However, the actions of the German army opened the eyes of the Japanese high-level, and the German government did not relent, but became more intensified and more unscrupulous, and at the same time as attacking Norway, the German government began to launch a brazen attack on France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and was even more indifferent to the warnings of Britain and France.

On January 22, 1940, a large number of German air force planes violently bombed 72 airfields in northern France and in the Netherlands, Belgium and Rwanda. Then, German paratroopers seized airfields, bridges, and strategic points, and the German war against Western Europe broke out. In this battle, the German army invested a total of 136 divisions (including 10 tank divisions, 7 motorized divisions and 1 cavalry division), 2,580 tanks, 3,824 aircraft, divided into three army groups, and advanced towards France and the Netherlands, Belgium and Rwanda at the same time.

Originally, the Japanese top brass expected that even if Germany took out more than half of the country's troops to deal with the countries of Western Europe and Northern Europe, with the strong support of Britain and France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries also had a certain degree of resistance, after all, even the small Belgium had more than 200,000 troops at that time.

However, in February 1940, the war took a sharp turn for the worse, and the Dutch army only lasted five days before announcing its surrender under the fierce German assault, and the Dutch Queen's government fled to London. On January 31, the King of Belgium announced his surrender, and 200,000 Belgian troops were captured by the Germans. In the face of the fierce German offensive, the French army and the British expeditionary force in France were defeated one after another. On 2 February, the Germans could not absorb the newly occupied Belgium, and the army bypassed the well-fortified "Maginot Line" and unexpectedly plunged a large number of tanks into the Ardennes Mountains and attacked France in a roundabout way. On February 9, under the cover of ground-air fire, the Germans forcibly crossed the Maas River and completely annihilated the French 9th Army.

On 13 February, the Germans went straight to the English Channel. On May 14, the Germans occupied Calais, only a few dozen kilometers from the coast, forming a flanking posture against the British and French forces, and the 400,000 defeated British and French troops were in a desperate situation in the area near Dunkirk. In just two months, Hitler's army swept through Western and Northern Europe. In less than two years, the fascist German army swept across the European continent and occupied the territories of more than 10 countries, including Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Romania, and its military and economic strength expanded unprecedentedly.

And now that Germany has cornered its old enemy France, the Maginot Line, which has been built with a lot of money, has become a complete joke, and it is only a matter of time before France surrenders. Even the French Empire, the traditional old power on the European continent, which dominated the whole of Europe for centuries, is about to become history, so Britain, which is only a small land, is not a piece of cake in the eyes of the Japanese, as long as the German army is determined, even the Royal Navy, which Britain is proud of, cannot stop the pace of German national expansion.

The great victory of the allies greatly stimulated the Japanese high-level, and according to the provisions of the German-Japanese-Italian Trilateral Entente, Germany and Japan are close brothers and allies who support each other, and the German victory in Japan caused waves far beyond the Japanese high-level estimates, when France was about to be defeated, and the news that the vast majority of the main French army had surrendered to Germany was transmitted to Japan, Japan's Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and other regions in recent years have taken place a few popular demonstrations.

The Japanese were very dissatisfied with the current situation of soaring domestic prices and economic decline in Japan at this time, and the war situation in China had fallen into a stalemate, and the result of the delay in breaking through was that the Japanese government had to continuously project the vast majority of the country's manpower, financial and material resources to the Chinese battlefield, and the benefits obtained from China could not make up for the war losses for the time being. Even if the puppet Nanjing Nationalist Government supported by Japan gradually began to show a little power and role last year, and Japan began to gain some interests in China, for such a big war, that small interest is simply not even a drop in the bucket. …,

What makes the Japanese people most dissatisfied is that the United States, which has always made a fortune from the war, saw that Britain and France's defeat in the European theater had lost control, and was afraid that Germany and Japan and other countries would make a move against the United States, so they began to consciously reduce the export of raw materials to Japan last year, and the direct result of this was that all strategic materials in Japan suddenly became extremely scarce, and not only did the stocks of petroleum, rubber, and other materials that could not be produced in Japan fall to a dangerous situation. There was also a huge shortage of materials such as steel and food, so that some people in Japan and some of the top officials in Japan began to look elsewhere.

The promotion of the domestic people has shaken the idea of Japan, including the emperor and Prince Zaihito, who actually controls the base camp, to resolutely take China. Originally, in accordance with the strategic national policy of conquering the world formulated by Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Yoshiichi in 1929, Japan first established the strategy of using Manchu and Mongolia as a base for aggression and expansion. If you want to conquer the world, you must first conquer China. If China can be conquered by China, then other nations such as Central Asia Minor and the South Seas of India will fear me and respect me and surrender to me, and the world will know East Asia as the East Asia of China, and will never dare to invade us. Later, Japan decided on the strategic idea of taking the United States and the Soviet Union as imaginary enemy countries, and the Japanese prime minister explained it in the following way: "However, if China wants to protect the three eastern provinces of China with iron and blood, then the America of the third country will be instigated by China to control the United States, and it will be inevitable for us to compete with the United States." "If we want to control China in the future, we must take the attack on American forces as a pre-requisite," "China will have no choice but to fight with the United States for the sake of independence," and "in the future, it will clash with Red Russia in North Manchuria." ”

In fact, Japan has been implementing this plan since the time of Emperor Meiji, but some unexpected situations and realities have limited Japan's development, and at the same time, Japan has been forced to revise some of Tanaka's compromised strategies. However, in any case, there is a consensus at the top level of Japan that no matter whether it is the Russo-Japanese War in the past or the current Sino-Japanese War, if it wants to control China in the future, it must first defeat the US forces, which is similar to the Russo-Japanese War. If you want to conquer China, you must first conquer Manchu and Mongolia; If you want to conquer the world, you must first conquer China. If China is completely conquered by Japan, other nations in Asia Minor, India, and the South Seas will inevitably fear the Japanese Empire and surrender to the Empire, so there has always been a strategic plan in Japan to fight the Soviet Union in the north and eliminate American forces in the south, but due to last year's "Nomenkan Incident" and the "Zhang Gufeng Incident" the year before last, Japan really saw the strength of the Red Soviet Union, and Japan, a nation full of wolf nature, has the gene of surrendering to the strong, as long as they feel fear and fear, Then they will suddenly turn from wolves into dogs wagging their tails and begging for mercy.

After the fiasco of the "Zhang Gufeng Incident," especially the "Nomenkan Incident," the clamor in Japan to challenge Soviet Russia in the north disappeared all at once, but with the continuous victories of Germany, the call for Japan to go south to conquer Southeast Asia and eliminate American power became louder and louder, and there was a tendency to get out of control.

However, although the Japanese emperor and the General Staff Headquarters are also very excited about going south, they still have many misgivings, first of all, if Japan goes south now, it will inevitably clash head-on with the powerful United States, since the United States snatched the Philippines from Spain through the Spanish-American War, then the United States has regarded Southeast Asia as its own backyard, and it absolutely does not allow other countries to get involved at will.

First of all, Japan's national conditions determine that it is impossible for Japan to afford such a large-scale war on its own. In the past, whether it was the invasion of China or the confrontation with the Soviet Union, it was only with the overt or covert support of the United States that it would be so smooth. With the success of the Meiji Restoration, Japan won a series of foreign wars, such as the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, and its national strength increased greatly. This has caused Japan's desire to "dominate the world" to swell viciously, but after all, Japan is only a small country with four islands the size of a bowl, and small countries have the specific situation of small countries, and the way of survival of small countries should be difficult to survive in the cracks of big countries according to the trajectory of history. But Japan is different, it is constantly challenging countries that are ten times and dozens of times bigger than him, which is impossible without a strong enough backing. …,

Japan's strong backing is none other than the United States, which is not far from the Japanese mainland. In fact, the United States connived at Japan's expansion and did not target China, just as Britain and France connived at Germany's expansion, and the reason why the United States was able to tolerate Japan's challenge to their nerves again and again was entirely to deal with the red Soviet Union, which was rising strongly.

If we put it in the final analysis, although the outbreak of World War II had its inevitable causes, the connivance and support of the United States, Britain, and France for the aggression and expansion of Germany and Japan before World War II was also an important reason for the outbreak of World War II, and also an important reason for Japan's continuous expansion of the war of aggression against China. At that time, the United States, Britain, and France hoped that Germany would attack the east, and Japan would attack the socialist Soviet Union from the east of Europe and northeast China, so as to weaken or even eliminate the socialist Soviet Union. It was precisely this strategy of weakening and even annihilating the socialist Soviet Union, which was born out of hatred for socialism, that caused the United States, Britain, and France to carry out a policy of appeasement and connivance against Germany in the west and Japan in the east for a long time. German and Japanese imperialism also tried to take advantage of such attempts by the United States, Britain and France.

The "Great Japan" proposed by the Japanese warlords is a colonial empire that includes China, Siberia of the Soviet Union and other East Asian regions, which cannot avoid conflict with the Soviet Union in terms of territory or expansion path, and the tragic Russo-Japanese War broke out between the two countries because of historical reasons, so the United States, Britain and France saw the hope of curbing the development of the Red Soviet Union. Japan, on the other hand, is also accustomed to seeing the wind and steering the rudder, and when it sees an opportunity to make profits, it will describe its aggressive behavior as preventing the "threat of communism."

When Japan completed its preparations for invading China, China was engaged in a land war, and Japan vigorously publicized the "danger of redness" in the war, so it invaded China's northeast on a large scale in September 1931. The United States, on the other hand, connived at Japan's invasion of Northeast China in 1931. The United States sometimes verbally accuses Japan in order to deceive the international community and the domestic population, but it provides practical support by supplying Japan's strategic materials. The US plan of appeasement toward Japan was an attempt to turn China's northeast into an advance base for Japan's attack on the Soviet Union, and eventually to attack the Soviet Union, so that both the Soviet Union and Japan would lose and lose. In addition, through Japan's occupation of Northeast China, the land ** war led by the Communist Party of China was restricted from extending to the Northeast.

Out of this mentality, the US government and the American bourgeoisie, especially the capitalists of the US arms companies, connived at Japan's invasion of Northeast China, so after Japan launched the 'September 18 Incident' and invaded Northeast China. Instead of condemning this act of aggression, the United States secretly negotiated an understanding with Japan. Subsequently, the US State Department stated that the United States had no intention of interfering in 'Japan's legitimate treaty rights in Manchuria,' but in fact the United States was attempting to safeguard US rights and interests in China at the expense of Northeast China.

Since then, the United States has continued to provide Japan with all the materials needed for the war, and as long as Japan does not harm the areas where American investment and trade interests are intensive in China (such as Shanghai), Japan can invade the northeastern region where the United States has little interest and borders the Soviet Union. This point is clearly recorded in American books, and a book in the United States describing the largest American industrial company and the arms company -- DuPont -- exposes the support of US President Herbert Hoover and US arms dealers for Japan's aggression against China.

The hatred of the communist movement led the capitalist United States, Britain and France to condone and support Japan's invasion of China. It was also out of hatred of the communist movement that the Kuomintang government, which represented the interests of the landlords and the bourgeoisie, also connived at Japan's invasion of China with compromise and non-resistance. Therefore, for nearly nine years from 1931 to the present, Japan's war aid from the United States, its imports of weapons and equipment from the United States, and the raw materials for its manufacture have never stopped.

It is precisely with this covert support from the United States that Japan has fought this war of aggression against China for so long. After all, if it loses the support of the United States, a large part of Japan's strategic resources will be in extreme shortage, which the Japanese Government does not allow to see, and Japan is not ready to fight the United States at present. …,

However, the reaction of the Japanese people and the adjustment of the US policy toward Japan and China have prompted the Japanese emperor and the entire base camp to put the plan of southward expansion on the agenda; because Japan's expansion into Southeast Asia since last year has aroused the dissatisfaction of the United States, a major power in this region, in order to give Japan a little color, the United States has frozen its economic trade with Japan, the most important of which is high-octane oil, without which Japanese planes cannot ascend to the sky, ships cannot sail in the sea, and Japan cannot continue to expand abroad.

In addition, Japan's oil can only last for half a year, and Japan understands that it can either withdraw its troops from China, stop its external expansion, and move closer to the United States diplomatically. Either they will form their own banner, go south to seize strategic resources, and continue to intensify their aggression against foreign countries. There are colonies of the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands in the South Seas, and entering the South Seas is tantamount to declaring war on the United States and Britain. Therefore, for a time, Japan's top leaders faced a huge test, but Japan's ally Germany was obviously happy to see Japan's declaration of war with Britain, France, and the United States, and did a lot of work in private. Therefore, the atmosphere in Japan became extremely strange for a while, and even the attack on the Inner Mongolia Military Region with the entire North China Front Army was pale.

Except for the high-ranking military officers in the base camp and the emperor of Japan, no one else knew anything about the specific plans in Japan. Even Han Yunhua was not aware of the strange atmosphere that had been surging in the Japanese army during this time, but the commander of the North China Front, Tada Jun, was now complaining bitterly.

The reason is that just when the North China Front was attacking everywhere and going well, the base camp issued the latest order, and promoted Tada Jun to the rank of army general and continued to serve as the commander of the North China Front. At the same time, the base camp believed that the current North China Front Army had a chaotic establishment, mixed personnel, impure management, and therefore adjusted the troop establishment in North China, and the readjusted North China Front Army had three armies, namely, the First Army stationed in Shanxi, the 12th Army stationed in Shandong, and the troops directly under the Front Army. The 1st Army stationed in Shanxi was stationed in Taiyuan, and the commander was Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka, and the First Army was under the jurisdiction of the 36th Division, the 37th Division, the 41st Division, the 8th Independent Mixed Brigade, the 9th Independent Brigade, the 5th Independent Brigade, and the 16th Independent Brigade. The 12th Army stationed in Shandong, the military headquarters is stationed in Jinan, the commander is Iida Sadagu, and the 12th Army has 21 divisions, the fifth division, the 10th independent mixed brigade, and the 6th independent mixed brigade. The troops directly under the Front Army are under the jurisdiction of the 38th Division, the 39th Division, the 10th Division, the 3rd Tank Division, the 7th Independent Mixed Brigade, the 14th Independent Mixed Brigade, and the Aviation Group.

At the same time, the base camp ordered the North China Front Army and other units to drive Han Yunhua's troops out of Hebei, mainly to drive the troops of the Inner Mongolia Military Region out of Zhangjiakou, and after removing the threat of the Eighth Route Army to the Beijing-Tianjin region, it temporarily stopped marching into the hinterland controlled by Han Yunhua's headquarters in China.

As a result, the entire North China Front Army was reduced from 16 divisions and eight independent mixed brigades and 380,000 troops under its current jurisdiction to only 9 divisions and seven independent mixed brigades and 260,000 troops, and was ready to reduce 130,000 troops at once. If it is calculated according to the combat effectiveness of the imperial army two years ago, then even if it is reduced by tens of thousands of people, it is not a big deal. But now that the front army has just suffered heavy losses and has not fully recovered its combat effectiveness, if so many troops are transferred at once, it will really make Tada Jun, an old devil, embarrassed......