In fact, there was another external opportunity for Roosevelt to suddenly impose a material embargo on Japan. That is, the Chinese government finally made the decision to declare war on Japan after many suggestions from German advisers.
Yes, after all, Germany has not forced the recall of consultants, so the German military advisory group that originally went to China has actually remained in China. During this period, many members have only changed, but the organization is still there.
Although it was almost the same time as the original declaration of war in history, and it had no impact on the historical process of China's Anti-Japanese War, it was still the declaration of war after all.
This time, the news that China declared war on Japan undoubtedly provided Roosevelt with a good excuse to block the export of oil and other strategic materials to Japan.
After all, after the Sino-Japanese war broke out, the United States has always adopted a policy of non-interference and avoidance of involvement. However, since China and Japan did not declare war, the United States did not impose an indiscriminate embargo on China and Japan, but only banned American merchant ships.
There are no restrictions on transporting arms and other military supplies to these two countries. There are no restrictions on other goods.
However, this U.S. policy is obviously beneficial to Japan and detrimental to China, because Japan has the ability to block China's coastline, but China does not have the ability to block Japan's coastline.
In fact, after Japan occupied areas such as Northeast China and Korea, it was very helpless to find that they could not find enough resources to stimulate their own industrial economy.
In addition to the steel and coal mines that Japan urgently needs in the three eastern provinces, the remaining rubber and oil resources are still available. In fact, Japan still has to beg the United States to export them to them.
Moreover, the United States does not facilitate Japan's import of these materials, which still seriously affects Japan's lifeline.
Japan's national strength at that time could no longer support the consumption caused by large-scale offensive wars, and it was known as the third navy in the world (actually it was originally ranked fourth, and it really became third only after Germany defeated the British Navy)
, and cannot support the army's battle at all.
Of course, the Japanese Navy was not willing to bother with the Army's achievements.
Many people believe that the reason why China was able to defeat Japan was basically due to the U.S. emperor's war with Japan. This statement is actually unfair.
The dog-eat-dog dogfight between the United States and Japan in history has indeed relieved China a lot of pressure, but in fact, as long as the Chinese team continues to work hard, the Japanese will become increasingly unsustainable just because of supply problems, and the slowdown in China will
The offensive of the earth. This situation is very similar to the Sino-Japanese War. If the Manchu and Qing government at that time survived the destruction of the Weihaiwei Beiyang Navy and the defeat in the Korean battlefield, Japan would not be able to continue the war based on its national strength at that time.
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Fortunately, during World War II, the Chinese were courageous enough. Even if the capital fell, they continued to fight the Japanese until the last moment!
But now, China is surprised to find that it seems to be more and more capable of fighting, or it may be that the Japanese army is getting worse and worse. In short, China is so aggressive that after the arrival of 1941, it declared war on the Japanese government.
"We hereby formally declare war on Japan and declare to China and foreign countries that all treaties, agreements, and contracts involving relations between China and Japan will be abolished. This is hereby announced!"
With a declaration of war, China responded directly to the Japanese aggression in the strongest possible stance.
So, some people may be confused, why did China declare war on Japan after so many years of war between China and Japan?
In fact, a large part of the reason for this is that the Chinese side is worried that the German armorer equipment that is about to be obtained may be ruined.
Before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, China, with the help of the German Military Advisory Group, had trained and equipped four standard German weapon divisions. However, when the war between China and Japan began, a large amount of scheduled equipment had not arrived. Because it was originally scheduled to
In the plan, China will expand the number of German weapon masters to more than four.
China has not declared war for a long time because it was worried that the Japanese army would implement a naval blockade and prevent supplies from Germany.
Interestingly, China believes that declaring war against Japan will do more harm than good, but Japan also believes that declaring war against China will do more harm than good.
After all, Japan has supported a puppet Nanjing government, so it cannot declare war on the Chongqing National Government. Because that would be tantamount to admitting that the Wang puppet Nanjing government supported by Japan is not the real government of China.
As a result, a strange scene in the history of war appeared: until China declared war on Japan, China and Japan had been in a state of war. But at the same time, diplomats continued to talk, and soldiers continued to fight. The talks were real talks, and the fights were real fights.
No delay.
The main reason why the Sino-Japanese war can continue to fight until now and still give China time to declare war is that there is basically no mechanized warfare in the standard sense on the Chinese battlefield.
For the Chinese and Japanese armies, the concept of mechanized combat is too far away. Although the Japanese army has many tanks, armored vehicles, etc., they are not up to standard in terms of technology and theory. In addition, oil is also tightly restricted by the United States, and its reserves are
Not much, so there is not enough capital to launch mechanized warfare.
China's performance in this regard was even worse. At the beginning of the war, it only had one regiment of armored troops, and its main equipment was the "Fiat" light tanks provided by the former Italian leader Mussolini. These were used in East and North Africa with the British Commonwealth.
The army has been proven to be useless during the battle - in the previous Battle of Songhu, two companies were also used by the Chinese ** team. As a result, they were basically lost and had little effect.
Due to many reasons, even though the Japanese army engaged in pure infantry offensive warfare in the Chinese battlefield, plus various battles of wits and courage with guerrilla warfare and tunnel warfare, their progress was slow and they were still quite tired when they entered the battlefield.
As a result, the Japanese base camp, which found that it had few strategic reserves in its hands and was still choked by the United States, finally made up its mind to operate in a different direction.
Needless to say about the north, the previous march north to Nomenkan caused the Japanese army to suffer a lot. Now the army is really not in a good mood to clamor for another march north.
Although a few people who went north still fantasized about joining the German army and joining the Soviet Union, the attitude of others, the Germans, had always been very cold, which made these people very embarrassed.
Now, the navy-based southward faction suddenly proposed that they should take advantage of the historical opportunity of Britain being pinned to the ground by the Germans, and the laxity of the United States that had not yet participated in the war, to quickly take action and take over Southeast Asia, which was originally the scope of British and American strength.
As soon as this statement came out, coupled with the trashy and useless look shown by the British recently, many people were moved.
On the other hand, Japan is running rampant and has never thought of landing in the United States. From the beginning, they only formulated a strategic defense system of attacking first, taking advantage and then defending.
As for the resources Japan needs, they don't have to go to the United States to grab them. In Southeast Asian regions such as the Philippines and Myanmar, there are both oil resources that can be exploited and rich rubber resources that can be utilized. Taking them can just make up for Japan's shortcomings.
Precisely at this time, a piece of intelligence about the lax combat readiness at Pearl Harbor was sent to the Japanese base camp...