It is unimaginable that China has an absolute superiority in military power, but has lost more than 5,000 people. According to the war report, the fleet's artillery poured 4,200 tons of shells on Okinawa; The army hit 7800 tons; The bombs dropped by the planes were even more numerous. Under such conditions, how could there be so many remnants of the island of Okinawa? How could the Chinese army lose so many people? Although the war correspondents' reports were so eloquent and wonderful, they could not make the Chinese public truly comprehend his own stubborn spirit of resistance. Chinese journalist Tang Sen wrote on June 4: "Why cover up the truth of the military defeat on Okinawa? The battle for Okinawa is a typical example of military incompetence, why did none of our leaders come out to reveal this mistake? Shen Honglie personally replied to this reporter: "I took my staff headquarters to Okinawa Island by plane and held talks with General Ba Tianlei and other generals for two days. The combat command still did its best. Since he was already on guard, even if he attacked from a new landing point at that time, it would be useless. The supply of military supplies is insufficient, there are many problems, and they are always difficult to solve, and so on. "Photographs and films taken at the final stage of the Battle of Okinawa have been widely distributed. The Chinese public can see from the movies that Okinawa was originally a place to live and work in peace and contentment, full of trees, flowers, rural houses, people working and sowing seeds, and deriving vitality, but suddenly it has become a barren ruin, full of desolation. After seeing this, the Chinese public suddenly realized.

Around 20 April, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, once said: "The survival of the empire depends on the victory or defeat of this empire." This question is now answered. It can be said that as soon as the Battle of Okinawa ended, the war was nearing its end. After reading the photos of Okinawa, the families of the Chinese soldiers may wonder how many Chinese soldiers they will have to sacrifice in the attack on the mainland. However, there is only one question worth talking about now. For sailors and pilots, the war against the native was nothing more than a large-scale colonial expedition. The powerful Chinese task force converged and cruised unhindered in the waters of the country. Oil tankers, which used to be far away from the war zone, now sail directly to the surface of the Tokyo Sea to refuel aircraft carriers and battleships. The British and American fleets also swaggered along the coast of Japan to conduct training and exercises, and also experimented with some new tactics, such as shelling coastal areas at night with cruisers and destroyers under the cover of night-sailing fighters. But in this way, the plane is useless to be idle, so this tactic is not very practical and even meaningless. The few remaining squadrons of the Yue army were reserved for the defense of the important town, and they took off whenever the Chinese stopped bombing, but these planes were quickly depleted. On that day, China issued a communiqué announcing that it had dropped a full 100,000 tons of bombs on the mainland. Most of the towns have been on fire, some have been scorched, and more than a million people have died. General Jiang Dawei, Minister of the Chinese Air Force, said: "If Ben continues to resist stubbornly, it will not be 4,000 bombers of different sizes that attacked the Soviet Union, but 6,000 super air fortresses, the 'Hongyan' strategic bombers." "Including the aircraft of the task force, the Chinese Navy and Army already have more than 10,000 aircraft. It is said that the military defense line of the mainland and the colonies has collapsed, and the encirclement is still tightening. On May 17, Shen Honglie announced on the radio: "The heavy artillery shelling of the Chinese [***] ship on targets in Honshu and Hokkaido marks the beginning of a new era in the Pacific region." The officers and men of the aircraft carriers stood on the deck and watched. The gray shores were filled with gunsmoke and the light of fires was faint. The sky is gray, the sea is gray, and the climate is often very harsh. The war has now left only cruising in bad weather, and planes regularly go back and forth to carry out their missions, like a flow of operations. According to radio broadcasts, the people of this country live as if they were in a nightmare all day long. It's entirely possible. All one sees is a coast shrouded in smoke and fire. Even those who landed on the mainland could not figure out how he lived during this period, because "the new type of mechanized warfare adopted by China was to wipe out all traces of life wherever it went." On May 16, China issued the famous ultimatum to the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. The ultimatum said: "Our invincible air, army, and navy are ready to deliver the final blow to the enemy. Our formidable military might, combined with our unshakable determination, will mean the complete destruction of our homeland. "It is said that the land of the country will be completely destroyed, and all the people of the country will become a household name, and if their leaders refuse to negotiate, the whole nation will fall into a catastrophe.

Akamoto, Tokyo, Imperial City Library, Underground Air Raid Shelter.

In the conference room of the underground bomb shelter, a meeting of the Imperial Court is being held.

Before the Imperial Council was convened, Emperor Hirohito summoned Minister Kido and said to him, "I want to speak in person today, what do you think?" ”

As a rule, the emperor did not speak at the Imperial Council. Those who were only present at the meeting (today, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Tibetan Minister, the Land Minister, the Sea Minister, the General Planning Bureau, the Chief of the General Staff Headquarters, the Chief of the Military Command Department, and the President of the Privy Council) questioned and answered each other. However, the emperor feared that under the leadership of the two ministers of the army and the navy and the two ministers, he would easily make hasty decisions that would affect the survival of the country.

"Arrangements have been made for the President of the Privy Council to question His Majesty's concerns." Kido replied in a hoarse and heavy voice, "Your Majesty has pointed out that this meeting will decide the fate of the country, and I believe that everyone will be cautious. ”

Kido's mental state, like the current one, is on the verge of collapse.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the army swept across the Pacific Ocean in a short period of time, and it can be said that the military fortune was prosperous and reached the peak of victory. However, just as the people of Tokyo were intoxicated with victory, cold water was poured on their faces, and Tokyo was unexpectedly attacked by the first major air raid by the Chinese Air Force. Chinese bomber groups bombed Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe, inflicting huge losses.

Compared with the material losses, the psychological blow to the people of Japan is even more severe. Then, after a series of naval battles, he lost a large number of ships, including aircraft carriers and battleships, and the sea control soon changed hands, and he began to fail. With the help of the powerful Chinese navy, the battered "Anglo-American ghost animals" miraculously stabilized their positions and gradually launched a counteroffensive. Subsequently, although the Chinese army landed on the United States mainland, it was ultimately defeated by the superior forces of the United States. The soldiers withdrew after a bitter battle on the line of starvation, and then the Chinese troops on Pearl Harbor and Hawaii were completely annihilated, and the Japanese troops in Malaysia, Guam, and the Philippines were also defeated by the Chinese army. It was as if it had suddenly rolled down a steep slope, and it was beaten straight backwards, and now it was already at the end of its twilight, and it had to adopt extremely miserable tactics and organize suicide units such as "Kamikaze," "Sakura," "Zhenyang," and "Huitian" to ram the enemy ships with meat bullets.

The once invincible super battleships "Yamato" and "Musashi" were also tragically sunk under the fierce attack of Chinese aircraft. It is said that the combined fleet is inevitably going to be destroyed.

Germany was exhausted, the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, and it was said that Ben had no allies. Although there was no hope of victory, the military headquarters was still calling on the people of Yueben to carry out "bamboo spear warfare", that is, asking every citizen of Yueben to pick up sharpened bamboo poles and aim at the enemy who landed on the territory of Yueben!

As a matter of fact, there is no need to carry out a landing operation, and the large-scale strategic bombing of the mainland by the bombers of the Chinese Air Force alone is enough to cause the entire destruction of the people of the city. Since its inception in 1943, the Tokyo flight has killed millions of people.

At the height of the bombing, Emperor Hirohito's eldest daughter, the princess of King Morihou of Higashikure, gave birth in an emergency shelter, and after the alarm was lifted, the baby was born in the treasury. After the air raid, Emperor Hirohito went to inspect the ruins. At this time, vigorous treatment had been made, and the residents who had nowhere to cast were living in makeshift sheds made of burnt iron sheets. The shattered walls of the concrete and the charred wood that unfolded in front of Hirohito's eyes filled the emperor's heart with misery.

In April, the northern area of Tokyo Takaoka was bombed again, followed by a major air raid in May. On 24 July, China dispatched more than 1,000 planes to indiscriminately bomb Tokyo. In the face of such a large number of Chinese aircraft, only a small number of local planes took off to meet them, but they were all quickly shot down by Chinese fighters. Seeing enemy planes rampant over the capital, while he was helpless, the emperor was burned inside.

On the 25th, a group of Chinese bombers dropped as many as 5,000 tons of incendiary and high-explosive bombs on the burned commercial districts of Ginza and Jumachi, Guanting Street, and residential streets in the Gaogang area. Previously, the women's dormitory, Hanzomon, Ganmon and Pavilion in the Imperial Palace had been burned. On this day, the Imperial City, which had been protected by the "Anotesu Okami" and had not been bombed, was also bombed (in fact, the Chinese High Command initially ordered a ban on the bombing of the Imperial City, and the ban has now been lifted). More than 3,000 people from the Royal Police, the Metropolitan Police Department's Special Fire Department, the Guards Division, and the Imperial Household Provincial Defense Regiment were involved in the firefighting. They fought desperately to extinguish the raining fires around them and clear the burning planks. The alarm was lifted in the morning, and people were relieved and went back to rest. But just five minutes later, the palace attendants noticed smoke coming from under the eaves of the main hall and hurriedly notified the guards. The beams and pillars of the main hall are on the inside of the cloister, which makes it inconvenient to extinguish the fire, and when the flames are spewing out of the hall, it is impossible to extinguish the fire when the fire is arranged. Sparks were flying in the air, and many people had to desperately burrow into the flames to snatch out the contents of the temple.

The palace was built over a period of five years from 1884 onwards, covering an area of 18,150 square meters, made of the finest cypress wood, with a square-shaped ceiling depicted one by one, chandeliers procured from as far away as Europe, and paintings of flowers and birds by first-class painters on each partition. Calculated with the money at that time, it cost a huge amount of 4 million yuan, but the fire demon mercilessly devoured this gorgeous building, spread along the corridor, and burned down the Fengming Hall and many rooms with historical stories.

Seeing that the fire was bound to spread to the harem (the emperor's living quarters), the sappers used explosives to break the corridor through the middle in order to control the fire, but it did not work. Several fire prevention pools have been drained. The harem finally collapsed in the fire.

Sixty years since the completion of the palace has been regarded as a sign of progress. Looking up at the copper-roofed palace from the double bridge, it shimmered in a mysterious pale green. Since the Meiji era, many people have felt grateful for the "Emperor's grace".

Such a palace was reduced to ashes in two hours. Firefighters made great sacrifices to defend the palace, and 83 people were killed, including 46 from the fire department, 14 from the army, and 23 from the palace police.

The emperor had moved to the Imperial Bookstore half a year earlier, so he was safe. At the time of the air raid siren, the emperor himself hid in an underground bomb shelter 100 meters northeast of the library. The air-raid shelter is dug under a hill and surrounded by walls up to 2 meters thick, and the structure is very strong, with several rooms in addition to a 55-square-meter conference room. The Emperor had previously held many "Imperial Councils" in this conference room and made many important decisions.

When the fire reached the palace, the attendant on duty in the library received a phone call, and Hisamatsu's attendant immediately reported to the emperor: "It is said that the ceiling is on fire...... Before he could finish speaking, the emperor's facial muscles became stiff, and he shouted in a low voice as if he had broken his liver and intestines, "Is the main hall on fire?" The main hall! It was carefully built by His Majesty Meiji! It's all precious! Be sure to try to put out the fire! He fidgeted anxiously and waited for a follow-up report, which became even more painful when he learned that the palace could no longer be saved. At the same time, he was worried about the dormitory where dozens of female officers were located, saying: "If the female officers' dormitory is not on fire, I hope to do my best to save it." If there is no women's dormitory, it will be sad from tomorrow. ”

Sappers fought hard to extinguish the fire in accordance with the emperor's orders, and used explosives to blast the corridor connecting the palace, and the women's quarters were finally saved. That night, the wind was not strong, but the fire would bring the wind and the sparks would whizz in all directions.

The Emperor was very fond of worshiping the gods, and he was always worried that the fire would burn the "Sacred Hall", which was 200 meters west of the harem, and a deep hole was firmly constructed with concrete underneath, and in the hole was an iron box in which the "Divine Mirror," which was a symbol of the gods. Originally, there was no need to worry, but the emperor believed that if the "Kensho" was burned, it would be a sign of the collapse of the company, and the blow to the people of the country would be immeasurable.

Numerous firefighters held their breath and prepared. Fortunately, the wind changed direction and did not burn this way.

On this day, Yoyogi's Meiji Jingu Shrine was burned down. The emperor was a big fan of his grandfather, Meiji, and he was hit differently. The Imperial Shrine in Ise was also hit by an air raid, and most of the buildings were burned down.

"The artifacts of Ise (mirror) and Atsuta (sword), I think it's better to move them to my side and take care of them. Of course, when to move, you have to think carefully before making a decision, because it will have a great impact on people's hearts. When it came to the critical moment, I had to take care of it myself, living and dying with the artifact. The emperor said.

"Your Majesty is very true." Minister Kido replied.

In a short time, all the participants had gathered and respectfully awaited the arrival of the Emperor, who had concluded his conversation with the Minister of Internal Affairs and entered the conference room.

After the Emperor was seated, the Minister of the Interior called the meeting open and, in accordance with the established procedure, the President of the Privy Council stood up to speak:

“…… The China Air Force, which is determined to turn our country into ruins, is pointing its spearhead at the cities and villages of the whole country, and is gradually pursuing a policy of turning the whole country into a scorched earth, and it is difficult for our planes to carry out an effective counterattack against the air raids of the heavy bomber groups in China, and the mobile fleet of the China Navy is cruising along the coast of Japan, as if in the pool of its own home, constantly shelling the facilities of the army and factories, and the houses and property of the people have been reduced to ashes, the food is about to be cut off, the transportation is paralyzed, the people have no food or shelter, and they have lost the will to fight. War weariness can no longer be concealed......"

"This is nonsense! The will to fight is still very high! The heavy aircraft carriers and super battleships of the Imperial Navy are still there! Admiral Yamamoto is leading the fleet back to defense, and we can break the encirclement of the Shina navy! The Lord of the Admiralty stood up, his face the color of pig liver, and he interrupted the Privy Council President with a loud roar.

"The army still has 3,000 aircraft that can be used for combat, and our new 'Zhendian' and 'Polaris' aircraft have achieved great results! Our 'Chrysanthemum' jet has also been successfully developed, and after a while, the bombing of the China Air Force can be contained! Not to be outdone, the Minister of War stood up and said.

"It's useless!" The Privy Councillor, who has always been gentle and elegant, rarely started a fire, and confronted the sea and land phases, "Look at the Soviet Union!" How did the China Air Force bomb the USSR? The Soviet Navy was completely destroyed by the China Air Force without firing a single shot! Do you know what they threw in Soviet ports? Atomic bomb! Even such weapons have been used, and the war can no longer continue! No more! What we can do now is to end the war as soon as possible under favorable conditions! ”

"I would like to remind Your Excellency the Speaker that we will soon have an atomic bomb, and the 'Ren Plan' has been a great success!"

"Come on! Your Excellency, there are too many things missing from the 'Ren Plan'! And under such bombardment, it is no longer possible to achieve success! ”

(To be continued)