After the Ise incident, the Japanese government no longer mentioned the New Guinea issue to the empire, and instead requested a new Sino-Japanese trade treaty that was more beneficial to Japan. However, it continued to use "

"China" scornfully called China without any intention of apologizing, and the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs' intention to pursue the case was also downplayed. China and Japan seemed to have entered a new stage of cold war, but the Ise incident once again deepened the degree of the cold war between the two countries. From the government

The entire nation is filled with a hostility as cold as an ice cave.

A few days later, Song Biao went to the general office early to handle official business as usual.

Wang Zhaoming prepared a special "Asahi Shimbun" from Japan for him early in the morning and prepared a translation for it. This arrangement was somewhat unconventional and was not within Wang Zhaoming's scope of authority.

Song Biao still read the translation of the "Asahi Shimbun" morning report a week ago, and then he understood Wang Zhaoming's intention. It turned out that that day's "Asahi Shimbun" published an article by Rear Admiral Akiyama Shinyuki, Japan's new deputy navy minister.

"Who have we offended?".

Wang Zhaoming's translation is basically faithful to the wording of the original text, and has a prose-like writing style, which makes people sigh with emotion after reading it.

Akiyama Shinyuki wrote this in the first line of the article - Before I accepted Prime Minister Takahashi's entrustment to go to China, I had a premonition that this would be a bad official trip, and it turned out to be like this.

People also feel depressed and sad.

"After returning to China, I cried bitterly in the spacious office behind the birch door at the Navy Headquarters and closed the door. So no one knows how much pain and mourning I felt in my heart. Maybe I knew that we would not fight with the China Empire.

risk war

, but I am still very sad. I am alone in the middle of the night at the Navy Headquarters. I have been sleeping soundly during the Battle of Japan and I can’t sleep. I always keep thinking about why the Empire and China are like this.

To the point of heartbreak?”

"We ask for colonies because every country has the right to make the country prosperous and make the people happy. This is the right of every country. Mr. Yukichi Fukuzawa, the reforming philosopher whom my brother and I admire the most, said so. We are also convinced that

So, the world is cruel and always forces our nation to face the most painful situations."

"After the defeat of the Korean Peninsula in Meiji 44, I was forced to end my beloved position as commander of the Port Arthur Fleet. I returned to my country and served as the principal of the Naval Academy. At the moment when I heartbrokenly ordered the fleet to set sail,

I seem to have seen the beginning of the nation's suffering.

Before, I probably liked the Yamato people living in China. I liked their ignorant and simple hard-working people. I liked the former governor of the three eastern provinces and later the emperor of the China Empire, His Majesty Song. At that time, he

More of a simple soldier, always with tactics and strategies

His sharp thinking, as well as his amazing tactical innovations and novel and progressive modern warfare ideas. In limited interactions, even a naval soldier like me can always benefit a lot from talking to him. Therefore, I always like to talk about him.

He is the military god of Asia. He is so powerful that even my friend who has been proud of him since he was a child

My arrogant and arrogant brother, you have nothing to say in admiration. After I left Port Arthur, even as the principal of the Naval Academy, I would always find various opportunities to go to China every year, thinking of ways to be able to

See him, even if you just have a simple chat with him about boring topics like the weather."

"I know that His Majesty the Emperor of China is always changing, becoming more and more unfamiliar. He is still sharp and can be called the God of Asian Army, but he is aloof and despises all living things. So that I can no longer understand his heart. In the limited few years,

During this meeting, through his eyes,

All I can see besides nobility is indifference and ruthlessness. I will always insist on reading all the Central China editorials under his pseudonym. Although I know that many of those articles are written by his staff, but

After all, it can still represent his thoughts."

"We hate His Majesty Shenwu himself. That is the biggest reason why we hate him. But every time I sort out his editorials and his public remarks in China, I am still surprised to think that he is simply the kind of emperor who reincarnated His Majesty Shenwu.

Your Excellency, he seems to be very good at and likes to greatly westernize while maintaining the essence of Chinese culture and tradition. I always feel that this is the main reason why China has become stronger rapidly in the past ten years."

"Many times, I am always very sad, not because my friendship with him has gradually become colder to the point where we can hardly meet, but because since he came to the throne, China has excluded us Japan when it opened up to the world. This is also

It is not difficult to explain, as it is well known that his parents and family were killed at the hands of our soldiers, but we have always denied this time and time again and refused to apologize to him and his nation."

"Oh my God!"

"Whenever I suggest that the military department apologize for this, I am met with unanimous rebuke and vicious criticism. I am surprised to think what is wrong with us. Are our hearts sick? Don't we know what we have done?

Everything? Don’t we know that the emperor is the God of War in Asia and the emperor who rules a population of 400 million? I always question my already tortured soul again and again, do we really need to be so arrogant?

Are you so arrogant that you lose your reason and humanity?”

"Based on my understanding of China and us, our two nations are the kind of groups that like to blame others. We always believe that we are innocent and righteous. So we refuse to apologize, we do not apologize, and China has never

Apologize to us. They never realize they hurt us, and we never realize it, so things just keep getting worse."

"During the Taisho Year, whenever we opened the newspapers, there were reports that hated China. They adjusted tariffs against us time and time again, shutting out our products that were better than theirs, and not allowing their citizens to enjoy better products.

Cheap and affordable life. They have also targeted us with domestic tax cuts time and time again to make their products cheaper internationally, even if their products always have problems of one kind or another. After we have cultivated them for

There are so many talents that half of the people in the China Cabinet once studied in Japan.

More than 70% of the army's mid-level and senior officers graduated from the army. During the five-year period of the New Deal in the three northeastern provinces, we opened our arms to provide them with all the talents they needed. We established schools for them in the three northeastern provinces, and then dreamed of Asia.

Two nations soaring together, united against the Anglos, only for this to happen? Did all our efforts result in them ostracizing us? After we had done so much for them. The Europeans had bullied them for so many years.

But they exclude us and embrace Europe with open arms?"

"So. We have reason to hate their stupidity."

"It's just that when we look back on the past, when we demanded a huge compensation of 200 million taels of silver from them after the Japanese-Qing War, which pushed the Qing Dynasty into desperation. Have we considered that the source of everything is our too eager desire to be strong and rich?

"

"Now when they are powerful, excluding them unceremoniously is as annoying as kicking a despicable person out of a banquet after taking advantage of his neighbor. But they are indeed powerful. This is an indisputable fact.

.Perhaps I will receive a lot of opposition when I say this. We always

They will continue to report on their ugliness and ignorance as in the past. Even the most impartial newspapers like to use words like "China pigs" to describe them, but for them they purchased two 10,000-ton water presses from the United States.

But they are unwilling to make any reports about the fact that they produced battleships themselves.

They criticized us, saying that they were provoking us. They said that they actually relied on the help of Europeans. In fact, they couldn't even make screws very well. But as far as I know, they have now done a good job in making screws by themselves.

The super-dreadnoughts used home-made steam turbines and possibly fifteen-inch or larger caliber engines.

Triple main gun. We always criticize them for producing aircraft and tanks with the help of Europeans. Without the charity and help of Europeans, they will be nothing, and they will still be the most ignorant "China pigs", but they

It is indeed the largest aircraft manufacturing country in World War I, and this is an indisputable fact."

"When their aviation combat group arrived in German New Guinea, our navy had no plan to deal with it. When we discussed this matter, an idiot general who was always very stupid actually said that just adding a few anti-aircraft guns would be enough.

Deal with those aircraft. I asked him if the empire has its own anti-aircraft guns, or does it have to buy them from France, and will France sell them to us? Even if France is willing to sell them, how many do we need to buy to withstand thousands, or even ten thousand?

A bomber?"

"No one answered. When the entire navy headquarters was silent, what I felt was deeper pain!"

"After everything I've been through, I always talk to my friends late at night about these sad things, and I always say that if they realize that we are Asians and we realize that they are Asians, it will work out.

All the hate, then turned into great friends."

"Every country has the right to make the country prosperous and strong and make its people happy. This is the right of every country!"

"The thinker who influenced my life said this, and I think so, but I always ask why we don't have room for development. We need places to sell our products. We need resources. Only in this way can we change.

Only by becoming richer and stronger can we make people happy. This is our right.

This is also China's right, but why did China deprive us of this right? Looking back on the past, we always made mistakes, and so did they. Now it has reached a time when both sides must admit their mistakes. If we still want to lead Asia

If so, I think we should probably apologize first."

"As for the saying that 'even if we apologize to China, we will not be able to get forgiveness and fair conditions', it may be correct, and I will never deny it, but if we don't face our hearts bravely and make a brave attempt

,how will we know the result?”

"I think I know. In fact, there are other people who know. At least my brother who always likes to teach me and our friends know that the empire has reached a time when it must change. I have to face the real reality. Even Europeans

We all know the reality that China has become one of the most powerful empires in the world in the past ten years. Even though their navy is still very weak, they will become the most powerful in the world in a few years.

One of the naval nations."

"I think I know, and actually more people know that if we don't do something now, we will be torn apart by the empire around us that is 42 times the size of our country, but it will definitely not be like what happened in the past few months.

That kind of provocative behavior will only make things worse between the two Asian empires."

"But, if we don't even have the courage to apologize to His Majesty the Emperor who rules half of Asia, what else can we do to give Japan a chance to regain its prosperity?"

"In this cold, cold night, which is as painful as before and unable to sleep, I asked myself this. At this moment, one day in the early summer of Taisho 11, I also want to ask other people."

Song Biao read the entire article carefully. He was deeply touched in his heart. He suddenly realized how painful it was for a awake person to live in a sleeping and impending world.

Akiyama is really in pain precisely because he is awake.

Song Biao lamented silently. He felt painful for his former friend and the only few people who knew China in Japan. Since the Sino-Japanese economic and trade war basically decided the winner in 1913, Japanese products have left the Chinese market on a large scale.

People-to-people exchanges between Japan and China have almost been interrupted.

China will still send students to Japan. Due to the rapid deterioration of the environment, it is sending fewer and fewer students now. The exchanges between the two countries are getting less and less. If calculated from Sakhalin Island, the territories of the two countries are already bordering. If calculated from East and West Ryukyu, China will still send students to Japan.

Since then, the two countries have only been separated by a strait of 300 kilometers, but the exchanges between the two countries have been almost completely interrupted.

Both parties no longer understand each other and think about each other one-sidedly. Both think they are right.

What really touched Song Biao's heart was the words quoted by Akiyama Masayuki Fukuzawa Yukichi - every country has the right to make the country prosperous and strong and the nation happy. This is the right of every country!

He had nothing to say about it.

Japan's domestic market is too small, while China's domestic market is more than ten times that of Japan. The empire's economy and industrial development have different logics and methods. Although the labor resources of the two countries are similar and cheap, China has stronger than

Japan’s physical resources are thousands of times greater.

The Sino-Japanese economic and trade war was doomed from the moment it began.

During World War I, European industry declined significantly. Products from China and Japan seemed to have unlimited market space. Only the past few years were Japan's prosperous moments during the Taisho period, starting in 1921. The Sino-Japanese economic and trade war began to become more serious.
To be continued...