World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

Shimada trembled: "Your Excellency, Minister, you..."

"I'm not saying surrender." Yamamoto waved his hand. "I mean, for the Empire, for the Navy, let's leave some seeds. Preserve something, so that in the future... when there might be an opportunity in the future, we can start over."

He walked back to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, and took out a document: "This is the list I've compiled over the past few days. Outstanding cadets from the Naval Academy, promising young officers, experienced technical officers, important engineers and scientists... a total of three hundred and twenty-seven people."

He pushed the documents toward Shimada: "I'll find a way to send these people to Manchuria, or Korea, or even... farther away. Let them live, let them remember everything that happened today, so that one day they can rebuild the Japanese Navy."

Shimada took the document, his hands trembling: "Your Excellency, if the Army finds out about this..."

"So it must be done in secret." Yamamoto sat down again, rubbing his temples wearily. "Use merchant ships, fishing boats, use any means available, to send them away in batches. Keep the files clean, and just pretend they went missing or died in battle."

He paused, his voice even softer: "This is the last thing I can do for the Navy as First Lord of the Admiralty. Preserve the flame. Perhaps this flame will never be rekindled, but at least... we tried."

Shimada's eyes reddened. He stood up and bowed deeply: "Your Excellency, I... I will certainly do my best."

"Go ahead. Be careful, there are army spies everywhere now."

After Shimada left, Yamamoto sat alone in his office. He looked at the Japanese nautical chart on the wall, at the red markers in the East China Sea, and at the black crosses representing sunken merchant ships in the Tsushima Strait.

One after another, like wounds stabbed into the empire, bleeding incessantly.

The phone rang. It was the Prime Minister's official residence.

"Minister Yamamoto, please come to the Prime Minister's official residence immediately. It's an emergency meeting; the Minister of the Army, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Finance are all present."

"issue?"

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone: "News has spread that the Kasuga Maru has been sunk, and the public is panicking. The army is demanding 'decisive measures.' The Prime Minister requests that you attend."

Yamamoto hung up the phone. He knew what "decisive measures" meant—either the navy would launch an attack, or the army would force him to surrender.

Both paths lead to certain death. But he has to choose one.

He stood up and straightened his military uniform. In the mirror, he was sixty-two years old, with completely white hair and deep eye bags, but his gaze remained firm.

"At least," he said to himself in the mirror, "to die like a First Lord of the Navy."

He picked up his military cap, put it on, and walked out of the office.

The corridor was empty, save for the echoing sound of his footsteps. Like the drumbeats of a funeral procession, for the Imperial Navy, and for himself.

The Prime Minister's official residence conference room, 10:30 a.m.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was even worse than yesterday. Okaichinosuke's face was so dark it could drip water, Finance Minister Wakatsuki Reijiro was deathly pale, and Foreign Minister Kato Takaaki kept wiping away sweat. Only Terauchi Masatake maintained a facade of calm, but his hand under the table was trembling slightly.

When Yamamoto Gonbei pushed open the door, all eyes were on him. Those eyes held expectation, hostility, despair, and... a faint glimmer of hope.

"Minister Yamamoto, please have a seat," Terauchi said. "We are discussing countermeasures against the blockade of Lanfang. The army has some suggestions."

Okaichi immediately chimed in, "This isn't a suggestion, it's a demand! The navy must launch an immediate attack to break Lanfang's blockade! Otherwise, the morale of the people will collapse, the economy will collapse, and the empire will collapse!"

"A sortie?" Yamamoto sat down calmly. "With what? The Katori? That old ship launched in 1906? Or the Mikasa? That antique that fought in the Russo-Japanese War and should be in a museum now?"

"No matter what we use! We must attack!" Okaichi roared. "Let the whole world see that the Imperial Navy still has courage! Still has the will to fight! Otherwise, what's the difference between us and lambs to the slaughter?"

"The difference is," Yamamoto said coldly, "that sheep waiting to be slaughtered won't willingly run into the blade. The only result of the attack is to send our last few ships to the bottom of the sea, making it easier for the Lanfang people to blockade our sea transport lines."

"Are we just going to sit here and wait to die?!" Okaichi slammed his fist on the table and stood up. "One merchant ship sinks today, another tomorrow! Do you know how much cargo is piled up in the port and can't be shipped out? Do you know that factories have started to shut down because of raw material shortages? Do you know how much the price of rice in Tokyo has increased today?!"

"I know," Yamamoto's voice remained calm, "but launching an attack will only make things worse. If we use up our last naval forces, Lanfang's warships can sail into Tokyo Bay with impunity and bombard Tokyo directly. At that point, the losses will not only be merchant ships and ports."

"You're threatening me!" Okaichinosuke pointed at Yamamoto's nose. "You're a coward! A traitor!"

"Minister Okaichi!" Terauchi finally couldn't hold back any longer. "Watch your words!"

"My words?" Okaichi sneered. "Prime Minister, are you aware of the sentiments within the Army right now? They're saying that if the Navy doesn't dare to fight, then the Army should command the Navy! They're saying that all those cowardly Navy officers should be replaced with those who dare to fight!"

"The army commanding the navy?" Yamamoto laughed, a laugh full of sarcasm. "Minister Okaichi, do you know how to sail a ship? Do you know how to calculate artillery parameters? Do you know how to command a fleet in battle?"

"I don't need to know! I just need to know that soldiers should fight, not hide in the harbor and wait to die!"

"And then take everyone down with you?" Yamamoto stood up and walked to the map. "Fine, since the army is so courageous, I'll ask a few specific questions. First, if we launch an attack, where will our target be? Lanfang's four battleships are scattered in the waters between Kyushu and Honshu. Which one will we attack?"

"Of course, we'll attack them all!"

"How can we attack? Our warships are slow and our cannons have a short range. How can we simultaneously attack four dispersed targets?"

"Concentrate our forces and defeat them one by one!"

"Concentrate our forces?" Yamamoto turned to Okaichinosuke. "We only have three capital ships at our disposal right now—Katori, Kashima, and Aki. Lanfang has four Bismarck-class destroyers. Even if we concentrate all our forces, we can only take on one. What about the other three? Will they just stand by and watch us fight their comrades?"

Okaichi was speechless.

"Second," Yamamoto continued, "even if we miraculously sink a Lanfang battleship, what will the cost be? Can our three aging battleships withstand the bombardment of a Bismarck-class? The Kongo-class, with armor twice as thick as ours, was completely destroyed within an hour. How long can our ships hold out? Half an hour? Twenty minutes?"

There was silence in the conference room.

"Third, and most importantly," Yamamoto's voice lowered, but every word struck like a hammer blow to everyone's hearts, "Even if we win, even if we sink four Lanfang battleships, then what? Lanfang still has two Hood-class battleships in Borneo and four Bismarck-class battleships under construction in Dubai. They can rebuild; they have oil, steel, and money. And what about us? After losing these last three ships, what do we have left?"

He looked around at the people present: "We have nothing left. No navy, no sea lanes, no future. At that time, Lanfang won't even need to send warships anymore; they can just continue the blockade and wait for us to starve, freeze, and die of poverty."