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Text Chapter 758 Japan is going south

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    After learning that the two agreements were signed, Yang Qiu had no intention of continuing the inspection, so he returned to Yanjing with Song Ziqing and others overnight to discuss countermeasures.  After learning that he had returned early, Xu Gesen, who could not catch up, immediately rushed to the presidential palace.  The dignified Ambassador of the British Empire to China now has red eyes, wrinkled clothes, and is obviously overworked.  Crises are emerging on three sides at the same time in the Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf and Europe, making the rotten ship of Sunset increasingly unsustainable.

    Fortunately, Yang Qiu's mentality has changed. The emergence of the German-Soviet Contract means that the world situation has been fixed in the short term. He no longer needs to consider the timing of his action, so he has changed his avoidance of vague excuses.  He promised that if the British government could persuade the Soviet troops to withdraw from Afghanistan and permanently recognize the Shanghai Communique, and at the same time the troops outside the northwest retreat two hundred kilometers, they would be willing to temporarily stop commercial investment in Iran until the international situation stabilizes.  It was decided to send Gu Weijun, who was visiting the Persian Gulf and Turkey, to visit Europe to continue follow-up discussions.

    Immediately afterwards, he met with the visiting Hopkins and conveyed to Roosevelt that he had no intention of intervening in the European conflict and only wanted to contain and resolve the crisis in the northwest. He also promised that he would not actively violate the "Tsingtao Treaty" or seek Indian interests.  Of course, it was also hinted at the end that if Britain is unable to protect the security of oil channels in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, it will use its own naval power to protect oil channels.

    The news from the United States made Britain very dissatisfied. What does it mean that Britain is unable to protect oil channels?  If you hadn't caused trouble in Iran, wouldn't the British Empire have suffered from three sides?  However, Chamberlain was really powerless at this time, so he immediately sent a special envoy to the Soviet Union in the hope of solving China and the Soviet Union first.  However, Stalin, who had just reached an agreement with Japan and Germany and had no worries, refused to comment on these harsh preconditions for negotiations. Instead, he continued to increase troops to the east during the arrival of the British envoy.  Moscow's toughness made the situation in the northwest increasingly tense. In order to prepare for the Soviet attack, the Chief of Staff of the National Defense Forces Yue Peng responded immediately and dispatched 15 additional infantry divisions to Xinjiang Province, Beihai and Almaty. By early June, China and the Soviet Union had  A total of 96 divisions have been deployed on the long front from Snoyarsk to Afghanistan, including 45 divisions from the Chinese National Defense Force and 51 divisions from the Soviet Red Army.  A huge force including more than 5,000 aircraft of various types, 23,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 120,000 artillery pieces of various types, 400,000 trucks and 1.4 million pack horses were also deployed.

    At the same time, after taking advantage of the explosive power of air transportation to catch the Soviet army off guard, the National Defense Forces used the winter and spring seasons to continuously transport 110,000 truckloads of supplies to the local area through the Afghan Resource Highway, which not only effectively solved and alleviated the food shortage problem of Afghan citizens caused by the war, but also transported  A large amount of weapons, ammunition and supplies.  After hoarding supplies for several months, when news of Stalin's refusal came on May 21, 1938, the Chinese Volunteer Army in Afghanistan and the Afghan Army joined hands to launch an attack on the Soviet troops entrenched in Herat and other places.

    After experiencing the panic at the beginning of the war last year, Zhukov, who had received support from 13 divisions from Moscow, with a total strength of 16 divisions and more than a thousand tanks and armored vehicles, used layers of mountainous defenses to try to protect the strategic town of Herat.  Let China and Iran connect.  Although the air force provided strong support, the Afghan coalition's progress was not smooth in the face of vast mountainous areas with complex terrain.

    By the 27th, the Sino-Arab coalition headquarters in Kabul once again ordered the air force to carry out large-scale bombings of Termez, Herat and other important towns where the Soviet army was entrenched.  During the bombing that lasted for half a month, the Chinese Air Force dispatched a total of 1,656 sorties, dropped 2,055 tons of bombs, and shot down 73 Soviet fighter planes at the cost of losing 17 aircraft.

    Facing the almost unsolvable large-scale bombing, Stalin was furious and ordered the rapid development of a number of new aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, tanks and other equipment including IL2, MiG-2, T34 tanks, etc., and also terminated British mediation.  "Pravda" also followed suit, issuing for the first time a statement of total war, calling on the entire Soviet Union to take action to defend the country's territorial security.  At the same time, in order to free up its hands to deal with Britain and France, Germany also began to speed up the delivery of ordered weapons and equipment to the Soviet army.  By mid-June, 76 BF109 fighters and 55 He111 bombers had been secretly delivered.  Since the Soviet army had never flown such a good fighter jet, and German weapons were known for being sophisticated but difficult to make, Stalin immediately ordered the planes to be transported to Chelyabinsk and mobilized the best of the entire army.  The pilots received training from German instructors and learned to operate and fly new aircraft.

    Just when the spring and summer offensives in Afghanistan were in full swing and Stalin gritted his teeth and gathered strength, on July 19, the Soviet-Deutsche-Taiwan crisis escalated violently.  Although Britain and France tried their best to prevent it and even issued war threats, compared with the parallel world, the Soviet Union's evasiveness made Hitler more rampant. Not only did it issue an ultimatum to the Czech Republic, demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners and ceding the Sudetenland to Germany for the first time,  He responded to Britain and France's calls for armed intervention with a tough speech about "war is inevitable".

    The July crisis panicked Britain and France. The first thing Chamberlain even did when he got up every day was to ask the secretary whether war had begun.  Faced with the lip service of British and French politicians, the Czech RepublicNess publicly stated that he would not compromise and would not cede the Sudetenland to Germany.  Seeing that the imminent war between Germany and the Czech Republic was likely to involve them, the two countries sent additional envoys to Moscow and Yanjing. Chamberlain even had no time to pay attention to Afghanistan and Iran.

    Seeing through the weakness of Britain and France, Hitler was emboldened. Faced with the visiting former French Deputy Prime Minister, he suddenly changed his tune, saying that he was no longer interested in the autonomy of the Sudetenland and wanted to conquer the Czech Republic by force.  At the same time, German troops once again gathered towards the Czech border.

    Faced with the suddenly tense Northwest Crisis and the Sudetenland Crisis, Yang Qiu, who was in Yanjing, also put aside his ideological baggage, convened a meeting of cabinet ministers, unified the thinking of the government and the military, and published a signed article in the Central Daily News for the first time, demanding  The whole country recognized the harsh external environment and prepared for war.  This article caused an uproar in the Republic of China and the Far East. Even the New York Times used the title "He has issued a warning."

    On the day after the speech, Song Ziqing and Yue Peng held a meeting of military division and brigade-level officers to deploy military preparations. At the same time, they formally submitted the later famous "National Defense Expansion Act of 1938" to the Presidential Palace and Congress.  According to this draft, the National Defense Forces will immediately stop the retirement of veterans within three years and massively expand by 35 divisions.  According to this draft, by the end of 1939, the total strength of the Army of the Republic of China must be guaranteed to be 2.2 million. The Navy will expand the current total number of ships by 20%, with a total strength of 420,000. The Air Force will also add 36 flying wings, totaling  With a strength of 320,000 troops, plus 300,000 National Guard troops, the total armed strength of the country exceeds 3 million.

    "Nagata-kun, you are finally back!"

    In the Yokosuka naval port, Nagata Tetsuyama, who was staying in Berlin and had initially reached an alliance agreement with Germany, had just disembarked when he was slapped hard on the shoulder by Yamamoto Isoroku: "You are the hero of the Japanese Empire, I am proud of you!"

    Nagata Tetsuyama is indeed worthy of the title of the pride of the empire. You must know that he not only brought back 200 million rubles and millions of tons of scarce raw material aid to Japan, he also won over Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union, and finally received assistance including aluminum alloys.  A large number of samples of German technical equipment including formulas.  In the words of Okamura Neiji, as long as there is enough time to slowly imitate, Japan can gradually narrow the technological gap with the air force.  But he himself is very modest. During the hot war in Afghanistan, the powerful air force and armored forces used for the first time across the sea made Japan dare not show any signs of fatigue. It can be said that except for the traditional navy, the gap between China and Japan is already very obvious.

    "Yamamoto-kun, I've been at sea for too long. Is there any news?" After arriving at the guest house, Nagata Tetsuyama began to ask about the recent situation.

    Since there were no outsiders, Yamamoto Isoroku did not want to hide his worries. He gave a general introduction to the "1938 National Defense Expansion Act" of the Republic of China, which had been causing a lot of commotion in the past few days. When he heard that this time, 35 divisions would be added in one go, a total of  After 7 armies, the remaining excitement in Nagata's heart due to the huge harvest gained during the visit was completely wiped out.

    The gap in manpower, resources, food and industrial scale is getting bigger and bigger!

    Yamamoto Isoroku was also very worried. He put his hands together on his knees and looked solemn: "Nagata-kun. Doihara-kun has determined that China's steel output will exceed 34 million tons this year, and the total shipbuilding tonnage in half a year has exceeded 2 million tons.  It began to manufacture machine tools and trucks in large quantities, and also reached a second-phase grain import agreement with the United States. According to the Tibetan Prime Minister's analysis, China's total industrial scale this year will be close to that of the United States before the economic crisis in 1929! He also heard that in addition to four ships equipped with 16-inch artillery  In addition to the battleships, China also started building four aircraft carriers, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and at least 60 lightning strike (destroyer) ships more than two years ago. They also started building several special support warships.  Even the transformation of the four Yanjing-class battleships will be completed early next year. The current "National Defense Expansion Act" proposes to follow the example of the United States and expand the size of the navy by another 20%, so that four more heavy cruisers and six more can be built.  A light cruiser!"

    The numbers in Yamamoto Fifty-Six's mouth were like thunder exploding in Nagata Tetsuyama's ears, and he couldn't help but take a breath of air.  Annual output of 34 million tons of steel?  Is this number already greater than that of Germany and the Soviet Union combined?  It was only 27 million tons three years ago!  According to this calculation, it will exceed the 40 million mark by the end of next year!

    Nagata Tetsuzan looked at Yamamoto Isoroku with a gloomy expression, and suddenly understood what he meant.  Japan could no longer wait and must go south immediately to seize resources no matter what. Otherwise, the battle would be lost without fighting, so he asked: "Yamamoto-kun, does the military know about these things?" "Them? Huh!" Yamamoto  Fifty-Six snorted coldly. Except for Nagata, who had always had a higher level of vision, he had never looked directly at the "horse dung" in the military department. He said: "I already know it, but Prime Minister Konoe and Tojo have been captured by China."  The military expansion plan is so frightening that they wet their pants and demand that the number of troops stationed in North Korea be increased first. These stupid idiots, adding North Korea will only make China more uneasy."

    Nagata Tieshan understood, the reason why Yamamoto just talked to himself?Speaking of this, it must be because the expansion of the army of the Republic of China caused chaos in the Japanese military headquarters again, so after thinking about it carefully, he said: "Yamamoto-kun, I don't want to get involved in this matter."

    "What!" Seeing that the best time to go south has arrived, he actually backed down at this time. No wonder Yamamoto Isoroku picked up the cup and wanted to throw it at Nagata's face.  His look stunned Nagata Tetsuyama for a moment before he realized that what he said was wrong and he waved his hand quickly: "Yamamoto-kun, you misunderstood. What I mean is that if we pass the military review again, it will be too late."

    "What do you mean, Nagata-kun?"

    Nagata Tetsuyama narrowed his eyes, and the gaze behind his lenses became as sharp as a razor: "Yamamoto-kun, we don't have time to argue with those bastards from Tojo, so I suggest that we do it ourselves! I can contact Seishiro Itata and Okamura  Neji, take charge of the navy, and it won¡¯t take long to set off from East Timor to Batavia.¡±

    "But will this lead to an all-out war between the Empire and Britain?"

    "It will break out, but it won't break out immediately." Nagata Tieshan leaned forward and whispered his inner plan, Yamamoto Isoroku's eyes brightened.

    (To be continued)
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