In the evening of the next day, a family dinner was being held in the restaurant of Uehara Junhei's mansion. Several men in kimono were sitting upright at the table, each raising glasses to invite each other to talk about Xing Zhenggao.

The youngest Fujiwara Tomohito sat on the right side of Junhei Uehara, quietly listening to Kyosa Yuki's talk.

"Harada, I think what you said is a bit wishful thinking. Facts have proved that the Chongqing government has always been firm in resisting the empire in the past three years. For this reason, their troops have suffered heavy losses. It is absolutely impossible to let the Chongqing government sit at the negotiating table and conduct peace talks according to our vision, unless we have gained an absolute advantage on the battlefield, but we cannot do it for a while, so the new Nanjing government is our best choice."

The middle-aged man sitting opposite Kagesa Yuki, with square faces, thick black and neat eyebrows, smart eyes and a pretty positive appearance. This person is Major General Takao Harada from the General Staff Headquarters of the Central China Front Army.

The Chief of Staff of the Central China Front Army, Jiro Sakagaki, has two right-hand assistants, one is Major General Kagesa Yuki, who is currently in charge of Ume's work, and the other is Major General Takao Harada.

Harada Takao has outstanding abilities and outstanding talents. He is an extremely outstanding strategist. He is also known as a wise man in the military and has always been valued by Jiro Itagaki.

Takao Harada has always believed that Japan's eyes should not be limited to China, but should look at the international community and have a clearer understanding of the world situation. Therefore, he has always been increasing his investment in China and has different opinions on the base camp. He advocates ending the full-scale war between China and Japan as soon as possible, pulling out his feet early from the quagmire of China, concentrating all his strength, and striving for greater interests around the world.

For this reason, he put his hope on the Chongqing government. He believed that only by conducting peace talks with the Chongqing government can this goal be truly achieved. As for the so-called Nanjing government, it is simply a nameless and is not only helpless in truly solving the China problem, but will even arouse the Chongqing government's fear and be more determined in its attitude towards Japan.

Hearing Kagesa Yuki's words, Takao Harada curled his lips disapprovingly. Although he knew that his opinion was not many in the army, he firmly believed that his judgment was correct, so he retorted: "The decision-makers of the base camp were too presumptuous. When we promised the cabinet that we resolved the Chinese war within three months, this made the cabinet agree to our full-scale war.

But what now? Three years have passed, and in addition to using unestimated large amounts of military spending and sacrificing the lives of thousands of young soldiers, what have we actually gained?

On the contrary, we have lost the most precious thing for us, that is time. The rapid development of the international situation has left us with no time to prepare.

According to the original plan, we will solve the China problem in three months and take another three years to prepare for a new round of world war, so as to master the entire Asia and become one of the world's powerful countries.

But we took it for granted. The outbreak of the European war was several years ahead of our expectations. Seeing that the Germans are now unstoppable, they have occupied nearly half of Europe and are getting stronger and stronger, but we can only fall into the deep pool of the Chinese war zone, consuming our precious combat power bit by bit, which is a completely fatal strategic mistake.

The Germans and Britain and France formally declared war. What we need to do now should be to seize this opportunity, regain our power in China, and actively prepare for war. Taking advantage of the onset of war between Britain and France and Germany, we cannot take care of Asian affairs and march into Southeast Asia, occupy this treasure land with rich resources, rather than tangling with the Chinese here."

Ning Zhiheng, who was standing beside him, looked at Takao Harada's confidently speaking and nodded in his heart. This person is worthy of being a famous strategist in the Japanese military and has a very accurate judgment. According to the development of European wars, the confrontation between Germany and European veteran powers is inevitable. Britain and France are involved in the war, so they will inevitably be unable to take into account their Southeast Asian colonies, which will naturally lead to weak combat power and almost no resistance. It will inevitably become the best target of attack for the Japanese.

"The resources and products in Southeast Asia are extremely rich, with oil, rubber, steel, and wood, all of which are available. We can solve the biggest shortcoming of my country's lack of material resources. The price is small, but the gain is huge. This is the most correct decision-making route.

So I think that directly discussing peace with the Chongqing government can appropriately give up some interests. It only needs to stabilize them for a while, wait until we take South Asia into account, and finally concentrate our efforts to solve the China problem. This is the best strategy. But now we have supported the Nanjing government. In this way, it will inevitably arouse the Chongqing government's confrontation, which is completely unworthy of the loss."

The Japanese generals present looked at each other after a few years, even a year ago, before the Battle of Changsha broke out, they would have scoffed at them.

In their original vision, China's huge and ancient empire was nothing more than a decayed dead tree, which was destroyed at once, but now they know that this is just a wishful thinking of the military.

Especially in this year, the Japanese army suffered tenacious resistance and attacks from the Chinese army. The battles launched successively launched the Changsha and the southern Guangxi battles caused heavy losses to the Japanese army. Facts proved that the tenacious combat effectiveness of the Chinese army was far beyond everyone's expectations. The war no longer had unstoppable victory at the beginning of the war. As the military losses increased, the war potential of the Japanese army gradually exhausted. They began to pay more and more attention to the opponent in front of them and had to agree with the view of Takao Harada. Instead of fighting attrition with the Chinese army, it is better to find a soft pinch to deal with the weaker Southeast Asian countries.

General Kyosuke Ishimura nodded and said in an agreement: "What Harada Jun said is that the Chinese army has great potential and we have no possibility of solving it in a short period of time. Everyone knows our situation. After the Changsha offensive, our central China military suffered heavy losses, and all the mobile troops were all added together. It can be said that by now, we have lost the ability to launch a large-scale battle.

Moreover, at the end of last year, the Guangxi Battle of the Base Camp in South China suffered a huge loss. As of now, reaching peace talks with the Chongqing government of China is indeed the best way to resolve the war in China the fastest."

Kyosuke Ishimura's words also revealed a hint of fear of war that began to appear in the Japanese invaders. After all, the war has been going on for three years. The long-term and arduous battle not only makes the Chinese army in a difficult situation, but even the Japanese army is overwhelmed, and both sides feel exhausted.

Hiroki Kyosa is the executor responsible for supporting the Nanjing pseudo-government, so he naturally disagrees with this view. He argued: "I don't think the peace talks with the Chongqing government are successful, and the base camp will not agree to us to give up our interests in China. In short, it is better to support the Nanjing government.

Moreover, although the losses in the Guangxi battle were a bit large, our strategic goal was to achieve it. At present, Nanning was already in our hands, which cut off the artery of China's material supply. Without this transportation line and without external material support, the Chongqing government would inevitably be unsustainable.

As long as we persist and gradually weaken the strength of the Chongqing government, one will rise and fall, in less than two years, we can free up our hands to achieve the strategic goal of using China to control China. This is also the safest way."

The Battle of Guangxi mentioned by Hiroki Kagesaki is the so-called Battle of Guinan.

Since the full war started, the Japanese Navy blocked all Chinese ports and blocked any contact between China's customs and the outside world. At this point, all Chinese coastal ports have been unable to be used.

The Chinese government can only transport strategic materials from Vietnam and Myanmar bordering Guangxi and Yunnan. From Vietnam and Myanmar to Yunnan, there are three main transportation routes: the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, the Yunnan-Burma Highway and the Guizhou-Vietnam Highway.

Among these three routes, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway is a narrow-gauge railway, with many caves, large slopes and limited transportation capacity.

The Yunnan-Burma Highway was opened in a hurry, with poor road conditions, too long distances, and high freight rates.

The Guiyue Highway, from Haifang, Vietnam to Kunming, and finally arrived in Chongqing, was naturally relatively low. Therefore, the Guiyue Highway became the main channel for China to obtain overseas materials at that time. Foreign aid's military and civilian resources were continuously transported to various fronts through this highway. The Guiyue Highway became the main rear artery for the incoming and exiting materials in the Anti-Japanese War.

Through this transportation line, the Chinese government transported various military supplies, including aircraft, tanks, machine guns, rifles, machine guns, various ammunition such as flat-fired artillery shells and aircraft bombs, as well as a large amount of gasoline, reducing the huge pressure on the shortage of strategic materials faced by the National Government.

At the same time, the Guizhou-Vietnam Highway is also a trade and trade route. China's mineral products, agricultural and sideline products, handicraft products, such as tin, tungsten, tung oil, antimony, raw silk, bristles, satin, etc. are transported to Vietnam Haigong through this route and sold to Britain, the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asian countries. It has obtained a lot of foreign exchange, which has played a great role in supporting the finances of the Kuomintang government.

Nanning, Guangxi, is the hub of the China-Vietnam transportation and supply line, has an extremely important geographical location. What is more important is that it is also closest to the coastline, so it has become the key target of the Japanese.

So after a long period of planning, in November last year, the Japanese navy and land forces jointly fought and gathered in Yulin Port at the southern end of Hainan Island. They appeared in Qinzhou Bay like lightning, landed quickly, captured Fangcheng, drove straight in, quickly occupied Nanning, cut off the entire Sino-Vietnam transportation supply line, and even further advanced, occupying the important area of ​​Kunlun Pass.

The Military Committee of the Chongqing National Government urgently dispatched the army to reinforce Guangxi and counterattacked Kunlun Pass. Under heavy siege, it defeated and severely damaged the Japanese defenders of Kunlun Pass, and even killed the Japanese brigade commander Nakamura, and won the famous Kunlun Pass. After that, the Japanese army dispatched troops to counterattack and occupied Kunlun Pass again. In the end, both sides fought hard for many days, suffered heavy casualties, so they stopped their troops and ended the battle.

This battle caused major casualties to the Japanese army, and the established troops were annihilated, which also shocked the Japanese army. Once again felt the Chinese army's tenacious determination to fight, but at a huge price, their strategic goal was still achieved. The fall of Nanning caused the Chinese government to lose an important material supply line, and there were major difficulties in material supply.

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Chapter completed!