.No one of the ministers raised objections to the Emperor's order at once. When Naval Command Minister Oikawa Fushiro was about to convey this order, Admiral Nagao, who served as Navy Command Minister (equivalent to the Chief of Staff) during the Taisho era, suddenly spoke:

"Your Majesty, I think this matter must not be too hasty!"

Hirohito, who was very excited just now, glared at him, but he still gave him a chance to speak.

"What do you think?"

With the emperor's sharp eyes, Nagano leaned down and said calmly:

"Your Majesty, our country has been fighting with the Germans for nearly 10 months. The 1st Fleet of our imperial naval forces is permanently stationed in Sasebo, and the 2nd Fleet of the German Pacific is also safely stationed in Qingdao. The two fleets confront each other across the sea and rarely interact. The strength of our 1st Fleet is one of the advantages of the strength of our 1st Fleet. The second is that German submarines are spread all over the waters around our country, destroying our ships, cutting off our routes, and sniffing our military situation. Our army has never had any countermeasures for this. On the other hand, the Germans, the main ships stationed in Qingdao have never entered the waters east of Kyushu to harass!"

"We all know what you said, but the German ship did enter the waters east of our Kyushu today. If we sail to the northeast, it is very likely that we will threaten Tokyo Bay from the sea!" Navy Minister Keisuke Okada interrupted, "If we don't destroy it as soon as possible, how can the four countries be at peace?"

Hirohito nodded in agreement.

"I wonder how many German submarines lurk in the waters east of Kyushu and south of the four countries?" Nagano asked back.

"Uh... there are at least fifty people!" Although he was reluctant, Keisuke Okada had to admit that the power of Germany's underwater power was incomparable to the Japanese navy. Although the waters east of Japan belonged to Japan, the world of German submarines was under the sea.

"Can you remember Lieutenant General Takano and the 3rd Fleet's past defeat?" Nagano's words were light, but they made everyone here, including Hirohito, fall into deep thought.

In a moment, a few beads of sweat emerged from Keisuke Okada's forehead.

The first person to speak was Emperor Hirohito, who was in the upper rank.

"You are right! The devils have some intentions in this move!" Hirohito immediately expressed his support for the latest and most correct opinions.

"Your Majesty is wise!" The flattery arrived immediately.

A trace of contempt flashed across Nagano's face and continued:

"So, my subordinates think it is not suitable to mobilize General Hidesuke Yamamoto's 1st Fleet. Instead, he ordered him to continue to monitor the German Pacific Fleet, where he operates in the Yellow Sea, and cut off the fleet's attempt to go north to reinforce Kuye Island!"

"Well, you are very saying, but how do you deal with the German ships operating east of Kyushu?" Hirohito, who was always opinionated, seemed to have no choice at this time. After all, he studied under the Army Marshal Nogi, and later served in the Japanese Army.

Nagano slimly looked at Keisuke Okada. After all, this person is his boss, and it is not a good thing to be too popular in front of him. Although Okada looked unhappy, he was an old fox who had been struggling in the military and political circles for many years. After receiving Nagano's eyes, he said openly:

"Naoye must have a countermeasure, so you might as well tell me it. As long as you can defeat the current devil bandit, Naoye will be the first to be rewarded!"

"Yes!" Nagano said while thinking: "The Germans attacked our port with carrier-based aircraft, and their motherships would not be far from the coast thousands of miles away! Therefore, our army can send all coastal ships and airships, and the aircraft troops will search. Once the enemy is discovered, a large number of torpedo boats will be concentrated to carry out powerful raids!"

Hirohito thought for a moment and nodded, while the flatterers were preparing to take action, they heard Keisuke Okada's lukewarm voice.

"Naono Jun. The size of this German Corps fleet is unknown. If it is the main force of the German Pacific Inkstone Team and is preparing to go north..."

"Have you forgotten the German fleet that our army discovered in the waters south of Dalian two days ago? Even if we take a step back, if this team is really the main force of the German Pacific Inkstone Team, our army can immediately advance to Jiaozhou Bay by sea and land!"

Nagano shocked everyone with one word.

At the beginning of the war, Jiaozhou Bay, Sea Cucumber Wei, and Kuye Island were three thorns at the emperor's throat. The Japanese generals wanted to get rid of it and quickly. The battle to capture Sea Cucumber Wei was quite smooth. But now, Kuye Island has been fighting from the expected one month to the present for more than three months. Although the Kwantung Army heading south broke through the Great Wall defense line and Peking and Tianjin, it was stubbornly resisted by the Chinese army from Shijiazhuang to Jinan.

"Even if the Navy sent the 1st Fleet to attack Jiaozhou Bay, the Kwantung Army's vanguard troops have been stagnant since they captured Tianjin two months ago. How can we advance together in sea and land?" Okada Keisuke sneered with disdain. At the same time, the faces of the people in the crowd who were in the army's uniform became extremely ugly.

Since this is a meeting to discuss naval affairs, there are not many army generals attending the meeting, but one of them is Eidaro Tada, who is known for his violent personality. Although the other party is the Minister of the Navy, the Japanese lieutenant general said very badly:

"Compared with the destruction of the Navy's Chinese fleet, the Kwantung Army has saved a lot of face for the empire!"

"You... are arrogant!" Okada Keisuke was in a bad mood. He heard the other party's bad words and jumped up directly from his position. Tian Hidetaro was not showing any weakness. Seeing a fierce sea-to-land confrontation about to break out, the cabinet ministers present rose up to advise. In this situation, Hirohito was accustomed to it, and he was not good at favoring one of them, so he simply pretended not to see it.

After a while, the two of them, who were glaring at each other, sat back in their seats.

"Is the Kwantung Army confident that it will advance to the periphery of Qingdao in a short time?" Hirohito changed the subject at the right time. Since he had not entered the mainland of the pass for a long time, the army troops entering the pass were still affiliated with the Kwantung Army.

The one who came out to answer the question was the Minister of Army Yoshinobu Shirakawa. He was also very unhappy with the ridicule of the Admiralty. However, he couldn't hide the truth in front of the emperor, so he had to report it in detail:

"Go back to your Majesty! According to reliable information, the Chinese army stationed in Shijiazhuang and Jinan line has a total of 43 infantry divisions, with a force of more than 300,000, of which there are 56 main divisions equipped with German equipment, and one is a light armored division. In addition, many troops have received heavy artillery and firearms provided by the Germans, and have received support from the German aviation troops stationed in Qingdao. At present, our Kwantung Army has assembled 7 divisions and 1 tank brigade in Tianjin. Most of the aviation troops have been transferred to Hokkaido to participate in the Battle of Kuye Island, so it is not easy for our army to break through the defense line of the Chinese army in the short term!"

"What if there is a large number of troops in the short term and the naval support?" In military affairs, Hirohito obviously knows more.

"Hope has increased greatly!" Baichuan Yize answered without hesitation.

After careful consideration, Hirohito stood up, "Today is July 24, 1929, the Western calendar. Within three days, the army will capture the Korsakov Fortress; within seven days, the Kanto Army will draw 4 divisions from outside the pass and North Korea to assist the front line, and conduct strict reconnaissance and infiltration of the China army in front of them. From now on, the Airship Corps and various coastal defense fleets will begin to search the waters east of Kyushu and south of the state, and be sure to find out the traces of the German ships and find out the scale of the other side.

Focus the torpedo boats in Kyushu, Shiguo, and the main ports of our province stand by!”

Everyone stood up together, "Hi!"

Just three hours after Emperor Hirohito made the decision, Kochi Port located in Shikoku was suddenly attacked by a team of German planes. Although the losses were not large, the German attack caused considerable panic among the local residents.

The Japanese Army Aviation Force stationed in the Shikoku subsequently sent a group of fighter jets to pursue, but because the fighter jets with better performance were all transferred to Hokkaido, all of these old fighters returned without success.

As of the evening of that day, two more places were attacked: Moubian, located in the southeast of Shikoku and Kuromoto, located in the Kii Peninsula of Honshu. Because German fighter jets were moving quickly, coming and going like the wind, and they attacked some weak air defense non-military targets. The Japanese ground air defense forces and the few aviation forces did nothing.

Starting from the afternoon of that day, the Japanese Navy sent a large number of ships into the Emperor's designated area for search, but not only did not find any trace of the other side's fleet, but instead suffered a coastal defense ship modified from an old cruiser, a new destroyer and several medium-sized patrol ships due to the attack of German submarines. Of course, this also intensified the Japanese suspicion of the motive of this German fleet. The main ships stationed in Sasebo and Yokosuka were not dispatched in the next few days.

Two days later, the German fleet appeared near the Izu Islands south of Tokyo. A large number of Japanese torpedo boats gathered in the Bay of Tokyo and rushed towards the target like a piranha that smelled blood. However, after arriving at the designated area, they found nothing except some mines set up by the German army. Instead, they were frightened by the torpedoes that popped up from time to time.

On July 27, the last day of the emperor's time and place, the Japanese army finally seized the Korsakov Fortress at the cost of 170,000 deaths and 220,000 injuries. What surprised them was that the remaining ships of the German Pacific 1st Fleet were not blown up by the Germans as they imagined, but were stranded one by one in the harbor. The battleship "Caesar Barbarossa", the battleship "Thessalonika", the heavy aircraft carrier "Georg", and the heavy cruiser "Shankhorst". These names alone were enough to make the Japanese commanders feel that their previous casualties were worth it, but they soon discovered that the precise radar and communication instruments on these warships were moved or completely destroyed, and the ammunition depot on the ship was also empty.

The Japanese army that won the "Korsakov Victory" immediately advanced towards the central part of Kuye Island. They did not want to reach the narrow zone near Atmouth, but they ran into the German new line of defense - a "hedgehog defense line" built in hilly areas with commanding heights as the core. The German army not only dug a large number of trenches and trenches here, but also had an astonishing number of reinforced concrete bunkers like mushrooms. At this moment, the Japanese commander finally understood that the German army had already been ready to give up Korsakov. It is probably not easier for the Japanese army to pass through this narrow and southern part of Kuye Island than to capture the Korsakov fortress. The only hope for a quick battle is to open up a new landing ground behind the narrow zone where the German army concentrated its forces to defend.

The "wise report" was soon transmitted from the Japanese front line command to the army base camp, and a few hours later it was placed in front of Emperor Hirohito and his senior staff.

"The eastern part of Kuye Island is most suitable for landing, but we must first defeat the German fleet stationed in the northern part of the Kuril Islands! So far, we have no clear understanding of that fleet, and we don't even know how many warships the other side has! Moreover, there are still unknown mines and submarines in the Sea of ​​Halltsk. The previous "poison dart" operation took huge risks. Now the Germans are bound to increase their vigilance on this side!"

The old Shuzo Matsuoka is a lieutenant general who is already at retirement age, but his strong sense of responsibility makes him determined to continue to serve the country before the end of the Japanese-German War. After studying the situation around Kuye Island in detail, he made a cautious analysis as mentioned above.

"There are many beaches that can be landed on the west coast of Kuye Island, but hundreds of meters away from the coastline are rolling mountains. Even if our army successfully lands, it will be very difficult to unfold and move towards the target location. Germany's air superiority will consume a lot of our landing troops along the way!"

Another veteran Saito Hakuro, who is already in retirement, also analyzed on the side that we have no way to know whether this Japanese Navy Lieutenant General is the descendant of the swordsman Saito Yakuro, but in the face of the dazzling tactical arrangements of the German army, the old man seemed pessimistic about the prospects of the Japanese army.

Hirohito looked down at the large battlefield sand table that simulated the terrain of Kuye Island, frowned with displeasure. What he needed at this moment was obviously not a discouraging sentence that was neither this nor that. He needed a suggestion that could change the current unfavorable occupation, and a suggestion to completely drive the Germans out of Kuye Island.

"Parasites cooperate with the Marines, this is a common tactic used by the Germans!"

The speaker was not loud, but attracted the attention of almost the entire war room. When people found out that this guy was just an officer with the rank of colonel, their eyes became strange again.

Hirohito looked up and saw a dark, rough and full of vitality.

"Rare!" The Minister of Guard whispered, but he did not continue because he saw Hirohito's gesture to him to shut up.

"This is Colonel Hideyoshi Obata! I recognize you. You have just taken over as Chief of Staff of the 1st Flight Division of the Imperial Army!"

Now, everyone's eyes were not only full of surprise, but also a flattering look. It was a great honor to be remembered by the Emperor, and it was just around the corner.

"Your Majesty, I think the previous airborne operation failed. The defeat was because of the dispersed forces and was defeated by the Germans one by one. Now the Germans are concentrating their forces on the Atmouth Line. Our army can choose to land on the coast of the west of the island, and at the same time, the airborne teams from the east of the island far away from the landing point, so that the Germans cannot take care of each other!"

Judging from the smooth words of Eira Ota, this is a countermeasure he had thought of for a long time, and this strategy, which is as huge as the risks and benefits, was immediately approved by Hirohito.
Chapter completed!