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Chapter 711: Crisis

"Express, Express, the commander of the Songhu Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army Headquarters issued a statement that the Volunteers successfully attacked the Japanese Navy's flagship 'Izumo' in the early morning!"

"Outside, outside, Mr. Wang Yaqiao announced that he had seriously injured the Japanese flagship 'Izumo' in the early hours of this morning, killing and wounding more than 20 people of the Japanese navy, and severely damaging the arrogance of the Japanese army......"

"The Volunteers vowed to make persistent efforts, and as long as the Japanese army remained on Chinese soil, the Volunteers would give the invaders a decisive and severe sustained blow......"

Shanghai is indeed boiling, from the early morning in the direction of the dock where the Japanese warships are anchored from the huge explosion, the whole Shanghai is once again in excitement and panic, in the month-long armistice negotiations constantly clamoring and threatening the Japanese army to be hit by this, it is tantamount to a blow to the head, the pain is unbearable, the heavy protection of the naval flagship actually let a few Chinese push a small sampan with a torpedo attack successfully, the size of the loss is no longer the main consideration, The Japanese army, which boasted of its invincibility and boasted of occupying Shanghai in three hours, once again became the laughing stock of the whole world. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

In the Japanese Consulate in the Public Concession, the Japanese Consul General in China, Shigemitsu Aoi, and the Consul General in Shanghai, Murai Aomatsu, and other civilian officials, who had no knowledge of the contents of "Blood Evidence" that was being screened in the major theaters in the concession at the same time, sat upright with solemn expressions, did not say a word, and watched with an ambiguous attitude as Lieutenant General Kenkichi Ueda, commander of the Shanghai Dispatch Army, kept barking at Takayoshi Tanaka, the head of the War Department's intelligence in Shanghai.

Sweating profusely, Takayoshi Tanaka's head hung down and his spine was bent, and he let Lieutenant General Ueda scold and scold, not daring to move a single bit, let alone explain half a word about his mistakes; he knew very well how much responsibility he had in the attack on the "Izumo" and what kind of person this so-called "Commander of the Songhu Volunteer Army, Wang Yaqiao," was.

In fact, as early as last year's assassination of Song Ziwen, Tanaka Takayoshi had a tacit understanding with Wang Yaqiao, and more than once to the leaders of China's ** forces, including Wang Yaqiao, to woo and lure, and now the Kuomintang veterans Huang Ying and others are swaying for it, and Chang Yuchun and Hu Lifu among the leaders of the Green Gang have been successfully bought, and in the Battle of Songhu, these traitors sent hooligans and ruffians to sneak into the Chinese defenders' defense areas to peep and reconnoitre, and identified one firepower point after another for the Japanese army. There are also transit warehouses and temporary camping locations, which bring the Japanese air force a gratifying record of never missing a miss.

While Tanaka Takayoshi was proud of his achievements, he felt helpless against Wang Yaqiao, a hero who planned to assassinate Chiang Kai-shek and Song Ziwen twice. This person's attitude is very ambiguous, ambiguous on the issue of anti-Japanese resistance, after Tanaka Takayoshi's painstakingly planned kidnapping of Gong Qian and assassinating An Yi completely failed, he also wanted to use a lot of money as bait to ask Wang Yaqiao to kill An Yi, but regrettably found that he could no longer find this ** gang leader who could not see the head of the dragon. Just when he was muttering that he had nothing to do, he did not expect that the news he heard about Wang Yaqiao today turned out to be that he brazenly attacked the flagship of the "Izumo" of the Great Japanese Navy, which made the Japanese dispatch troops lose face, which made Takayoshi Tanaka, who always reported upwards with "everything under control", fall into an extremely passive and embarrassing situation.

There is another person on the side who knows everything about the original situation, and he is Koichi Ishikawa, who is extremely valued by Commander Ueda and has made great contributions to making up for the shortcomings at critical moments in several major battles.

Ishikawa, a China expert, is not only well aware of the general secret information and main operations of the intelligence chief Takayoshi Tanaka over the past few months, but also knows how much pressure there is on the commander of the dispatch army, Kenkichi Ueda.

After the continuous increase in troops, Ueda Kenkichi did not bring the Japanese army and the military department expected a hearty victory, but suffered heavy losses under the brave resistance of the squadron, although the War Department and the Japanese media called the battles after the arrival of Ueda Kenkichi "stalemate in the balance of power", and had a positive attitude towards its strategic layout and on-the-spot command, but all the participants, including Ueda, clearly knew that they not only did not get the slightest benefit in the previous wars, Although there are no clear statistics on the Chinese side, the losses of nearly 20,000 officers and soldiers, the tens of thousands of wounded people who have been transported to Dalian and Lushun for treatment one after another, the huge amount of weapons and ammunition consumed in several major wars, the ships that were sunk and damaged, and the planes that were shot down and damaged will not add up to at least 50,000 yuan.

With such a heavy price to be paid, but still unable to make even the slightest progress in the war, what is the future of Kenkichi Ueda's handsome position, one can only imagine how Commander Ueda, who is known for his erudition and experience, can not be greatly angered?

After a roar and scolding, Ueda Kenkichi relieved his anger a little, sat down again and took a sip of tea, stared at Tanaka Takayoshi's eyes and asked coldly: "Putting aside the past for the time being, what I want to know is, how will Tanaka Daisa make up for the loss, how to minimize this bad impact?" How can you take this opportunity to put pressure on the Chinese government? Can the current disadvantages be turned into advantages? Ladies and gentlemen, please speak freely. ”

More than ten civil and military officers glanced at each other, lowered their heads and were silent.

As the consul general in China, Shigemitsu Aoi has a deep influence in both military and political circles, so he was not affected by Ueda Kenkichi's anger, he took a deep breath and said slowly:

"Yesterday afternoon, I had just completed secret negotiations with Song Ziwenjun, vice president of the Executive Yuan and minister of finance of the Nanjing Government, and he said that the initiative of the squadron to retreat 10 kilometers had fully demonstrated the greatest sincerity of the Chinese side, and promised to report to the central government and Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, who had just been legally confirmed a few days earlier, on the matter of instructing the 19th Route Army to unconditionally release the 48 prisoners of war held in the west of the Songhu battlefield.

It's just that no one expected that the anti-Japanese forces that had been outside the Nanjing government would be so rampant and do such things that make us extremely passive. Here, I have two points for your advice. ”

Chongguang Aoi glanced around at the full seat, and saw that most of the faces showed disapproving expressions, and couldn't help but smile slightly, still maintaining his usual calm and unfazed demeanor:

"First, in just three hours, all major newspapers in Shanghai and various countries in Europe and the United States received a statement from Wang Yaqiao's 'Songhu Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army Headquarters' and made the news public.

In particular, it is difficult for us to have another opportunity to condemn the protests and use them as a reason for revenge because Manchukuo has declared independence on the 1st of this month and established a new government with Pu Yi, the former abdicated emperor of the Qing Dynasty, as its head of state. Although all of us are well aware in our hearts that the black hand of the Nanking Government has reached out to Manchuria and wants to delay our advance, in the absence of any evidence, we can no longer easily use this as an excuse to carry out diplomatic pressure on the Nanking Government as before, and one of the most important reasons is that our army has not given us enough confidence...... Please forgive me for saying that this may have offended the princes in the army, but it is an irrefutable fact, and although I am sad in my heart, I have to say it bluntly. ”

The full seat of the generals couldn't sit still, their faces were hot, and they couldn't help lowering their arrogant heads. Shigemitsu Aoi's tepid words were like a soft but cruel whip, slamming them on the back, and they couldn't refute them.

Chongguang Aoi was still half-closed, his body was straight, and he continued to express his opinion slowly: "Secondly, I think it is very necessary to frankly inform everyone here that I have received a question and a certain intention from the Cabinet of Foreign Affairs forwarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Cabinet has completely lost patience with the progress of the army's operations over the past two months, and has made it clear that it will not be able to afford the huge cost of increasing the reinforcements of two divisions and regiments. The present extremely severe economic situation in the country must have been well known to all of you, and if it had not been for the large amount of ammunition, resources, and food supplies that had been obtained from Manchuria this year, this terrible situation would have been even worse, and there would have been no operation by the navy and army in Shanghai.

It is a great pity that although our brave Imperial Japanese ** team tried their best, they were still unable to drive out more than 200,000 troops of the Northeast Army in a few days, quickly and smoothly conquer the entire vast Manchuria, defeat the 19th Route Army and the Central Army led by the Nanjing government, and conquer this rich industrial and commercial base in East China.

However, this did not mean that everything we had done was in vain, and in terms of the overall strategic purpose, we were still victorious, because it was precisely because of the arduous and remarkable efforts of our army in Shanghai that the European and American powers were forced to abandon their criticism and chatter about our occupation of Manchuria, and to successfully divert their attention and energy to this land, which was closely related to the interests of all countries, and to force the Nationalist Government of Nanking and the whole of China to neglect one thing and the other, and to forget the northeast and the more than one million square kilometers of land. Here, I am very proud of our heroic Great Japanese Imperial ** team, and I also sincerely admire! Ladies and gentlemen, good work! ”

"Hi-yi-"

The Japanese invaders in the audience shouted in unison, and they all bowed respectfully in return.

Ueda Kenkichi slowly raised his head and sighed faintly, he had clearly understood this message from Shigemitsu Aoi's words: the cabinet was no longer willing to support the military's military occupation plan of Shanghai, and the reinforcements of the two divisions and regiments he was expecting were completely lost, which meant that his role as the commander of the Shanghai Dispatch Army would probably soon retire from the stage of history.

Shigemitsu Aoi politely comforted him and slowly stood up to end this crucial meeting.

After the civil officials left one after another, the seven generals led by Ueda Kenkichi still sat on the tatami mats and refused to leave, all of them looked depressed and full of anger, and after a long silence, they all turned their heads to look at the commander Ueda Kenkichi.

Ueda Kenkichi didn't say a word with a frosty face, glanced around the crowd, and finally stopped on Tanaka Takayoshi's face.

Tanaka Takayoshi lowered his head and said very humbly: "General, my subordinates should remember the general's questioning in the meeting just now, and I want to report everything in my heart to the general, and I implore you to correct it!" ”

Everyone returned the salute to Tanaka Takayoshi, who whispered to Ueda in his emotionless gaze: "Now that the Minister has informed the opinion of the country, his subordinates think that it will be difficult to put pressure on the Nanjing government and their army for the despicable act of attacking the 'Izumo', but we must maintain this pressure, what the army cannot do, it can be done diplomatically, and our army must take due revenge for it!"

His subordinates believed that since the Nanjing Government had taken the initiative to push the incident to a clean end, we might as well use our own strength to carry out a swift and powerful covert counterattack, not only to eradicate the Wang Yaqiao clique by the roots, but also to make full use of the Chinese gangs and celebrities from all walks of life who had defected to us to quickly and efficiently eliminate the various resistance forces that had been full of malice towards our Japanese Empire and army since the war, created obstacles everywhere and resisted our army, and created great chaos in political opinion, economic and financial life. Stirring up the whole of Shanghai to put everyone in danger and making a lot of noise may to some extent create a greater invisible persecution of the Nanking government, so that we can get everything that belongs to us in negotiations.

In my opinion, even if this goal is not achieved in the end, the worst effect will be a serious regression in Shanghai's economy, which will then form a huge blow to the Nanjing government and further destroy the confidence of the Chinese main battle faction. ”

The spirits of the generals were lifted, Ueda Kenkichi pondered for a moment, turned to Ishikawa, who frowned and thought calmly, and Ishikawa bowed his head and reported:

"Tanaka-kun's plan is excellent, and there are many such precedents in the history of both China and Japan, and what is not obtained on the open battlefield is likely to be easily obtained on other battlefields, especially in Shanghai, on which the Nanking government is so dependent in the fields of finance, financial trade, and political influence, especially when both sides of the war are exhausted.

My subordinates just want to put forward some personal opinions, follow as much as possible the slogan put forward by our excellent military model, the Kwantung Army, use China to contain China, and use war to nourish war; moreover, if the entire scope can be expanded to Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and other places, it may be more helpful to the completion of the entire plan. ”

Kenkichi Ueda finally made up his mind: "Tanaka-kun, report the plan as soon as possible, and I will ask the military department for approval in the shortest possible time!" ”

"Hey! Thanks to the generals! ”

Takayoshi Tanaka bowed to the ground and thanked him, and a bloody storm began.