai this summer.
On the southern side of the Kansai battlefield, Japan and the United States are still in a stalemate, each occupying half of Shikoku Island. Since neither side has invested too much force in this secondary battlefield, the fighting is somewhat tepid, and it often even develops into a sit-down war. . But this situation will not last long. In order to cooperate with the Army's Kinki Offensive, the Combined Fleet plans to dispatch all fourteen "modified versions" and "original versions" of Yamato-class battleships, plus attached aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and landing ship The regiment first bombarded Kobe as a warm-up, then rushed out of the Seto Inland Sea from the Bungo Channel in the west, went around Tosa Bay to make a landing behind enemy lines, and planned to annihilate the U.S. Second Marine Division on Shikoku Island, thus completely regaining the entire Japanese territory in one fell swoop. Kansai region.
But in this case, the main fleets of the United States and Japan are likely to collide head-on in the waters south of Shikoku Island, and even a decisive naval battle will break out. Regarding how to fight this possible naval battle, or even whether to fight it, everyone here obviously had different opinions, so they started discussing it at the dinner table... While everyone was expressing their opinions, the discussion was very lively. At that moment, several naval staff officers knocked on the door with document bags in their hands. When they opened the envelope, they found the latest military intelligence and combat reports from various parts of Asia forwarded from the base camp.
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——Well, although Nazi Germany and the old Japanese Empire no longer exist, the world is still full of wars.
First of all, nearly half a year after Nanjing fell to the "Japanese invaders" again, Chairman Chiang finally regained control of Nanjing once again, relying on a large amount of arms and material assistance generously provided by the United States and a multinational task force personally commanded by Lieutenant General Stilwell. Nanjing, his capital.
The Osaka Fourth Division, which was originally entrenched in Nanjing, voluntarily abandoned Nanjing after a brief battle, fled to Jiangbei, and surrendered to the Chinese Red Army. According to the results of negotiations between the base camp and the Soviet Union and the Comintern, it is expected that he will cross the sea from Vladivostok and return home in three months.
At the same time, the Red Army guerrillas who once took advantage of the opportunity to seize Shanghai were also encircled and suppressed by more than 200,000 "elite party-state soldiers". In view of the extreme disparity in power between the enemy and ourselves, they had to voluntarily abandon the city, reorganized into parts, and sneaked into the countryside throughout the south of the Yangtze River. In the countryside, guerrilla warfare continued.
At this point, Chairman Chiang, who was driven out of Chongqing by the Red Army, finally accepted Wang Jingwei's legacy after experiencing such twists and turns. Of course, Wang Jingwei's troubles were also taken over at the same time - the various Red Army guerrillas in the south, with the original New Fourth Army as the main body...
However, although Nanjing and Shanghai were once again recaptured, China's most elite Yangtze River Delta was controlled. But as far as the overall war situation is concerned, the actual control scope of the Nationalist Government led by Chairman Chiang has been completely reduced to the south of the Yangtze River. In addition, it has lost the entire Sichuan, and even the front lines in Guizhou and Yunnan are gradually collapsing. In terms of the size of the Chairman's current territory, it is probably only similar to Soochow in the Three Kingdoms era. But despite this, in order to dilute the worsening bad luck these days, His Excellency the Chairman still insisted on organizing a grander "Return to the Capital Celebration" in Nanjing than the last time.
I would like to ask those Nanjing citizens who were forced to endure another large-scale apportionment and extortion to feel the psychological shadow of the second "Return to the Capital Celebration".
Secondly, Thailand officially joined the ranks of the Allied Forces, and the King personally made a public speech, announcing that he would send troops to cooperate with the actions of the American and British Allied Forces. At present, 300,000 Thai troops have entered the Malay Peninsula, Myanmar and the former French Indochina colony to assist the US and British Allied Forces in suppressing local uprisings of various ethnic groups. As a reward, Britain was prepared to assign most of the former French Indochina colony and some areas in northern British Malaya to Thailand.
Then, as expected before the Japanese army evacuated, after learning that Sanya on Hainan Island held nearly 50,000 American and British prisoners of war, and confirming that the Japanese naval combined fleet was far away from the place, a battlecruiser named Renown A small British fleet with the core set out from Singapore, raided Hainan Island over a long distance, and sent troops to land and occupy the Sanya prisoner of war camp. At the same time, a governor was sent to take over Hong Kong...
Although it cannot be said that the above news was all expected in advance, it is at least within the scope of understanding. Then, the next series of sudden changes that broke out in the Indian South Asian subcontinent really shocked the Japanese naval elites present. "...What? A major reversal of the war situation in New Delhi? The British troops stationed in India in the siege are desperate? The Congress Party collapsed and disintegrated? The Indian National Army split into civil war? Mahatma Gandhi publicly announced his withdrawal from the Congress Party and led his followers to re-engage with the British Army. Cooperation? Is this... am I crazy, or is the world crazy? ”