The army is about to set off. Before that, it seems that the default is to write a letter or make a phone call to relatives and friends?
The field post office affiliated to the regiment issued uniform letter paper and envelopes to the officers and soldiers, two copies for each person, one for writing letters home and one for writing suicide notes.
This is all voluntary. If you are brave, you can choose not to write it; otherwise, the suicide note will be kept on file and kept at the residence of each unit. After the death, injury, death, and missing are confirmed, it will be mailed to the family members and relatives.
Zhou Changfeng is a big-hearted person, or he thinks that the risk of this special military operation is minimal, not much higher than the probability of being hit by a flower pot while walking on the road.
In this case, would it be unlucky to write a suicide note in advance? He just wants to chat with his wife now.
After dinner that day, he dialed the number to the Xia family.
No matter how you look at it, a newlywed wife staying alone in an empty house is a little lonely. Fortunately, Xia Xiaoshi is only a few stops away by train from her parents' home, so Zhou Changfeng allowed her to go back to her parents' home temporarily for a few days before departure.
Although today's telephones are not high-end gadgets, most ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty did not have them.
The telephone itself is not expensive, with affordable models costing about 20 yuan. However, the problem is that it costs a lot of money to ask the telephone company to come and install the wiring, and you have to wait for a long time, so many families will not give it priority. Think about it.
Throughout the country, ordinary household items are just two of four - sewing machine, bicycle, pocket watch/watch, radio. If you have two items, you are considered qualified. If you collect three items, you are considered to be good. If you can collect four items, you are at least a little rich. .
The standards for richer and more prosperous places will be higher, such as in Shuntian, Yingtian, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, where telephones are required to be worthy of the title of Xiaofu.
After many layers of transfers, it took a while before I heard Gao Linglu's voice coming from the microphone.
"Who is it?"
"Mom, it's me."
Obviously, Gao Linglu on the other end of the phone was taken aback. It took a full two seconds before he asked: "There is a sudden call. Is something serious going on?"
Since this operation was almost semi-public, apart from the military details, many other information had been published by various newspapers in turn, so Zhou Changfeng did not cover it up.
"Uh...we are getting ready to leave soon. After thinking about it, it would be more reassuring to make a phone call and have a few words."
"That's it, I'll call her over. Hey, Xiaoshi, come here, come here, listen to the phone."
After a while, there was a sound of footsteps coming from the microphone, followed by that familiar voice.
"Sir? What's wrong?"
The corners of Zhou Changfeng's mouth raised involuntarily, "How are you? Are you living comfortably these days?"
Looking back on the official reports of the past two days, Xia Xiaoshi had already made some predictions in her mind, but she was not sure yet. "Of course I'm fine. When will you come back?"
"Well..." Zhou Changfeng, who was holding the microphone, fell silent. After a moment, he said calmly: "I can't come back for the time being. I'll probably have to wait until the Dragon Boat Festival. We'll see if things go well. It shouldn't be later than July at the latest. .”
After finishing speaking, he added with a smile: "I don't want to miss this year's Chinese Valentine's Day."
Although I had been mentally prepared before, this situation was still quite unexpected. I hesitated for a long time and didn't know what to say better. In the end, I condensed all my words into one sentence, "Then you must pay attention to your own safety."
Gao Linglu on the side left knowingly. The young couple inevitably said some ambiguous words when talking on the phone, so they had better go farther away.
"Don't worry, I'm very tough."
The two of them were joking about each other on the phone, and Xia Xiaoshi suddenly thought of some news - when the Ming army stationed in Nagasaki rotated every year, some people would bring back women they had hooked up with there, and Most of them are pregnant.
According to folk rumors, the young women there are eager to escape the hardships of the local area. If they do not consider the riskier smuggling, the main way to get to the paradise in their minds is to hook up with the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers stationed there.
Ordinary soldiers are often very young, mostly around 20 years old, when they are full of energy. However, serving in the Nagasaki Nobui Division was too relaxed. The sky is high and the emperor is far away, and there is a lack of supervision for strict training. Therefore, the actual situation It means three days of fishing and two days of drying nets.
But you definitely have to find a place to vent your energy, and you have to pay to go in and out of the local Fireworks Willow Lane. In contrast, if a girl takes the initiative to come over and flirt with you, it will undoubtedly be very attractive.
Relatively speaking, military officers are a second-tier choice, because most of them have families, and they often kick them away after having sex for nothing, or pull up their pants and fall out with each other.
However, it is high-risk and high-yield, and being a concubine for an army officer is actually quite rewarding. At least it is better than the original life there, so there are many women trying it in an endless stream.
Considering the "glorious" deeds of "Zhou Changfeng" in the past, it would be a lie to say that Xia Xiaoshi was not worried.
After hesitating for more than ten seconds, she said seriously: "Sir, please don't be deceived by local women. I heard that they will do anything they can to get close to you."
Zhou Changfeng on the other end of the phone couldn't help but laugh, and then replied with a deliberate smile: "What? Are you so worried?"
"Oh, I'm just reminding you...that's all."
"Is it really just a reminder? Hahaha——"
Xia Xiaoshi gripped the microphone tightly and gritted her teeth: "Zhou Kexing, if you really want to do that, I will definitely be angry!"
Zhou Changfeng stopped smiling and coughed dryly: "Anyway, don't worry about this. I'm not interested in short Japanese women with carrot legs. Well... I feel sorry for you living alone these past few months."
"Sir, you are serious. I feel at home now."
"Well, that's it, hang up."
After the phone call, Zhou Changfeng breathed a long sigh of relief. One thing was settled, and now it was time to get down to business.
The battlefield is the best weapons testing ground. The Ordnance Bureau organized a team to take charge of this matter. This team was subdivided into several groups.
Group A is responsible for infantry weapons, including: trial production of Type 37 rocket launchers, trial production of Type 37 anti-infantry directional mines, trial production of Type 38 anti-infantry jump mines, and trial production of Type 37 heavy machine guns.
Group B is responsible for artillery weapons, including: the trial production of the Type 38 144mm long-range field gun and the trial production of the Type 37 80mm anti-aircraft gun.
Group C is responsible for technical weapons, including: trial production of the Type 36A radio transceiver, trial production of the Type 37 radio direction finder, and trial production of the Type 38 electromagnetic wave detector.
Group D is responsible for service equipment, including: new first aid kits, antibacterial drugs, tents, gas masks, field food and so on.
Zhou Changfeng was undoubtedly very excited when he saw the dozens of boxes of jumping mines and directional mines.
How much tactical advantage can these things born in advance bring to the Ming army's infantry detachment?
Perhaps strategically they have little impact, but tactically they may very well determine the outcome of a battle.
As for his proud work - the rocket launcher based on the recoilless gun principle, Yingtian Arsenal has already applied to the Ordnance Bureau to complete the finalization work. It will then be put into mass production after actual combat assessment and slight modifications based on feedback.
The Second Army received 200 prototype 37-type rocket launchers and 3,000 rounds of ammunition this time. The First Marine Regiment was allocated 30 units and 500 rounds, and the rest were allocated to the other three divisions.
In fact, the Guards Division and the First Division don't have many armored vehicles at all. There are only a few dozen vehicles in total - more than two dozen Vickers Crosley and Worsley armored vehicles, and a dozen trucks. Den-Loyd MkV and Vickers MkE.
Zhou Changfeng estimated that if they really came in use, these rocket launchers would probably be used to attack enemy firepower points. Anyway, the probability of encountering armored vehicles was not high.
The days before departure seemed to be particularly difficult, and the few days seemed as long as half a month.
Because the 4th Infantry Division and the 20th Light Bombing Detachment were both under the Second Army, Zhou Changfeng was fighting side by side with his old friend He Cheng, and Mu Yu was also dragged over by him to join in the fun.
On a pile of supply boxes not far from Pier 6 of the naval base, three people sat side by side, the light spots of their cigarettes flickering on and off with their breathing.
"Military intelligence reports say that the Japanese still haven't made up their mind." He Cheng flicked the ashes from his cigarette, "It's hard to say."
"Do you have to go to the city before you surrender?" Mu Yu snorted with great disdain, "It's really unreasonable."
Zhou Changfeng stretched and sneered: "Although I thought it would be best to take over smoothly before, looking at their hesitation now, they probably still have illusions, so I think it's better to fight, not fight." Disobedience and breaking unrealistic illusions are the only way to be well-behaved.”
Just like what he said, the Japanese do still have some illusions and are undecided.
In other words, the capitulation faction and the resistance faction have not yet reached a consensus and are quarreling.
The current Japanese imperial court is in a relatively independent state, equivalent to a large feudal town that is nominally central, but the local feudal towns do not obey orders. The imperial court and the vassal towns all wanted to unify the archipelago again, but the Western powers would definitely not agree.
Originally, the emperor was not able to regain some power until after the Boshin War. Before that, during the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo shogunate periods, the emperor's status was getting lower and lower. Among them, the emperor's court during the Warring States Period was even reduced to selling officials and concubines and maids to sell their bodies to barely make ends meet.
After the victory of the Boshin War and the fall of the Edo shogunate, the emperor's court immediately implemented a series of reforms, vigorously developed capitalism, and was committed to enriching the country and strengthening its army. However, after scrimping on food and clothing and borrowing money to gamble on the country's destiny but failed, the court's prestige was greatly reduced. , the political and economic collapse returned Japan to a state of division.
Because of this war, and looking back at the failure of Britain and France to invade the Ming Dynasty, the Western powers gave up on the Ming Dynasty in unison and carefully chose to pick on the weak.
After being divided, the Japanese vassals were controlled by the great powers in many aspects, but the operations of different powers were also different. For example, the Italians and Americans controlled less, while the British and French controlled more.
As for the emperor, he has lost most of the powers he finally established in the Meiji Constitution, and now he can only be regarded as a mascot.
On the surface, the current central government of Japan (Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Tokyo, Nagano, Chiba) is a dual structure consisting of the military and the civilian government, but it is essentially a chaebol that has been influenced by the British for a long time. Powerful group.
For some of them, there is no essential difference between the British and the Ming people, so whose dogs are not all the same? They can still continue to enjoy privileges.
But there are also many people who firmly oppose it, thinking that the British at least respect customs and culture, but if Akito comes, I am afraid there will be a complete reshuffle, burning books and destroying characters, and completely erasing the Yamato clan from culture. , and these powerful people are just disposable slaves.
For two months since the beginning of the year, the two sides have been arguing endlessly.
As the British began to withdraw their assets and garrisons one after another, these wealthy tycoons became increasingly panicked and uneasy.
In the past half month, the Union Jack flags have been lowered one after another. Groups of British soldiers wearing Tommy helmets and carrying Lee-Enfield rifles on their shoulders walked to the dock to board the ship with scattered steps. In the past, those wearing red turbans , the arrogant Indian and Du policemen are also less common.
The Ming Dynasty almost semi-publicly reported the movements of the army, which was obviously a deliberate move.
There were two armies from the north and the south. The northern route army set out from North Korea, and the southern route army crossed the sea and landed directly in Tokyo.
As the seat of the ancient general Mu Zhengyi and a "capital" since the Sixties, Tokyo can be said to be a heart-like existence. If Tokyo is taken, the Japanese court will cease to exist, or it will be completely under the control of Akito. How can the remaining vassal towns resist?
On the early morning of the sixth day of the lunar month, the fully prepared Second Army officially set off from Haizhou. The huge fleet consisting of more than 60 large and small warships and dozens of cargo ships took several hours to assemble and set off for Tokyo Bay.
It was also on this day that Tokyo's dignitaries held the fourteenth cabinet meeting on the matter - the previous thirteen times all ended in vain.
The sky took on a gray-black color, as gloomy and gloomy as everyone's mood.
Many powerful people have become distraught or indifferent.
Among the crowd, only the Secretary of War advocated persisting in resistance, and the Secretary of Finance generally agreed, feeling that it was possible to win the support of the Americans. Apart from this, the others all advocated obedient submission and respectfully welcomed Master Wang.
"I reiterate once again that resistance is meaningless. To Akira, Tokyo Bay is like a lotus pond that can be entered and exited at will. All our warships combined are less than one of their battleships." Foreign Minister Yoshida Nagamasa said solemnly road.
"Such a defense without any hope of victory is useless except to anger Akito." Minister of the Interior Nakamura Yorimoto stared sharply at the people opposite him and said seriously: "Whether it is for the sake of the people or ourselves, we must accept the welcome That’s the right thing to do.”
"Resistance can prove that we will not be manipulated by others, but to seek better treatment. No resistance? Mingren will think that we are weak and can be bullied, and treat us as slaves to manipulate us at will. That will completely ruin Japan!" Minister of War! Kano Kuigo said loudly.
Hearing this, Yoshida Nagamasa sneered and said: "I heard that there is land and a warehouse behind your mansion, and a small plane is prepared inside. If the situation goes bad, you will flee to Osaka, right?"
Kano Kuigo was exposed in public, but he still remained calm and did not lose his composure. Instead, he ridiculed: "Don't you have a way out? In your hearts, which one is more important, your own destiny or the fate of the Yamato clan?"
Just like that, the atmosphere became tense again.
Seeing that this cabinet meeting was about to end in vain like the previous thirteen times, suddenly, a secretary knocked on the door and barged in. He was frightened and anxious and said: "No, the First Division has mutiny. There are rebels." On the way!"
(End of chapter)
