While the Qing Dynasty was busy conducting war propaganda, the Japanese side was not idle, and they were also promoting the war.

Without that country, the government would be stupid enough to tell its citizens truthfully about its failures on the battlefield. For the Japanese people, the war that the country is currently engaged in has achieved phased victory - the Imperial Japanese Imperial Army has occupied half of North Korea and is now launching a second attack on Pyongyang and has taken the lead. Once Pyongyang is conquered, tens of thousands of elite Qing troops still stranded in North Korea will become rootless Ping. The imperial army can advance rapidly after completely occupying North Korea, crossing the Yalu River to attack Manchuria.

As for the previous failure in the Tangshan area of ​​the Qing Dynasty and the failure of the first Pyongyang battle, the former was because of a severe epidemic in the local area. The inadequate preparations of the imperial army caused a large number of non-combat reductions due to lack of medical treatment and medicine, and was defeated by the Qing army with superior forces. General Dashan Isang and other imperial elites were unfortunately broken. The latter was because the military secrets of our army were betrayed by a few speculators to the enemy country, which made the first army led by General Akito Yama County fall into the trap of the enemy.

As for who was the "speculative"? Although the government did not explain, after Hiromoto Ito was assassinated, some early letters between him and Li Hongzhang were published through some "special" channels, which shows that Hiromoto Ito and the core officials of the Qing Empire were "very close." Ito Hiromoto Ito, while the empire had military advantages, encouraged a "arms" on the premise of sacrificing the interests of the empire.

On the navy, the Battle of the Yellow Sea was caused by a sudden hurricane, which caused some ships to be damaged. Then, due to the leakage of military secrets, the Qing Navy was able to hit the superior fleet to encircle the already damaged Imperial Navy. However, the Imperial Navy's combat effectiveness was far better than the Qing Dynasty. Even in unfavorable circumstances, it still sank, injured many Qing army warships and successfully left the battlefield and returned to the base.

As for the recently concluded Battle of the East China Sea, I'm sorry, the Japanese government did not announce this battle to the public. In the perception of the Japanese people, the fast fleet of the Great Japanese Empire, under the command of Lieutenant General Kozo Tsukii, still cruising in the seas south of Okinawa, escorting the sea supply line, and looking for an opportunity to fight the Qing fleet.

Therefore, the Japanese people and the people are still very morale and are full of fantasies about the victory of this war.

However, some of the top leaders of the government are in a terrible state.

Yuyama Besang. This is a hot spring resort in the Kyoto area. At this time, several senior Japanese government officials were gathering secretly.

"The ambitions of the Russians have been revealed. At present, we have completely lost control of the sea. On land, Lieutenant General of Kawakami was broken, causing the collapse of 80,000 troops. Without the restraint and support of the 80,000 troops of Kawakami in the south, the two divisions landing from Yuanshan to encircle Pyongyang can only be a tree without roots, and failure is inevitable. The best result is to retain the main force and then retreat to Kaesong. As for Seoul, it is only a matter of time before it is conquered under the heavy siege of the Qing army, and it may not even be able to wait for the northern army to rescue."

Since signing a secret loan agreement that was humiliating and humiliating with Kosykin, Takeyoung Homoto has been lobbying among some core government officials, hoping to end the war before the Russians completely broke up. But given the previous incident of Hirofumi Ito, this lobbying can only be carried out in a low-key manner. Moreover, whose opponents are also several officials who are traditionally more cautious and conservative, such as Nishimotoji Komaki, Inoue Kin, Aoki Shuzo, etc. Of course, this so-called prudence is only relative to the current radical army.

But this time, Wu Yang Hiromoto didn't expect that another big boss would come to listen to his opinions. Moreover, this party was obviously centered on this big boss of the navy.

As one of the nine elders, after Aritomo and Oyama Iwak died one after another in Yama Prefecture, Saigo Congdao undoubtedly became an absolute representative of the powerful faction. Even saying that if it were not for his brother Takamori Saigo, the one who succeeded Ito Hiromori as Prime Minister might not be Kuroda Kiyotsuki but him.

Moreover, although he is a minister of the Navy, Saigo Congdo, who was born in the Army, is still the position of the Minister of the Army, which shows his position in the army. It can be seen that such a military boss can listen to his opinions, which shows that Inoue Kin and Nishizoji Kotoshi have done some work.

After Jumoto Wuyang finished speaking, Saigo Congdao did not speak immediately. Correspondingly, the other bigwigs had no intention of speaking - this time, they were originally listening to Saigo Congdao's opinions, so the room became quiet like this.

It took a long time before Saigo spoke, but the question he raised was not to ask Tomoto Wakamaki, but Aoki Shuzo. "Aoki Jun, when will the arms purchased in France be shipped to you this time?"

Because of the war between China and Japan, both countries naturally needed a large amount of arms. The Qing Dynasty took the lead and purchased a large number of weapons from the army-powered country Germany. Japan could only settle for the second best and found Russia and France.

Needless to say, Russia has to be used because of the loan issue, the money must be used to purchase weapons and ships from Russia. However, Russian army weapons are not easy to use. For example, rifles, so far, Russia has not yet mass-produced continuous-fire rifles. The firing rate of artillery is far lower than that of Germany and France.

So in order to make up for the disadvantages of weapons - this was also promised to the army at the last base camp meeting, Japan tightened its belt and collected some silver to buy some high-priced weapons and ammunition from France, including the Haqi Keis machine gun, continuous rifle and 75mm caliber artillery. These weapons were enough to equip three divisions.

"According to a telegram from Singapore, French ships will be delayed on the road because they want to avoid conflicts with the Russian fleet, but they should arrive in Japan by the end of this month." Aoki Shuzo replied.

"Oh, that is, how many days later than the Russians arrived?"

"yes."

There was another silence. Then, Saigo spoke from Dao: "Before the war, the General Staff had compared the war strength of the sea and army of the Empire and the Qing Dynasty. In terms of the army, the Empire could arm about 250,000 units of seventeen divisions during the war. Similarly, the number of troops that the Qing Dynasty could send was also in this number. At that time, the General Staff's opinion was that the Qing army's training and combat will be far inferior to the Imperial Army, and the initiative in the war was in the hands of the Empire. Therefore, once the war started, the Imperial Army would gain a land advantage. This was one of the reasons why financial allocations were more obviously tilted towards the navy."

Guanmoto Wuyang and Aoki Shuzo looked at each other, not knowing what Saigo Congdao meant to say these at this time. Because everyone here knew that the actual situation was just the opposite. It was the Qing army that was suppressing the empire's army and beating it.

"The reason why the current land combat situation is not good for the Imperial Army is that the Qing army is far superior to our army in rapid fire and support firepower. Therefore, the Imperial government does not hesitate to exhaust its financial resources, but also needs to purchase weapons and equipment that are sufficient to gain firepower advantages from today's army power."

It turns out that the purpose of Xixiang Congdao is here.

"So, Jun Tomoto, do you think that even so, the Imperial Army still cannot defeat the Qing Army?"

Guanmoto Takeyang felt that the room suddenly became hot.

This question is really difficult to answer. Even senior politicians like Tomoto Takeoyama need to be faced with the sharp questions raised by the empire's leading elders.

After carefully organizing the language, Takeo Tomoto said, "Your Excellency, I think that in the early stages of the war, the policies formulated by the base camp were somewhat radical, which led to the unnecessary sacrifice of a large number of imperial elites. The soldiers recruited in the later stage were fully trained and equipped with weapons and equipment that their predecessors did not enjoy, but these soldiers also had insufficient combat experience and relatively weak fighting will."

When Jumoto Wuyang was speaking, Saigo Congdao did not look at him, but Jumoto Wuyang felt that his eyes were like a knife always stabbed him, which made him feel very uncomfortable. But at this time, he had to express his thoughts clearly, because there was probably no chance again.

"In addition, because of the losses in the early stages of the war, the Qing army now has a strategic advantage in terms of absolute military strength. Their troops on the Liaodong Peninsula in Zhili and have not been fully mobilized. In the south, more than five divisions of troops have been assembled and can be sent to the front line at any time. In addition, in its western region, two divisions of troops are in preventing Russian military operations."

Speaking of this, Fu Yang looked at Aoki Shuzo, who nodded to him. "According to the information we can obtain now, because of the British's restraint in Central Asia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe, it is almost impossible for the Russian army to launch a land attack on the Qing Dynasty, which means that these two divisions may also be sent to North Korea. But even so, I still believe that the re-armed Imperial Army will not be weaker than the Qing Dynasty's army. In fact, you, what I am worried about has never been the Qing Dynasty!"

At the end, Jumoto Takeyoung suddenly made a turning point.

"What I am really worried about is Russia. There is reliable news that the Russian Army has newly developed a continuous-fired rifle, which is cheap, simple in technology, excellent in quality and durable. However, Russia completely concealed this information from us. At the same time, the imperial intelligence agencies learned that the first Russian military advisor equipped this rifle was on the fleet that was heading to our country!"

Saigo Congdao was not moved by this news, because he had already mastered the information. "Even if this Russian army is on the way to the Far East, what can it mean? He may just be for the frigate, or to garrison Vladivostok, or even to seize North Korea or Manchuria."

"Your Excellency!" Jumoto Takeo unconsciously emphasized his tone. "I just analyzed that the possibility of Russia using land to use force against the Qing state is very low. For example, what you said is to occupy North Korea or Manchuria. If the Russians really do this for this purpose, they would not have agreed to sell us weapons and ammunition that were originally equipped with their Far Eastern troops to us, because if these weapons are left in their hands, once they use force against the Qing Dynasty, the Russians can attack Manchuria or North Korea from two directions. But in fact, they did not do that."

"In addition, it is impossible to station Vladivostok. In the Far East, whether it is the Qing Dynasty or the Empire, there is no ability to challenge Russia's land advantages at this stage. Even the active troops in Vladivostok are enough to form a deterrent, and there is no need to dispatch more powerful and equipped with the latest weapons to come."

"The third point is the frigate. In fact, due to the obstruction of the British, this Russian fleet could not pass through the Suez Canal, nor could it use the British port bases located around the world for supply. After they left the Baltic base, they were almost completely spent on the sea. So why did the fleet need an army to guard it?"

From the beginning to now, Congdao Saigo has had a facial expression for the first time, and he shook his eyebrows.

Takeyang Komoto thought for a while and then said: "For the issue of occupying North Korea, if the Imperial Army gained the initiative on the Korean battlefield by then, then the Russians could really enter North Korea. Unfortunately, for some reasons, the weapons used to equip successors will not arrive a few days later than the Russian fleet. At that time, the situation of the Imperial Army in North Korea was not optimistic."

Although Fuyang Tomoto chose the more gentle word "not optimistic", this sentence still stimulated several other people. Their faces immediately became ugly. After realizing this, Fuyang Tomoto immediately closed his mouth.

The room fell into silence again.

"From the current domestic situation, it is impossible to end the war immediately." Saigo Congdao was still the one who broke the silence. "In addition, I will remind the base camp to pay attention to the threat from Russia. However, as diplomats, you also hope to play a role. At least, let the Russians believe that when the weapons and equipment from France are in place, the soldiers of the Empire can regain the ground advantage."

Saigo Congdao made his attitude clear, but Jumoto Takeyoung still wanted to fight for it: "But yourselves, the Navy..."
Chapter completed!