Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 180 The World's Worst Catastrophe Begins

Less than a month after Minet returned, news came that the Japanese army had invaded the French East Indies.

And just like in the original history, they originally just wanted to use diplomatic and political means to take a piece of land in the northern part of French East Indies, build a few airports, and then bomb the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway.

As a result, the Japanese army was dissatisfied with the country's civil servants' procrastination in negotiations and considered them traitors to the country, so they took the initiative to attack the French army.

It was another fucking match where the underdog defeated the superior team, and the French side were completely stunned.

The original political occupation under coercion and inducement turned into a military plunder, and it was impossible to stop from the beginning.

After all, due to Zheng Yi's interference, Japan's foreign exchange is almost completely exhausted, and the yen has been falling, making it difficult to spend it externally. Even now, even the resources plundered in China can hardly be sold.

The whole of Japan fell into a huge economic crisis, and everyone really couldn't bear it anymore.

The material that Japan needs most urgently right now is not even oil or steel, but food.

No matter how poor the French East Indies was, at least the rice output was very abundant, not to mention the other products.

If we take this piece of land, at least we can give our brothers a few full meals.

France is naturally unwilling to accept this. The key point is that this is not the way to play it. Don’t you have any international credit at all?

We asked Japan for an explanation, and they apologized very sincerely, so sincerely that no one could find fault with it. However, they said that the occupation of the French East Indies was purely the military's own decision, and we had no control over it. Anyway, they had occupied it, and no one would dare to suggest giving it back.

Anyone who dares to mention this will most likely be punished by God and labeled a traitor the next day.

There's really no other way. Why don't you send more troops to take back these territories?

But the problem is that France has no troops to send.

In the end, France was unable to come up with any decent response measures except seeking help from Britain and the United States, so much so that even Japan could not help but think: That's it?
Almost at the same time, Germany, as a military ally, began to blitz Poland, and World War II officially broke out. France was really unable to control the situation in Southeast Asia and had no time to manage it.

At this point, the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan was officially signed and exposed, and all the core contents of the treaty were directed at the United States.

However, the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact was soon exposed, and the German army turned around and attacked France.

Then the speed at which France surrendered was a real shock to the whole world.

However, Germany's actions actually caused great harm to Japan.

After all, Japan wanted to ally with the Germans and dominate the army, and its biggest demand was actually to attack the Soviet Union from both sides.

Unexpectedly, the two countries suddenly agreed to non-aggression and divided Poland.

But because of various reasons for Japan's independent behavior at this time, they actually went to war with France.

The Japanese army was unable to explain themselves and could not blame others, so they had no choice but to follow Germany's footsteps.

No matter what, the end of France is definitely a good thing for Japan.

Taking advantage of the chaos in France, Japan naturally could not be polite and took the opportunity to plunder all of French India and put it all into its pocket.

As promised, Zheng Yi received a secret alliance accession contract. The contracting party, the Nanyang Colonization Company, was required to cross-hold shares with Zheng Yi and secretly join the Southern Alliance.

The assets under his name included two oil wells, a gold mine, a super-large copper mine, several coal mines, and several iron mines, which were not very valuable. They were all converted into shares, and then he secretly joined the Southern Association for Regional Cooperation, and only wanted 1% of the shares.

And he also gave Zheng Yi 30% of the shares.

Of course, Zheng Yi knew very well that this so-called contract was useless now. Before the Japanese army was defeated and evacuated, it would have nothing to do with him. The Nanyang Colonization Company was even less likely to acknowledge the existence of this document. The effectiveness of the document itself was almost zero.

Naturally, with the opening of this side and the process going smoothly, the Zongbayin War in the Far East also came to an end.

The army and navy were causing trouble at the same time, and anyone in the cabinet with even a three-year-old's IQ would know that at least one of them had to stop.

The Russians are still a bit fierce. It is indeed not easy to do the job, and it is just an oil field. The benefits are too disproportionate to the effort.

French India also has oil and rice. No matter how you look at it, it's much richer than Outer Mongolia. It also seems easier to fight.

At this point, Japan had decided on a strategic national policy to focus on naval development, temporarily shelve the war against China, and comprehensively develop Southeast Asia.

During this period, the cabinet in his country changed like a revolving lantern, just like the cabinet of Chongzhen.

Including Mine, Hirohito always wanted to appoint a cabinet that was sensible and pro-British and American, and he really strongly supported the pro-British and American factions in the country.

Unfortunately, the pro-European and American cabinet ministers were simply unable to suppress the situation.

The political tradition of Japan is very interesting. The emperor is both respected and disrespected.

If you ask them to oppose the emperor, they would never dare to do so. No one even dares to say anything bad about Hirohito. They seem to be really loyal to him.

However, they did not tolerate the cabinet that Hirohito intended to form at all. The military and the middle and lower-level officers acted on their own, targeting the cabinet and the pro-American faction. The best outcome was that they were forced to step down under pressure.

But don’t you think they know that the opinions of the cabinet are actually the opinions of Hirohito himself?
As a Chinese, Zheng Yi finds it a little difficult to understand this strange political and cultural custom.

In fact, at this time, the entire Japanese cabinet and headquarters were seriously discussing the possibility of withdrawing troops from China, and even this proposal was supported by the army.

Overall, although Japan’s army is crazier than its navy, the top leaders are actually quite sober.

Army Minister Shunroku Hata, Vice Army Minister Lieutenant General Korechika Anami, Director of the Military Affairs Bureau Lieutenant General Mutō Akira, Chief of the General Staff General Prince Kan'in Saehito, Vice Minister Shigehito Sawada, Director of the General Affairs Department Major General Kanda Masatane, and so on.

A series of army giants got together and held meetings for several days. In the end, they unanimously decided to withdraw all Japanese troops in China, except Shanghai and Inner Mongolia, within this year.

Moreover, the Japanese troops in Shanghai will withdraw within the next year.

It should be said that this decision is actually quite correct, and it is also a good thing for China. After all, it has saved China several years of suffering.

However, when the news reached the front line, the order itself was strongly opposed by the occupation forces stationed in China.

The Showa men are starting to use the petition method again. If they really insist on withdrawing, there is a high probability that these soldiers will punish the traitors.

After several twists and turns, the pro-American faction in the cabinet became increasingly thin, and Hirohito himself became increasingly tired. The pro-American relationship between Britain and the United States could no longer continue.

After one cabinet after another that was highly anticipated but ended up disappointed and left was dissolved, Hirohito was finally tired, and the relatively radical Konoe Fumio came to power to form a cabinet.

Internally, the Konoe cabinet began to carry out large-scale reforms, forcibly disbanding old political parties such as the Seiyukai, the Social Democratic Party, the Allergic Alliance, and the Touhoukai, and fully learning from Germany to implement autocracy.

They promoted militarist education and advocated the so-called "8.4 million general mobilization" movement, completely transforming society into a purely display mode. That is, the government uniformly allocated industrial and agricultural production, controlled and monitored enterprises across the country, and used soldiers to supervise the mobilization of workers.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows that this new prime minister is not a control-oriented person at all, but a true emperor-oriented person!

Hirohito actually acquiesced to all of this.

At this moment, the Imperial Way Faction finally succeeded in turning the tables and completely crushed the Control Faction. Japan's war machine, which was actually not very advanced, had already stepped on the accelerator to the bottom, completely disregarding whether the engine could withstand it, and was going on a final madness.

As for foreign policy, Japan, in contrast to its usual timid and compromising approach towards Britain and the United States, took a 180-degree turn, proposing for the first time the "Imperial Way Diplomacy Declaration," also known as the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

The entire Southeast Asia, as well as New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, India, and eastern Siberia were designated as Japan's sphere of influence.

He wants to dominate the Far East!

These are words that don't seem like they can be thought of by the human brain, but they can really say them and they are really eager to try them out.

Japanese society also knows that this is a real madman. In recent times, the SAARC, which has clearly declared war on Japan, has received more and more Japanese yen assets in its banks, and more and more people in SAARC have voluntarily surrendered to the enemy and joined.

Everyone knows that the Konoe Cabinet is an Imperial Way Cabinet, and the Japanese are actually quite afraid of it, especially the rich ones. Everyone knows that this madman is leading Japan towards an unpredictable abyss.

But they really tried everything, and they couldn't stop it.

Whatever, I'm tired.

(End of this chapter)