Rebirth of the National Marshal

Central China Expeditionary Army Headquarters

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the latest news we have received. The leader of the Chahar local forces has already defeated the Soviets. This news has been confirmed by the Imperial Agency. Nearly hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers have lined up to go to Mongolia, where they will build a railway directly to Irkutsk in the Soviet Union." General Matsui Iwane presided over the meeting.

He threw up the newspaper on the table. This was too ridiculous. The news was actually true. Until now, he didn't believe it. He thought that the Empire's Mei Agency had made a mistake. But now so many photos had been published. It was absolutely impossible that they were false.

"If these things are true, it means that we will not be able to get the resources of the Kwantung Army. If they fail in the war with the Soviets, I am afraid we can still get support. The troops confronting the Kwantung Army on the front line will most likely naturally converge, and the Kwantung Army can also dispatch about two divisions to support us. Now that they have won, I estimate that the reinforcements from the country will first tend to the Kwantung Army." said Takeshita Osamu, chief of staff of the expeditionary army.

"We have just organized five infantry divisions in our country. Originally it was agreed that we would be given four divisions to supplement ours, but now it seems that it would be a big deal if we were given two at most. After all, in the eyes of the old guys in the Imperial Headquarters, the Northeast is the most important, and the Kwantung Army is their own son. Our Central China Expeditionary Army is not that important. We have not captured Nanjing for such a long time, and many people in the headquarters are dissatisfied with us." Originally, the position given to Prince Asaka Naruhiko was deputy chief of staff, but it was not easy to give such a low position to a prince like him, so under the Central China Expeditionary Army, another Shanghai Expeditionary Army was established, and now he is the commander of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army.

"Your Excellency, please be careful with your words. We are not allowed to comment on the arrangements of the domestic base camp. The base camp has their own ideas about everything they do. So what we have to do now is to use the troops in our hands to deal a fatal blow to the enemy in front of us. Our current situation has caused dissatisfaction among the base camp." If His Excellency the Prince is allowed to continue commenting, the meeting will probably not be held.

It was like this the previous few times, and it turned into a meeting where this guy criticized the headquarters. The other people were ordinary officers without such prominent identities. Who would dare to talk about the headquarters? If you didn't have the title of prince, you would have been sent to Hokkaido to see the sea by the people at the headquarters just because you were so disrespectful to your elders.

"Your Excellency, Commander, you are joking. I think it is impossible for us to launch a fatal attack on the Chinese soldiers with the troops we have now. We only have about 5 troops that can attack now, while the Chinese army on the opposite side has more than 40 troops, which is more than eight times ours. Moreover, they can take advantage of favorable terrain. Recently, I saw that they have replenished a lot of weapons and ammunition. In terms of weapons, they have already formed the strength to give us a fight. So they should not be underestimated. It is not easy for our current troops to defend all positions. Your Excellency, Commander, please continue to ask for support from the headquarters!" The prince spoke so domineeringly. General Matsui was used to it. He didn't pay any attention to the people in the domestic headquarters, but he could use honorifics for the commander, which was already very good. He didn't slam the table in front of me. I should thank him.

"Your Excellency, please forgive me for speaking frankly, but the battlefield in North China is as important as the battlefield in Northeast China. If the Chengde area is lost, the entire Rehe may become the property of the Chinese, and the connection between the North China Expeditionary Army and the Kwantung Army may be cut off. The Kwantung Army area supplies nearly 1/3 of our entire army. Once the railway line is cut off, the North China Expeditionary Army will most likely become an isolated army. At that time, the safety of the 20 imperial soldiers of the North China Expeditionary Army will become a major problem. I believe that none of us can bear this responsibility, so the new recruits in the empire will definitely be given priority to the Kwantung Army. Even if we send telegrams again and again, it is already quite good that we can get two divisions." Takeshita Ichiro had a relatively clear view of this matter.

He knew that Commander Matsui usually didn't want to talk to this guy, so it was time for him to step forward.

"The Kwantung Army is a bunch of idiots. They have hundreds of thousands of troops but they can't do anything to a small local government. When I was in the capital, I said that these people were useless. They didn't even kill a few thousand people and let them grow. Now they have grown to hundreds of thousands of people? We have to put in much more effort to destroy them than we did back then. We should have killed them at all costs back then." The best thing this prince is to talk after the event. What was like back then is what is like now. This is what he often says.

Regarding the Chahar local government, he always said that if he had been an officer in the North China Expeditionary Army, he might have done something to them. This is what he often said, but we had no way to refute it, because he was a prince.

In fact, everyone present here understands the difficulties of the Kwantung Army. Originally, they all shared the same view as Your Excellency. Your Kwantung Army is known as the flower of the Japanese Army. You can bypass the Army Ministry and be directly responsible to the headquarters. You are given priority in all military equipment. Moreover, your Northeast region has such a strong heavy industry that you can be self-sufficient in everything. If you want to expand your army, it's just a matter of words. So why can't you defeat the Chahar local government?

Of course, this was just the idea in the past. Now that they have directly captured hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops, the officers present here can no longer say that. No matter how strong the Kwantung Army is, in their hearts they cannot defeat the Soviet army. In the Russo-Japanese War, although we Japanese won, the price we paid was indeed much greater than that of the Russians, so even if we were to fight against the Soviet Union, we would suffer a great loss.

But they were able to defeat the Soviets, which shows that their combat effectiveness is much higher than that of the Kwantung Army. It is not a good idea to go there rashly.