The success of the Seoul offensive was based on the continuous efforts to establish the empire for twelve years.

The Japanese army was defeated not because their lower-level officers and soldiers were not brave, but because of the rigidity and conservatism of the upper-level, as well as their self-righteousness, and their self-righteousness, and the various bizarre methods that could break the armored troops with individual means and the courage of soldiers, which basically all happened in the war.

It has been proven to lack practical value. Although a few methods such as sticky bombs have certain effects, it is impossible to deal with thousands of tanks.

The Imperial Army launched a general attack at 7 a.m. and defeated the entire Japanese defense line in Seoul at 3 p.m., and the Naval Aviation Combined Fleet also sank the two King Kong-class battleships that had been hiding in Incheon Port and could not break through - King Kong

The number was sunk by low-altitude torpedoes. Because the Kirishima had been stranded during repeated breakthroughs, it was finally blown up by the Japanese army in the battle.

Two days later, the Northeast Defense Forces attacked Cheongju, North Korea under the joint advancement of the Air Force attack aircraft group and the Army's steel torrent.

On January 25, 1940, the Northeast Defense Forces captured Luozhou and Hainan County, North Korea, and successfully achieved the strategic task of connecting with the southern Jeju defense line. It was located on the entire defense line of Liju, Zhongzhou, Cheongju, Datian, Quanzhou and Gucheng.

The Japanese army entered a second confrontation, and continued to go east along this line of defense, which was the mountainous area of ​​North Korea controlled by the Japanese army.

The news came back to the country, and the whole country was excited. In the eyes of all Chinese people, this war will officially end, and the grudges of China and Japan that lasted for a century will be completely written. The revenge of the Sino-Japanese War will be avenged, and the revenge of the Sino-Japanese War will be revenged.

Revenge of the Lushun Massacre, and after the Kanto earthquake, the Japanese army took advantage of the chaos to kill 8,000 Chinese in Tokyo.

Even Fu Liangzuo, deputy chief of staff who always believed that the Japanese army's combat strength should not be underestimated, claimed that the war was about to end. Japan had no other choice but to surrender. Most of the Central Military Department and the Cabinet made such judgments, but the emperor still concluded that the Sino-Japanese War.

The most difficult time has not come.

After the Seoul offensive ended, the Northeast Defense Forces rested on the Korean Peninsula according to the combat plan and carried out a larger-scale light mechanization transformation to prepare for the subsequent capture of the entire Korean Peninsula and the attack on Japan's mainland. The focus of the Sino-Japanese War shifted from the north to the south.

With the support of the army and air force, the navy and the marine forces continued to attack the Japanese mainland along the Ryukyu Islands. In the Pacific War Zone, the Imperial Wehrmacht also launched a large-scale offensive, planning to occupy all the Japanese troops in the Pacific by June 1940 and

Overseas colonies.

After the Seoul offensive ended, Japan's efforts to seek peace talks surged. The newly appointed Prime Minister Fumikoto also sent Foreign Minister Hirota to Washington, USA, hoping to persuade the United States to interfere in the Sino-Japanese war and coordinate negotiations for China and Japan. And the United States also

There is a great intention in this regard, because the Sino-Japanese War not only seriously affected the US economic interests in the Pacific region, but also considered that the Japanese navy has been basically eliminated, and the United States does not want China to continue to expand its navy on the grounds of war, nor does it want China to completely eliminate it.

Japan's involvement has made China occupy the entire Western Pacific alone.

President Franklin Roosevelt is generally a more pro-China US president. It was he who banned the US anti-China bill during his tenure and asked Congress to apologize to China for the anti-China bill, but he had no attitude or personal tendency than the US

National interests.

After meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Hirota Hirota, Franklin Roosevelt not only wrote a letter to Emperor Hua himself, persuading China and Japan to cease the armistice. He also sent Vice President John Garner to serve as a special envoy to visit Beijing, hoping to preside over the coordination of negotiations in Manila, Philippines.

...

President Roosevelt's handwritten letter was brought to the central cabinet by US Vice President John Garner. It was handed over by Prime Minister Gu Weijun of the Central Cabinet, but Emperor Hua himself did not receive John Garner.

After the Seoul offensive ended, China had just entered a comprehensive counterattack stage from the previous stalemate stage. The Central Military Department had a lot of work. Since Japan began to plan to attack Sanduao Naval Base, Emperor Song changed his previous convention and every day

They all handled official duties in the General Office of the Central Palace and led the Central Defense and Military Commission to arrange the grand strategy and plan for the Third Sino-Japanese War.

That afternoon, he held a regular meeting of the Central Military Commission, and discussed the strategic layout issues in the next stage with Jiang Fangzhen, Chen Houfu, Fu Liangzuo, Chen Jiliang, Chen Qicai and others, and also used this opportunity to criticize the recent spread of the Central Military Department.

optimism.

After the meeting, Song Biao kept Chen Houfu alone and discussed with him the upcoming Ryukyu Battle that was to be launched in the near future.

The Japanese Navy and Air Force were seriously injured, but Japan still had a large number of submarine troops. Thanks to the technology introduced from Germany and secretly, the level of these Japanese submarines cannot be underestimated. As the Japanese army gradually lost the ability to attack head-on,

Entering the full defense stage, raiding Chinese coastal merchant ships with submarines has become Japan's only and limited means of attack.

In order to effectively curb Japan's submarine attack, in addition to sending more submarines to counter Japan, the Empire established a comprehensive submarine reconnaissance network around the Japanese waters and tried its best to block the Japanese submarine tactics. Although the sonar system has been successfully developed, it is here

For a period of time, the best way to deal with submarine tactics is to 24-hour uninterrupted air patrol.

In the past six months, the Imperial Navy has added 35 anti-submarine destroyers to strengthen the reconnaissance of Japanese submarine forces on a large scale. The Navy and Air Force have a total of 1,400 tiger shark fighters and other patrol aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, and seaplanes for use in the Navy and Air Force.

Supervise Japanese submarines.

This is not enough to completely kill Japan's submarine tactics. If you want to completely destroy Japan's submarine troops and launch a full-scale attack on Japan's mainland, you must occupy the Ryukyu Islands. However, it is the main thing so far, Song Biao still has not approved the Joint General Staff Headquarters.

The plans submitted by the Navy Staff.

After other members of the National Defense Standing Committee left, Chen Houfu, as the Minister of Defense and former Chief of Staff of the Navy, stayed to report to the emperor about the latest situation of the Japanese submarine force, and also proposed a new combat planning report.

Everyone was very anxious because the Battle of Ryukyu had been preparing for half a year, and now everything was ready, but the emperor was slow to approve the combat plan.

In the past two weeks, Chen Houfu personally went on the battle and thought about a new plan with Jiang Fangzhen and others. He submitted the plan to the emperor. Before that, he made a new judgment on the threat of the Japanese submarine force.

The result of judgment is that the threat to the Japanese submarine force may not be as great as originally expected.

His judgment is urgent for three factors. First, although Japan has more submarine armed forces and good submarine technology accumulation, Japan still lacks appropriate submarine combat theories and tactics. Its tactical dominance idea is still too chaotic and cannot be concentrated

Ideas. It cannot create a concentrated threat; 2. The numerous imperial ports and the dispersion of routes have made the Japanese submarine troops lack effective and concentrated strike range; 3. The rapid expansion of the imperial anti-submarine troops effectively curbs the Japanese submarine troops near the empire.

The space for activity, and at the same time, the continental shelf offshore of the Empire is too wide, which is not suitable for close-range ambush operations of submarines.

The average depth of the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea of ​​the Empire is only 18 meters to 44 meters. This shallow sea structure has a great restriction on the Japanese naval operations. The anti-submarine pressure the Empire invested in the East China Sea and the more scattered routes in the East China Sea make it extremely difficult for Japan to carry out.

Submarine ambush operations.

This is the expert's point of view.

There is no need for Song Biao to doubt it. The facts in the past six months have also proved that the initial concerns about the Japanese submarine force were a bit too serious. Now it seems that the Japanese submarine force is not very destructive to China's marine shipping.

However, Song Biao was still not satisfied with the new Ryukyu combat plan submitted by the Navy Staff and the Joint Staff. However, he himself lacked new ideas that were very suitable.

Logically, in the absence of a navy in Japan, it was not difficult for the empire to launch a full-scale attack on the Ryukyu Islands. The difficulty lies in how to attack more and curb Japan's counterattack.

This requires consideration from two aspects. One is the planning of login operations, and the other is the planning of occupation tactics after login.

War is a very meticulous job. It is not simply to send tens of thousands of people to kill the island with rifles. There are many issues that need to be considered clearly. First, it is to decide on the tactical general plan, whether it is a line attack or

The leapfrog attacks the key points; the second is to determine the tactics of landing operations, the navy, air force and marine forces are responsible for in which areas of work; in addition, new equipment and new tactics should be determined, and the most suitable equipment should be used.

Organize the most appropriate tactics to eliminate opponents in the most effective way.

Specifically in the offensive of the Ryukyu Islands, it actually needs to be broken down into two war plans, one is island landing operations, and the other is mountain rainforest operations.

For Song Biao, what really made him difficult to decide was how to determine the status of Ryukyu. On the Korean Peninsula, the empire supported the Northern Free Government very early. With the attack of the empire, the North Korean government was also recovering lost territory and restoring it.

The territory of the free Democratic Republic of Korea implements formal national jurisdiction, and the Imperial Ministry only needs to maintain contact and cooperation with the North Korean government to basically ensure the stability of the North Korean environment and will not fall into the enemy's side and attack the enemy's hinterland.

The difficult situation.

Although Japan has been working hard to provoke relations between China and North Korea in the past few decades, and has provoked disagreement and spread rumors and caused trouble between the people of China and North Korea, according to the current summary, the North Korean people generally support China*

The * team also organized the Korean Democratic Defense Forces and the Southern Guerrillas to cooperate with the Chinese team to fight.

In order to win the absolute support of the North Korean government and people, Prime Minister Gu Weijun has personally visited Pyongyang and signed a new Sino-Korean Friendship and Reciprocity Agreement with President of the Democratic Republic of Korea, Li Qingxun, to ban colonial privileges and other privileges in North Korea and help North Korea become *

* A free democratic government, and North Korea has officially become an associate member of the Asian Cooperation Alliance.

What to do in Ryukyu?

How to re-establish a new Ryukyu Kingdom, incorporate Ryukyu into Taiwan Province, or establish a new overseas province, what should the indigenous people and a large number of Japanese people on the Ryukyu Islands be dealt with?

These are the things that Song Biao has difficulty in making decisions.

If Ryukyu is to be included in Taiwan Province or a new province is established, it means that the Japanese on the island are all warring parties, and the imperial armed forces need to effectively ensure that these Japanese will not pose any threat to the army. In short, in short,

It's just killing all the way to Japan.

After listening to Chen Houfu's report, Song Biao remained silent for a long time.

After thinking about it for more than ten minutes, he and Chen Houfu suggested: "Would you consider skipping Okinawa Okinawa Island directly and prioritizing attack on Amami Island. Cut off the Japanese army's ties with the Okinawa garrison."

Chen Houfu thought for a while and replied: "This kind of plan will be more risky."

Song Biao replied: "Search first and then encircle and annihilate. This is our strategy of using troops. Taking risks is appropriate, as long as the benefits are higher."

After a moment of pause, he continued to add: "The first most important military idea I learned in the war came from a general in the Tsarist Russian era. He told me that military always takes risks."

Chen Houfu no longer defended himself, and knew that he could only design tactical plans according to the emperor's decision. Such plans were indeed risky, but the emperor's strategy always had this kind of style and habit of hitting the key points.

This is not a simple adventure, but a more clever fight, cutting off the enemy's back and cutting off its food and grass is the best move.

Song Biao continued: "Don't rush to formulate a plan for landing operations, so that the airborne division troops can conduct some new targeted exercise tests in advance to see if the island's airborne combat can be carried out at low altitudes. In cooperation with landing operations, the troops' equipment is still

We need to continue to adjust and consider more practical situations.”

Chen Houfu nodded and said, "Your Majesty, if you continue to conduct testing on this and re-plan new combat plans, it may be difficult to successfully occupy the Ryukyu Islands before March next year."

Song Biao nodded and ordered without regard: "Then give priority to strengthening the operations in the South Pacific region. Don't rush to solve the opponent. If you want to clean the fish cleaner, try to make the knife faster. Technology must also be

Be more proficient. Time is not a serious problem for us.”

Chen Houfu nodded again and said yes.

At this time, the Imperial Prime Minister Gu Weijun came to meet him.

Song Biao looked at the time. It was indeed time to meet the Prime Minister, so he asked Chen Houfu to go back first to continue discussing combat plans with the Joint Staff and make new adjustments.

After Chen Houfu, the Minister of Defense, left, Gu Weijun hurried into the General Office to pay homage to the emperor.

Song Biao had been sitting in the office for a long time, so he used this time to get up and have Gu Weijun accompany him for a walk to the West Garden, talking about the United States' attempt to mediate and some of the current ceasefire conditions raised by Japan.

Beijing has ushered in the new year's winter. It is full of heavy snow, the creek garden is covered with silver, and a thin layer of ice has formed on the stream.

Song Biao was placing a black fur cloak and was walking in the garden with Gu Weijun. Jiang Shoulin, the newly appointed first-class guard of the inner court, led two eunuchs and followers behind.

Jiang Shoulin is a relatively young first-class eunuch. This is because his father Jiang Zungui died early. He only had such a son who had been training and growing up in the army for a long time. During the Zhejiang uprising, Jiang Zungui played a role in

He was very big. When he retired, he was a lieutenant general of the Imperial Army. He was later transferred to the position of governor of Fujian and died of illness.

Jiang Shoulin's grades were also very good during his studies in the Central Military Academy. Considering that Jiang Zungui had only one offspring, he trained at the grassroots level for two years, Song Biao transferred him to the inner court to serve as an eunuch.
To be continued...