Republic of China: Ace Pilot

Chapter 664 Strategic Intelligence, the Japanese Deception

Tokyo.

In Tokyo in March of Showa 15 (1942), the cherry blossoms were a little late in bloom. The branches in Ueno Park were still adorned with pale pink buds, and the war slogans posted everywhere were all the more conspicuous.

At six o'clock in the morning, Yoshida walked on the stone-paved street in Ginza, preparing to go to the Navy Department to start a new day's work.

On the road surface, which had just been watered by a sprinkler truck, pedestrians hurried by, while "Current Affairs Coordinators" with signs pinned to their sleeves were already spreading information at the intersection.

Yoshida felt somewhat uncomfortable.

Tokyo has looked like this ever since the military launched a "national spiritual mobilization" last year.

There is no war here, yet everything serves the war effort, and no one feels remorse for the slaughter and plunder caused by the war.

The whole country is in a strange state of excitement!

Even the breakfast stall workers would add a few slogans to their calls to cheer on the holy war. The square in front of the shrine was always the liveliest, with boys in school uniforms holding small flags that read "May the military prowess last forever" and singing "Kimigayo" with their teachers. Women carrying "patriot bags" were offering flowers to the bronze statues of soldiers going to war. The cuffs of their kimonos had been shortened because the military was calling for "saving fabric to support the front lines." Even the most elegant geishas in Tokyo had changed into plain-colored short kimonos.

Outside the recruitment station not far away, a long line of young people were registering.

Department stores in Ginza displayed huge banners proclaiming "Wartime Supplies Exhibition," and their glass windows showcased artifacts, local specialties, and food and mineral specimens looted from China.

Outside the department store, there was a "national savings jar," and the loudspeaker was repeatedly broadcasting "Buying defense bonds is serving the country." Bank employees in suits walked through the crowd with megaphones, and every now and then someone would squeeze forward with crumpled banknotes and put half a month's salary into the jar.

Shaking off his thoughts, Yoshida arrived at the Navy Headquarters to begin his day's work.

He was one of them, working for that war of aggression.

The entire island nation has become a war machine, and it seems there's no stopping it.

The day passed quickly.

As usual, after get off work, Yoshida drank with his colleagues at an izakaya until after 7 p.m. before heading home with a small bag of eel rice.

He returned to his newly moved-in home, a nice little house with a courtyard that most people in Tokyo couldn't afford to live in; it was now his and his father's home.

"You're back?" Yoshida's father sat in the main room, with a prostitute serving him beside him.

"Ah."

Yoshida replied and then pushed open his bedroom door and went inside. The father and son did not exchange many words.

But then her father's voice came from outside: "Yoshida, your friend hasn't paid his rent for this year. You need to go and urge him. I have some activities in the Diet recently and I need the money."

“Yes, Father,” Yoshida replied.

He closed the door, took out a table, sat cross-legged on the tatami mat, opened the eel rice bowl, and began to eat slowly and deliberately.

After finishing his eel rice, Yoshida turned around, opened the cabinet, and took out a box.

He skillfully assembled the radio, put on his headset, and waited for the contact time to arrive.

He would go to this fixed contact time every day to hear if any orders were being issued.

But most of the time, nothing was gained.

But today, I heard a static noise coming from my headphones.

Yoshida quickly wrote down the Morse code and then took out his codebook to translate it.

[This report details the current situation in Japan and an investigation into the military movements of the Japanese army in southeastern China.]

This was exactly what Yoshida wanted to do. He took out a handwritten booklet containing collected intelligence data, organized and summarized the data, and then wrote a telegram to send it out.

The Yangjiang Independent Regiment's garrison.

Fang Wen was waiting for news from both Guangzhou and Tokyo.

Before the news from Guangzhou arrived, news from Tokyo came first.

Fang Wen held the headphones in one hand to listen, while writing quickly on a piece of paper with the other.

This telegram contained a lot of information.

After recording everything, Fang Wen didn't even take out the codebook. He directly translated the code he had memorized using his powerful mental strength.

After the translation was completed, Fang Wen read the full text.

[Tokyo Report]

First, the invading army plundered a large amount of supplies and transported them to the mainland. The South China front was the core area of ​​plunder. More than 30 transport ships set sail from the Pearl River Wharf in Guangzhou every day, all carrying strategic materials.

[Approximately 2,000 tons of tungsten ore from Guangdong are shipped to the mainland each month for military manufacturing; sugar, silk, and other consumer goods are also being forcibly requisitioned. Last month alone, 10,000 bolts of silk and 5,000 tons of sugar were transported to Yokohama to supplement military supplies and the mainland's rations.]

Central and North China were not spared either. Grain requisition was implemented with a policy of "local rationing," leading to famine in Henan, Shandong, and other areas. The invading army, under the guise of "rationing," forcibly seized civilian grain, but in reality, prioritized supplying the front lines.

Seeing this, Fang Wen remembered something.

The Nationalist government's bombing of the Yellow River dike did not stop the Japanese army's advance, but it turned the south bank of the Yellow River into a flood-prone area.

This man-made disaster caused more than 3000 million mu of farmland to be flooded in the grain-producing areas south of the Yellow River, and about 120 million people were displaced by the flood. The summer grain harvest that year was almost completely lost.

The situation worsened when the Japanese army occupied the area and imposed "grain control," forcibly confiscating civilian grain reserves to serve as military rations.

The people there must be living a very hard life.

But the worst is yet to come.

Fang Wen recalled that Henan would experience a severe drought next year.

With no harvest, the people there will likely have no choice but to flee en masse.

First the dikes broke, then the Japanese invaders looted the land, and then there was another famine. The people of Henan have suffered so much.

With this in mind, Fang Wen decided to prepare a batch of disaster relief supplies before the drought next year, and help as much as he could.

He kept it in mind and continued reading the secret telegram.

[II. Following the US withdrawal from the US-Japan Treaty of Commerce and Navigation last year, the oil and steel embargo exacerbated the domestic predicament.]

[The price of rice on the Tokyo black market had tripled compared to pre-war levels; oil rations were limited to the military; civilian cars were mostly powered by charcoal; although military factories were operating at full capacity, a steel shortage still reached 30%; last winter, an armored regiment on the South China front was shut down for half a month due to a lack of parts. The frenzied promotion of national savings accounts and defense bonds was, in reality, to fill the resource gap, with nearly half of the average family's monthly income being spent on "serving the country."]

[III. Domestic resource reserves can only support the current war for eight months; the military consensus is that "using war to sustain war" is the only way out.]

[The Guangdong and Guangxi regions in South China are essential passageways through Southwest China, and the Japanese could also plunder local tungsten mines and other mineral resources to replenish their military production. Furthermore, the long coastlines of Guangdong and Guangxi would allow for a complete blockade of China's sea routes, clearing obstacles for future actions—this is the core reason why the Japanese army recently reinforced its troops in Guangzhou and planned to launch a new offensive.]

[IV. Military Strategic Secrets: To my knowledge, the military leadership has assessed that the Chinese battlefield has entered a stalemate. Given the vastness of China, it is impossible to occupy the entire territory in the short term, and the rate of resource plundering cannot keep up with consumption. Recently, the General Staff Headquarters reached a consensus in a secret meeting to use South China as a springboard to launch military operations into French Indochina and Southeast Asia to seize rubber and oil resources.]

Complete control of China's southeast coastline would prevent being attacked from both sides when conquering Southeast Asia. Therefore, the Guangdong-Guangxi offensive was essentially a "preliminary guarantee" for the Southeast Asia strategy. It was anticipated that if the war in South China succeeded, the southward advance plan would be launched within three months.

After reading the coded telegram, Fang Wen got up and paced back and forth in the room.

Thoughts in my mind.

It seems that Japan mobilized the entire nation's resources to launch this war of aggression. Even though they had a technological advantage, they lacked sufficient resource reserves. Fang Wen had a deep understanding of this situation.

On the Guinan battlefield, in order to deal with the Japanese army's attack, he used 1500 rockets. Although he achieved a great victory, he emptied his stockpile in one fell swoop.

The Japanese army wreaked havoc on Chinese soil thanks to their advanced weaponry of the time, which also consumed a great deal of resources, leaving them with insufficient supplies.

This intelligence provides good evidence of why the Japanese army was so eager to launch a second wave of attacks on Guangxi and Guangdong.

However, from another perspective, it also had an impact on the overall situation of the War of Resistance against Japan.

Fang Wen felt that such important intelligence should be sent to Yan'an.

He then tuned the telegraph machine to a secret frequency and sent a telegram.

The message is brief, indicating that there is a strategic intelligence report to be sent, but it contains a considerable amount of information.

Half an hour after the telegram was sent, Fang Wen received a reply indicating that he was ready to receive it.

Immediately, Fang Wen sent over a long telegram.

After sending the telegram, Fang Wen got up, opened the door, and said to Gong Xiuneng, who was guarding outside:
"Have Wu Yingzong notify mid- to high-ranking officers to go to the regimental headquarters conference room for a military meeting."

"Yes." Gong Xiuneng, dressed in military uniform, jogged away.

Half an hour later, apart from Pan Jiafeng, the battalion commander of the 2nd Aviation Battalion in Zhaoqing, all the mid- to high-ranking officers stationed in the area came to the regimental headquarters conference room.

Fang Wen looked around and said, "According to reliable sources, the Japanese army is likely to make southern Guangdong their primary target for attack. Today's military meeting is a pre-battle deployment in response to this situation. Everyone, come over here, let's look at the map and discuss it together."

Everyone stood up and walked to the military map.

Fang Wen looked at Wu Yingzong and asked, "Deputy Regiment Commander Wu, what do you think we should do if the Japanese army attacks Yangjiang?"

Wu Yingzong replied, "The area around Yangjiang City is a plain, which is convenient for mechanized troops to deploy. Although our firepower is superior to that of the Japanese army, our numbers are insufficient. Therefore, we cannot fight the Japanese army on the plains. I think this is a very good front-line position."

He pointed to a point on the map.

That is Heshan Town in northern Yangjiang.

Fang Wen nodded. "Shadow Trace, please continue."

Wu Yingzong, now a capable military commander, shared his thoughts: "Using Heshan Town as the front line has three advantages: First, the terrain is highly interconnected—Heshan Town is bordered by Niuwei Mountain to the north and the Nalong River to the south, with the Taiyang Highway passing through the town, forming a triangular pattern of 'mountains + river + highway.' The Independent Regiment can rely on Niuwei Mountain to deploy anti-aircraft and anti-tank firepower, use the Nalong River to block the Japanese army's flanking routes, and the highway becomes a natural 'passage firing range' to restrict the movement of Japanese tanks; Second, the supply is highly convenient—Heshan Town is only 100 kilometers from Zhaoqing, and the gunboats of the 2nd Aviation Battalion can be deployed at any time." With air support, the tanks and rocket launchers of the 4th Mechanized Battalion can quickly maneuver to their positions via rural roads, ensuring a short and secure supply line. Thirdly, the Japanese army is already fatigued from their march—it is estimated that the Japanese will take 7-8 days to travel from Jiangmen to Yangjiang, arriving at Heshan Town already exhausted by the time they reach it. We, on the other hand, can wait in ambush and launch an attack. However, the defense of Heshan Town also has limitations: as a town on the edge of the plains, once the Japanese break through the defenses, they can directly attack Yangjiang city, leaving the Independent Regiment with little defensive depth; furthermore, the Japanese may be anticipating our deployment in Heshan Town, which could lead to a tough battle.

“That’s right. I’ve also conducted aerial reconnaissance over Yangjiang these past two days, and Heshan Town is indeed suitable as a frontline position,” Fang Wen replied.

Before he could finish speaking, he changed the subject.

"However, this front line is where we will fight our decisive battle. Don't forget the advantages of our Independent Regiment. We have the ability to react quickly, move at high speed, and strike from multiple directions. If the Japanese troops want to reach Heshan Town, they will have to go through our harassment many times. Therefore, another point of discussion at this military meeting is how to conduct guerrilla warfare to continuously weaken the enemy."

The officers had a heated discussion about Fang Wen's idea.

Although Fang Wen already had a plan in mind, he did not act arbitrarily, but patiently listened to opinions and discussed them together.

He hoped that the officers of the Independent Regiment would carry on his set of future military tactics and spread them throughout the Chinese army.

The discussion continued into the afternoon. Through his subordinates' analysis, Fang Wen made some modifications to his own plan, which he found to be much better.

As evening approached, the regimental telegraph operator rushed over.

"Commander, we've received a coded telegram from Guangzhou."

The intelligence has finally arrived.

Fang Wen immediately ended the meeting and went to the telegraph room.

Inside the telegraph room, the telegraph operator had already finished copying the coded telegram.

Fang Wen took the telegram and, without writing it down by hand, directly translated the contents of the coded telegram into his mind.

[Lotus Intelligence: He has discovered the Japanese military movements. The Japanese army has already mobilized today and will divide into three routes to attack Qingyuan, Zhaoqing, and Taishan respectively. The main force will focus on attacking Zhaoqing.]

Lotus is Tang Yuandong's nickname, meaning to emerge from the mud unsullied.

The intelligence he sent surprised Fang Wen.

So they're not focusing on Yangjiang?
Fang Wen did not think his judgment was wrong.

He wanted to personally conduct aerial reconnaissance to confirm whether this was true.

He then ordered the Independent Regiment to depart immediately, while he himself took off in his plane.

The seaplane took off and continued to climb.

3000 meters, 4000 meters.
Reaching an altitude of 9000 meters is already the limit for this type of aircraft.

Fang Wen then stopped climbing and steered the plane northeast.

Half an hour later, the plane arrived over Jiangmen.

At such an altitude, the Japanese troops below did not spot the planes above the clouds.

Fang Wen, however, used his supernatural ability to penetrate the clouds and observe the situation below.

There are significantly more Japanese troops stationed in Jiangmen now.

Fang Wen recalled that Wu Yingzong had said that there were only 2000 Japanese troops in Jiangmen, but now there are more than 5000.

It added almost the strength of a regiment.

Is this all the troops they have to attack southern Guangdong?
Fang Wen remained puzzled.

He flew the plane north.

The plane flew over the Xijiang River and arrived over Foshan.

There, Fang Wen discovered a large-scale Japanese army gathering.

It looks like they're preparing to attack Zhaoqing.

However, the troops had not yet set off, so it was too early to draw conclusions. Therefore, Fang Wen maintained his flight altitude and activated the radar target acquisition device to avoid Japanese patrol aircraft, continuing high-altitude reconnaissance.

Half an hour later, the troops below began to move.

Strange things happened.

One-third of the troops, including 22 Type 97 medium tanks, 18 Type 95 light tanks, 8 truck-trailer infantry guns, and more than 50 transport trucks, suddenly turned south during the march.

They crossed the Xijiang River, but instead of marching towards Zhaoqing, they turned towards Jiangmen.

It seems the Japanese are using a feint to launch their main attack on Yangjiang.

Fang Wen sneered and piloted the plane back to base.

(End of this chapter)