Wuhan has become an empty city. The only people left here are tens of thousands of people who are unwilling or unable to leave and thousands of national troops who are fleeing in all directions. Okamura Neji traveled upstream from the Yangtze River and came to Qingshan Town. Here is the distance
Hankou is a small town no more than a dozen miles away.
"How long will it take to capture Wuhan? Where has the Northern Route Army arrived?" Neji Okamura asked nervously.
The staff officer immediately looked at the record and said, "It will probably take another day to completely suppress it. The Northern Route Army has arrived at Hengdian and should join us soon."
Okamura Neiji waved his hand and said, "Who said anything about the rendezvous? We must capture Wuhan before the Northern Route Army. Order all troops to capture Wuhan. I will personally ask for credit from His Majesty the Emperor."
At this time, a telegram was passed to the staff. The staff glanced at it and said with a smile, "Your Excellency, Commander, good news, the Chiang Kai-shek has just escaped. The morale of the Chinese army is in chaos. Many warehouses are being looted. It seems that the Chinese have not
Transport all the things from Wuhan, and our spies have also mastered the locations of those storage points and are guiding our troops to occupy those storage points."
Neji Okamura's eyes lit up and he shouted, "The National Government Building must be occupied as quickly as possible. Only when we occupy it can we claim to have occupied Wuhan."
——Inside Wuhan City
Nakajima Hikaru was panting and leading his team to run. After several months of fierce fighting, his team leader had been killed. As one of the few veterans who was still alive, he was recommended as the team leader. At this time, they
The mission is to capture a supplies warehouse, where it is said that the supplies accumulated there can last the imperial army for a year.
A man wearing a patched robe pointed forward and said, "Ahead, right in front, there is a cloth storage point. There are a lot of cloth, cotton, linen and other supplies. There is also a lot of silk."
"Silk??" Hikari Nakajima's eyes lit up, and he said to Akira Koike behind him, "Koike-kun, if there is really silk, why don't you take one and send it home to make a kimono for your fiancée? Wait.
It will look particularly good when you get married."
Akira Koike was the vice-captain at this time. He said with a silly smile, "That's great, but isn't it a bit inappropriate?"
Kodo Kenichi immediately shouted, "What's inappropriate? We fought so hard, and now we're just getting some clothes, don't you think so?"
The other Japanese soldiers laughed loudly. The smoke floating everywhere and the gunshots that could be heard from time to time reminded Koike of Nanjing that year. He handed over all the gold he got that time, hoping that the superiors would give them some help this time.
"We're here," the man in the robe said. "Look, there's no one here, huh? What does this smell like?"
Xiaochihuang sniffed it and found that it came from the warehouse. He pointed at a soldier and said, "Go. Open the door and keep others on guard."
The Japanese troops dispersed immediately. The soldier stepped forward and opened the door carefully. He only saw a mountain of boxes piled in the warehouse. The boxes were labeled with cloth or clothes. On the other side were tall boxes piled high. A few opened them.
Inside the box you can see that it is made of smooth silk.
But this treasure-like scene did not make everyone feel any joy. An extremely pungent smell rushed into the nasal cavity. The neurons immediately sent signals to the brain, and only two terrifying words appeared in the brain: "Gasoline!!"
"
"No, it's a trap, get out quickly!!" Koike Akira quickly pulled Nakajima Hikari and ran back. In a small building opposite the warehouse, a black figure smiled contemptuously and pressed the button fiercely.
Next to the button, an explosion came from the warehouse, followed by a huge fireball. The fireball swallowed up the Japanese soldier who had just entered. The Japanese soldier thirty meters outside the door was also more or less affected.
spread.
Then, as if the God of Fire Zhurong descended from the sky, the entire warehouse turned into a big fireball, and thick black smoke shot straight into the sky. Even Neji Okamura, who was more than ten miles away, could clearly see it.
Koike Akira has very good eyesight. In the light of the fire, he suddenly discovered that some of the boxes seemed to be empty instead of clothes. Koike Akira shook his head. Although he didn't understand, he didn't go into details. Nakajima Hikari next to him shouted loudly, "
Hurry, put out the fire!!"
What Neji Okamura in Qingshan Town saw was not a single column of smoke, but one after another. In his eyes, it seemed as if the entire city of Wuhan was about to be burned down.
"What's going on? Didn't I say you are not allowed to kill people and set fire in Wuhan City? Which army did this? I will send him to a military court." Okamura Neiji jumped to his feet and shouted, the matter in Nanjing has already been solved
The Chinese hate Japan so much that if they come again, even if Chiang Kai-shek wants to surrender, the people will not let him do so.
Several staff officers nearby immediately ran to make phone calls to find out the situation.
After a while, a staff officer came over in disbelief and said, "Your Majesty Commander, this fire was not set by us, but by the Chinese themselves. They set all the material storage points on fire. Now our people are here."
Try your best to put out the fire, because the fire has already killed hundreds of imperial troops, and the Chinese have sprinkled gasoline on the supplies, making it difficult to put it out."
Okamura Neiji's eyes widened, he ran upstairs in three steps and looked at Wuhan with a telescope, but he couldn't see anything clearly.
"Quick, quick, enter Wuhan City!!" Okamura Neji roared.
The Battle of Wuhan came to an end in the black smoke of Wuhan, but the war on China has just begun.
--Tokyo
The whole of Tokyo fell into a carnival of victory. Countless torches and lanterns made the Japanese capital truly a city that never sleeps. Countless men shouted "Long live the Emperor" while drinking, women danced excitedly, and children couldn't help but
They were running around in the crowd, and the flames of fireworks flashed in the sky from time to time, all to celebrate that their imperial army occupied Wuhan, the wartime center of China. In their view, China was about to surrender, and the country was about to surrender.
The Japanese Empire will soon rule the continental country that has been above Japan for thousands of years.
But in the palace, the atmosphere was not cheerful at all. Hirohito closed his eyes and asked, "Why are you not talking? What was the promised end of the war after the Battle of Wuhan? What happened to Jiang's declaration? Why did they also announce the Battle of Wuhan?"
The victory is over. Tell me honestly, what is the result of the war? How many people are left in the Chinese National Army? When will the war end? How many people did we lose? Don't play word games on me. What serious injuries?
Death from illness does not count as battle damage, so don’t think that I really don’t know anything.”
Konoe glanced at Itagaki Seishiro, and Itagaki Seishiro immediately stood up and said, "In the Wuhan battle, our army invested a total of eighteen divisions, with 600,000 navy and army troops, and 400,000 security forces participating in the battle. There were more than 2,000 large and small battles. We
The army has occupied Wuhan, Guangzhou and other important cities. During this period, our army has killed a total of 56,000 people, 23,000 people died of illness, 17,000 people were seriously injured and could not return to the battlefield, and 4,000 people were missing.
The number of other injured or sick people is about 170,000, and the security army casualties are about 120,000. The casualties in China are estimated to be about 500,000. The main reason for this is that our army is not adapted to the environment in central China, and a large number of troops are sick.
And lost combat effectiveness."
Hirohito interrupted and asked, "With such heavy casualties, the Nationalist government has not surrendered. What are you going to do? Continue to fight? Fight to Chongqing? Fight to Sichuan? Fight to Tibet? Do we still have money to fight?"
Konoe immediately said, "Your Majesty, our Five Ministers Committee believes that continuing to fight like this is not an option. Our military expenditures this time are already too large for us to bear. The Army has already used all the guns in the school, and we are already in China."
The troops that have invested the maximum strength have no way to increase their troops from other places, and the Chinese have set up a large number of guerrilla zones in our rear. These guerrilla zones make it impossible for us to deal with the frontal battlefield with all our strength, and more importantly,
In this war for more than a year, we have not made a penny at all, but are running a constant deficit, so we can no longer fight battles like the Battle of Wuhan."
Since he had held a five-phase meeting before and had just come off the battlefield, Itagaki Seishiro knew the reality of the situation very well, so although he was dissatisfied, he could not say anything.
Konoe continued, "We believe that military is just a continuation of politics. We can completely make the National Government surrender, or let some people of the National Government surrender. We have now established three regimes on Chinese soil: the Provisional Republic of China in North China.
government, the Reform Government of the Republic of China in Central China, and the Mongolian Autonomous Government in Inner Mongolia. However, whether it is King De, Wang Kemin, or Liang Hongzhi, they are not popular characters and cannot be recognized by others, so we are going to find someone from the National Government.
The top leaders will lead a large pro-Japanese Chinese government, which will include all the places occupied by our army. Secondly, we will conduct a limited war of attrition and blockade against China. Our army must make use of its existing military advantages and continuously launch
Short-term local battles will consume China's strength, allow our army to always maintain the momentum of strategic offensive, and at the same time cut off all channels to support China. Otherwise, as long as there is support from the Soviet Union and other countries, the Chinese army will never be able to finish the battle. Third,
Transform domestic industry, agriculture and other aspects into military protracted warfare to meet the needs of long-term operations."
Hirohito said after a while, "I hope so. Also, what do you think of the third point?"
Ikeda Seibin said, "A total of more than 3 billion yen has been spent on military expenditures in the past few months. Since the war began, our gold reserves have decreased by 350 tons, and the yen has depreciated. But our production value has also increased significantly, and our industry has
It has begun to shift to a wartime mechanism, but what limits us now is not workers and machinery, but materials. Our country is extremely short of resources. Although we have received a lot of resources from Manchuria and North China, we are short of copper, rubber, oil, and steel.
China doesn’t have much of these resources, so we can only seize them from Britain, France and the United States. It would be great if we had Southeast Asia.”
Itagaki Seishiro immediately said, "There is also a large amount of oil shale and coal in Manchuria, which can be used as fuel. I think we should increase investment in this area."
Mitsumasa Yoneuchi smiled disdainfully and said, "The Tokuyama Coal Chemical Plant that hasn't even produced a single glass bottle of oil? Or the Manchurian oil that can only block our engines? You should use those things yourself."
Ikeda Chengbin sighed and said, "Actually, we in Japan don't really have no oil. Including Taiwan and Manchuria, our oil mining area covers an area of 3.5 million square kilometers. Unfortunately, more than 90% are oil fields without any industrial mining value. Now
We produce 9,000 tons in Hokkaido every year, 50,000 tons in Taiwan, 250,000 tons from Hokkaido Oil Leasing, and 300,000 tons from Honshu. The total is only 610,000 tons, and we use more than 3 million tons a year, and
It is still rising. It can be said that Western countries are strangulating our necks in this regard."
Hirohito raised his hand and said, "We will discuss the oil issue next time. The China Incident has reached today, and we must change our methods. Konoe, didn't you say someone has been selected? Who is it?"
Konoe lowered his head and smiled and said, "It's Wang Zhaoming from China. He has already been in contact with us. I believe that as long as he surrenders to our imperial army, the National Government of China will definitely split."
Hirohito's eyes lit up and he said, "Is it the Wang Jingwei who led the way and lived up to his youth? If he is willing to cooperate with us, the incident will be solved well, but it will be even more difficult if it is Jiang Jingwei himself."
Wonderful."
Konoe also nodded and said, "Your Majesty is absolutely right, and we are also making our last efforts."
——Chongqing
Wang Jingwei and Agent Jiang looked at each other with big eyes and small eyes. Wang Jingwei touched the table and said, "Now that we have even lost Wuhan and Guangzhou, don't you still recognize the current situation? Do you still want to fight? What else do you want to fight?
Will you give up when the time comes?"
Chiang Kai-shek hummed, "The final winner of the war of resistance must be us. We cannot rely on the Japanese to conquer the enemy without fighting. Otherwise, how can we be worthy of the spirits of the fallen soldiers and the Prime Minister in heaven!!"
Upon hearing this, Wang Jingwei shouted loudly, "Do you remember the former Prime Minister? The resting place of the former Prime Minister has been trampled under the soles of the Japanese! Now the great powers are standing back and watching, the Japanese army is pressing forward step by step, and most of our territory has been lost. How can we win?
What? Now we can negotiate with the Japanese and get better conditions. If we are completely defeated by the Japanese, we can only surrender unconditionally and let others slaughter us like Germany did in World War I. Do you still remember the Yuan Dynasty back then?
Huh? Why are the Semu people second-class? It’s because they understood the current situation clearly and cooperated with the Mongols, so they didn’t end up with a tragic end.”
Agent Jiang looked at Wang Jingwei contemptuously and said, "I have told you many times about the principles of the War of Resistance, but you just don't listen. I'm really tired now and don't want to talk anymore. I'm going to bed. You can go back too."
"
After saying this, Agent Jiang left Wang Jingwei behind and walked into the bedroom. This was tantamount to giving an eviction order.
Wang Jingwei wanted to pursue him again, but was blocked by several guards. Looking at the closed door, Wang Jingwei slammed down his sleeves and turned around to leave.
In the room, Dai Li stood aside. Agent Jiang closed his eyes and said, "I know everything you said. Don't let anyone know about this. Go down."
Dai Li's heart trembled. He had already guessed what Agent Jiang was thinking, but he didn't dare to think about it any further and quickly withdrew.
Agent Jiang slowly opened his eyes and murmured, "It's been fourteen years. Do you think you can defeat me just by relying on the Japanese? What a joke! What a dream!!"
