The chaos of the times makes it difficult for every country to find a clear policy direction. Everyone seems to be taking one step at a time, and there is indeed no better countermeasures other than that.

After all, China is a pragmatic country and it is impossible to directly engage in large-scale military conflicts with Britain.

The empire's strategic focus is still Asia. After the two foreign military interventions in the past two years, the Free Alliance sent by China quickly withdrew its troops and did not retain its garrison in Spain. It only retained one air base and naval port in Eritrea.

As the empire's strategic focus retracts back to Asia, the empire will inevitably solve the problem of Japan, and an important focus of the Sino-Japanese issue is on the handling of the Korean Peninsula. If the empire wants to promote it openly around the world.

To colonize and become a just world leader, the first thing to do is to remove colonization internally.

This means that the empire must abandon its colonial rule over northern Korea in the past two years and promote North Korea's autonomy.

In the past, the provocateurs of various issues between China and Japan were always Japan, but the current situation will change completely. As the naval competition between the two sides entered a fierce stage, the empire went from the emperor to the cabinet prime minister, from the chief of staff of the military to the entire

The Central Defense Commission has reached a consensus that the country must be settled first when resisting foreign countries. If you want to continue to promote decolonization and expand the scope of the Asian Alliance to achieve the expansion of the empire, you must first solve Japan. Only by solving Japan and the Imperial Navy.

Only by reaching south to Southeast Asia and westward to the entire Indian Ocean.

If we want to promote North Korea's decolonization and promote North Korea to become a national country, joining the Asian Alliance, China and Japan will inevitably have a war. This battle has been about to break out in the past decade and has not happened. Now the initiative is in the hands of the empire.

The empire must knock out the only obstacle that prevented the empire from commanding the entire Asia.

The question now is just when the war will begin.

The fight against Japan has been a consensus among the central cabinet and the military headquarters, and it is also a consensus decision between the emperor and all the important officials.

The time is very ripe.

The Empire had long wanted to destroy the Japanese navy, but it was just waiting for Henna to this day.

At the end of 1937, on December 20, before the New Year's Day approaching, Song Biao held a secret meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central National Defense Commission in Xuanzhengyuan, and the Prime Minister Gu Weijun of the Central Cabinet also attended, which also means that Gu Weijun, the Prime Minister, was officially

Only one step away from entering the Central Defense Commission.

Everything has a transition.

The empire needs to establish a constitutional monarchy thoroughly and the Prime Minister must serve as a member of the National Defense Committee. It is still a long way to control military power, but this road must be gradually advanced.

Not many people came to the meeting this time. In addition to the emperor, Minister of National Defense, Chief of Staff of the Central Military Department, Chief of Military Information Department and Chief of Staff of the Three Armed Forces, there are also Prime Minister Gu Weijun and Chief of the Inner Court Shu Fangde, with a total of 9 people.

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The first seven people are seven members of the Standing Committee of the Central National Defense Commission, which is equivalent to the highest military decision-making meeting of 72.

Before the official meeting, the military intelligence of the military generals of the Chinese and Japanese navy, army and air force were summarized, and the Ministry of National Defense also compared and analyzed the economic and industrial strengths of the two countries. The two reports were submitted to nine people for review together, which was synchronized with the two reports.

It is the Sino-Japanese War Planning Report submitted by the General Staff of the Central Military Department.

In terms of national strength, the gap between China and Japan is very obvious. The results of the preliminary audit in 1937 prove that China's national GDP exceeded 187.5 billion yuan, accounting for 30% of the world's total economic output, while Japan's scale of 15 billion yuan was 15 billion yuan, accounting for 30% of the world's total economy.

2.4, ranking behind the six countries of China, the United States, the Soviet Union, Germany, Britain and France, slightly higher than Italy.

Comparing military strength, the gap between China and Japan is much smaller.

According to the information from the Central Military Intelligence Department, Japan had passed the fourth Navy Arms Supplementary Plan around June 1937. Based on the previous third Navy Supplementary Plan, it required the construction of Yamato-class battleships to be increased to 4.

To deal with China's emperor-class high-speed battleships, it also requires the speed of construction.

China's first emperor-class high-speed battleship has been basically completed at the Jiangnan Shipbuilding General Factory and will be launched for trial voyage in March next year. Japan's Yamato also urgently began construction plans in early 1937. Because the project is huge, Japan's real

Lack of modern engineering management experience, it is expected that it will take one to two years before completion.

Before the completion of Japan's Yamato-class battleships, the two imperial-class high-speed battleships of the Empire will successfully complete service. In terms of the total tonnage of the battleships, the scale of the Imperial Navy's battleships is maintained at the same scale as the Japanese Navy for the first time.

The Japanese Navy currently has Hanoi, Kwaikang, Fuso, Ise, Nagamon, Kii's six-level battleships. The Kwaikang class is a high-speed battleship converted from battle cruisers, Hanoi, Fuso, Ise, Kii's each

There are two, and the first two levels are not yet high-speed battleships. The ones that are truly qualified to be called high-speed battleships are the four-level battleships of King Kong, Ise, Nagato and Kii, with a total of 10 main battleships.

The Kii-class battleship belongs to the transitional ship type between the Nagamon-class battleship and the Yamato-class battleship. At first, the construction plan for this class of battleships was cancelled after the signing of the Washington Naval Convention, but in order to compete with the Chinese Navy's shipbuilding plan, in 1935

Construction began in secret in December, the first ship was put into service in July 1937, and the second ship was put into service recently.

Because naval funds were greatly involved in the construction plan of the Imperial battleship, Japan failed to maintain an equal competition with the Imperial in the construction of aircraft carriers. Currently, there are a total of 5 naval aircraft carriers in service. Except for the Canglong and Fengxiang, the rest are temporarily modified.

and aircraft carriers built by changing construction plans.

The battleship competition was very costly. In order to correspond to the temporary increase in battleship construction plan of the Chinese Navy, two Kii-class ships were added, and the funds of other navals were directly consumed.

Before this, the Chinese and Japanese navies also held a ten-year cruiser competition, which caused great damage to the Japanese economy. At the same time, it made Japan clearly in a state where the navy was strong and the army and the air force were obviously weak, while Japan's industrial main body

Investment is almost all concentrated in heavy industry and military industry, and the entire country's economy has been completely deformed by the long-term arms race.

At this time, the Chinese Navy had the construction plan of the Zhendan-level, Qingzhou-level, Yuzhou-level, Liangzhou-level, Emperor-level five-level battleships, Liangzhou-level battleships and later changed to Emperor-level Yongzhou-level battleships in 1935.

It is completely public, and it is also the strategy of the Empire to obviously pull Japan to compete in naval battleships again. Finally, while the Empire decided to build four Liangzhou-class and four Emperor-class high-speed battleships, Japan also temporarily increased the construction of four Kii-class and

Planning of 4 Yamato-class battleships.

Japan and China suffered a loss in naval competition. The Empire built eight battleships from 1935 to 1937. Four Liangzhou-class battleships and one Emperor-class battleship were orders for the Imperial Navy, while the remaining three were exported to Iran and Thailand respectively.

Brazil, when the empire's four Liangzhou-class battleships were in service at the same time, Japan only completed the construction of two Kii-class battleships.

Even so, the Empire still has enough spare time to build two aircraft carriers and multiple escort cruisers, and the construction strength of both sides is completely different from the same level.

The Imperial Navy now has 4 Sindan-class, 2 Qingzhou-class, 4 Yuzhou-class, and 4 Liangzhou-class battleships. The Sindan-class is at the level of a dreadnought, and 10 battleships are built since then all belong to high-speed battleships.

Compared with the old ships that the Japanese Navy has been constantly demolished in the past, although the Imperial Navy started late, it started from the British Queen Elizabeth-class battleship and the German Bavarian-class battleship, and directly absorbed the technology of the battleship construction between Britain and Germany at that time and

Design experience, and the design margin is maintained during the design and construction process to ensure subsequent upgrades, which makes every penny of the Empire's investment in battleships worth it.

After modernization and upgrading, the four Sinian battleships built by the Empire during World War I have been relatively low tonnage and have more flexible combat characteristics. They are also the four most active warships between the Sino-Japanese maritime lines.

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Since the Yuzhou level, the empire has accumulated richer experience and technical strength, and has more abundant strength in overall construction level and forging of defensive armor.

In comparison of battleships, relying on powerful ship construction strength, the overall strength of the Imperial Navy surpassed the Japanese Navy for the first time. The Imperial Navy has 14 battleships, while the Japanese Navy has only 11, but the Japanese Navy adopts "although the number is as follows:

If not, each ship is considered an elite policy, its average standard displacement tonnage of a single ship is higher, and the total tonnage of the naval displacement of both sides is not much different.

According to the latest Liangzhou-class and Jiyi-class comparison, the standard displacement of the Liangzhou-class ship is 39,500 British tons, while the standard displacement of the Jiyi-class ship is 42,600 British tons.

In the field of aircraft carriers, there is not a big difference on the surface, but the seven aircraft carriers of the Empire are all relatively mature aircraft carriers. Not only are they specially designed aircraft carriers from the beginning, but they have also passed two aircraft before that

The full experiment of the aircraft carrier test ship, in addition to the first Zhenyuan aircraft carrier, the other four are Northeast-class aircraft carriers, and two are Far East-class aircraft carriers. The two Far East-class aircraft carriers are new models that have been further improved on the basis of Northeast-class aircraft carriers.

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During the East African War, the two Northeast-class aircraft carriers and the Zhenyuan aircraft carriers arrived in the Indian Ocean to participate in the war. Although there was no real naval battle, from long-distance navigation tests, it has been proved that it is appropriate for aircraft carriers of the same level to serve as escort aircraft carriers.

The Zhenyuan aircraft carrier is not very effective in serving as an escort aircraft carrier.

According to the Imperial Navy's plan, both the Northeast-class aircraft carriers and the Far East-class aircraft carriers are the main aircraft carriers, playing the role of escort aircraft carriers for each other during peacetime periods, while in large quantities of medium and light escort aircraft carriers were built.

There is only one difference between the two, that is, the former is mainly fighter jets and torpedo bombers, attack aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft as auxiliary, while the latter is mainly fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft as auxiliary.

The Imperial Navy is different from the United States in design. The Imperial Navy's escort aircraft carriers do not have a large number of naval guns, and most of the artillery air defense and artillery work are responsible for the escort cruiser.

After a sudden large-scale shipbuilding from 1935 to 1937, the Imperial Navy surpassed the Japanese Navy for the first time at the end of 1937, and at this time, the Sino-Japanese Navy would inevitably break out.

Unlike the Japanese military headquarters who wanted to fight but dared not fight, the Central Military Office of the Empire not only wanted to fight, but also dared to fight very much. As long as the gap between the navy is filled, it can fight at any time.

The Navy General Staff handed over the latest report on the scale of warships between the two sides to the nine highest decision-makers present. Song Biao did not take a closer look because he had read too much. He just waited for Gu Weijun and others to finish reading it roughly, and he asked everyone.

"What do you think about the complete elimination of the Japanese Navy in the near future?"

After reading the new reports submitted by the Navy Staff and the Military Intelligence Department, no one was in a hurry to answer the emperor's inquiry, but looked at Gu Weijun.

There is no need to ask about the attitude of the Central Military Department. The Air Force and the Army have been waiting for this day for more than ten years, just waiting for the Navy to prepare. The Chief of Staff of the Army Fu Liangzuo had long said-"Even if you don't need the Navy."

By participating in the war, we can easily defeat the Japanese army, but the navy cannot defeat the Japanese army, and this war will never be meaningless, because the real meaning is to repay the revenge of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895."

The Chinese Navy cannot defeat the Japanese Navy in one day, and will not claim to be the overlord of the Asian navy in one day. Without this position, even if the gross tonnage is equal to Britain and the United States, it is still inferior to Britain and the United States in its actual world naval status.

Even if he is not a navy, as a Chinese national, no one wants to let such a powerful empire be a second-rate navy country.

At this time, the Chief of Staff of the Navy was Chen Jiliang, who had just replaced Chen Houfu. Of course, he really wanted to start a war immediately. Even if there is no fighter now, as long as the empire changes its policy from the past, it changes from the two-part world to "to promote North Korea, completely eliminate Japan in a way that will be

Asia's influence" The Sino-Japanese War is an imminent matter, and it is impossible to avoid it unless the empire is willing to make a concession to Japan again at the last juncture.

impossible.

Chen Jiliang just depends on Gu Weijun.

Whether to fight or not is a matter that the Central Military Department can decide, but whether to give military expenditure is the final decision of the Central Cabinet.

Although the cabinet will be forced to allocate military expenses after the military department takes the initiative to provoke the war, it is always a slight slightest, and it is far less likely to allocate huge military expenses in advance to prepare for more active and stronger warfare.

Gu Weijun was a little embarrassed now. He was quite happy because the emperor and the Central Defense Commission finally had to listen to the cabinet's voice on such national defense matters, but he didn't expect that he would come over and ask him to pay the bill.

The emperor closed his eyes neutrally and closed his eyes to meditate, but wasn't that attitude still obvious?

As always, the emperor was also the biggest supporter of the military.

Gu Weijun has seen through it for a long time. In fact, China and Japan are both militaristic. It’s just that China has an emperor who suppresses the military headquarters, and the Chinese are not as extreme as Japan. The military headquarters will not fight against the cabinet, and will not send people to assassinate the cabinet.

After a little thought, Gu Weijun asked Jiang Fangzhen, who was the best to talk to, and said, "Chief of Staff, do you estimate how much will it cost to go to war with Japan?"

Jiang Fangzhen laughed and replied to Gu Weijun: "Prime Minister, this is probably not something that can be calculated, right? The goal of war is to defeat the opponent, and the essence of war is always to curb the opponent, not to eliminate the opponent. We cannot

Eliminate the entire nation and country of the enemy, but we can destroy their army, protect the interests of the country, and disintegrate the competition between the enemy. The competition between China and Japan has been going on for too long, and the current situation in the world is too complicated. If we now

If we do not take the initiative when we have an advantage, if we wait for a large-scale military conflict between China and the Soviet camp, Japan will stab us in the back and cause us to be attacked from both sides, our situation will be very complicated. Similarly, if we advance

The Soviet Union did not dare to rashly infiltrate Central Asia without the restraint of the Soviet Union and Japan, so that we could further force Britain, France and other countries to achieve decolonization in Asia. Therefore, to eliminate Japan's threat and
To be continued...