1932: Playing with the Japanese Communist Party with a doll

Once the navy starts building ships like crazy, the resources it consumes will definitely be countless times that of the army. The army's dissatisfaction can be imagined, and the fighting between the two sides will definitely become more intense.

This would allow those who fan the flames to stir up trouble. Third, it would force the navy to more quickly transfer "outdated" ships and production capacity. The emergence of the (new) "Yukikaze" (improved version) would inevitably render a considerable portion of the Japanese Navy's technology and warships obsolete.

Given Japan's "impoverished imperialism," these things certainly couldn't just be thrown away, so they had to find a way to move them out quickly.

Who to transfer to?

Currently, there is only one company that is willing and able to purchase those "outdated ships and technologies":

Manchukuo.

Japan's backward technology was still advanced for Manchukuo; and even more so for the CCP hiding in Manchukuo—they didn't even have a navy!

Wouldn't it be great if we could use Japanese resources to train the CCP?

As for money?

Well...it seems that the only way is to kill more communists, consume more ammunition, issue more notes, and ask for more military funds from Hirohito.

So, go ahead, Yukikaze!

All 309 Buddha statues are moved to the Northeast

Having received clear instructions and not daring to waste any more time, Nobuhito bid farewell to Fujiwara no Kanezane and hurried back to Tokyo to find Prince Fushimi Hiroyoshi, the head of the Naval General Staff.

Then, they summoned a group of senior naval officers including Osumi Motoo as members of the royal family and took out the design drawings sent by Fujiwara no Kanezane.

Sure enough, after learning the whole story, the naval officers also took it very seriously and called in technical officers and shipwrights to study it carefully.

After a short while, everyone came to the conclusion: "...There really are capable people in the United States..."

After reading part of the content, Colonel Isoroku Yamamoto, a famous naval technical bureaucrat and currently serving as the director of the Technical Department of the Naval Aviation Headquarters, sighed.

"Yamamoto-kun, you studied abroad at Harvard University in the United States. What do you think the value of this blueprint is..."

"Worth a thousand gold!"

Facing a group of high-ranking naval officers, Yamamoto Isoroku wrote and drew with his right hand while holding up his left hand, which only had three fingers left, and commented without hesitation:

"Although I haven't finished watching it yet, I can confirm that not only have we obtained a brand new destroyer and advanced technology, but also that the huge problems existing in the construction of the Imperial Navy ships have been pointed out!"

According to the American assessment, due to the excessive pursuit of speed, firepower, and innovation, Japanese ships, especially destroyers and frigates, generally had a high center of gravity and unstable hulls.

It's easy to capsize even in training, let alone actual combat. Is this true?

Without a doubt, it is the fact!

As we all know, the Washington Naval Treaty limited the total tonnage of Japan's naval battleships to only two-thirds of that of the United States and Britain. This was regarded as a national humiliation by all of Japan and caused tremendous anger.

In order to appease public anger and avoid being punished like some high-ranking officials, the Japanese Navy began to try every possible way to exploit loopholes in the treaty, and then discovered that the treaty did not limit the total tonnage and total number of destroyers;

Therefore, they decided to vigorously develop destroyers as the main force, requiring them to be equipped with large-caliber guns and heavy torpedoes, add boilers to increase speed, and adjust the design to optimize seaworthiness...

In addition, considering many factors such as "saving oil and steel resources" and "making a big profit with a small investment", the final result is:

The big cart drives...the big horse pulls the small cart.

Installing a high-horsepower engine on a small car on land can easily cause the car to "fly" out. The dangers of having a top-heavy ship on a rough sea can be imagined.

"Flying" out is still good, at least you can be praised for "running fast";

A worse scenario is that it plunges into the sea and sinks to the bottom, or is directly smashed by the waves because of the mismatch between speed and structural strength.

In addition, the drawings we have seen also point out two other major problems that Yamamoto Isoroku and many other officers believed had always existed and been exposed in the development of the navy, but had never received the attention of the top leaders:

1. The entire Japanese Navy lacked sufficient research on marine meteorology, especially in the Pacific region. There were not enough meteorological observation stations and observation ships to obtain valuable ocean current data.

2. The new ships make extensive use of electric welding, but the welding technology is not up to standard, resulting in the hull design having insufficient redundant strength to cope with the winds and waves of the Pacific Ocean, and it is easily torn apart by the waves.

Yamamoto knew these problems, but what he didn't know was:

Whether it was the "Fern" that was sunk in the "Meihoguan Incident" in 1927, or the "Haya Fern" that was easily capsized by small waves;

The subsequent "Tomozuru Incident" and "Fourth Fleet Incident" that caused more than a thousand casualties to the Japanese Navy exposed these problems extremely clearly, and at a tragic cost, the Japanese Navy learned to improve.

The drawings provided by Fujiwara Kanezane not only clearly pointed out these problems, but also redesigned and improved them, ultimately creating this nearly perfect new destroyer - the "Yukikaze"!

In short, even before he finished reading the contents of these drawings (there were too many to read), Yamamoto Isoroku was already extremely happy and horrified at the same time, and he was even more determined not to go to war with the United States easily!

How could an enemy that had already researched the Japanese Navy to such an extent that it could even arbitrarily improve problems that the Japanese Navy itself had not yet discovered and improved be the "easily defeated opponent" that some radicals claimed?

If we were to fight, we had to do it in one battle, destroying the main American naval force at once, completely breaking their morale, and forcing them to believe that going to war was not worth the cost and choose peace talks;

Otherwise, once the enemy's massive industrial machinery is fully operational, weak Japan will have absolutely no hope of winning!

I'll wear you out too!

Fortunately, we also have His Majesty Hachiman-no-Miya, who obtained such valuable and complete intelligence early on, allowing the navy to prepare early and correct past mistakes.

Our navy, or at least I personally, owe His Highness another big favor... It seems like it's time to take some time off to visit His Highness, right?

Maybe I can get more from him?

For example, let me ask Your Highness what you think about the future of aircraft carriers.

If His Majesty really is...

Isoroku Yamamoto secretly made a certain decision.

In short, the information brought by Fujiwara no Kanezane caused a meeting of senior naval officers to last for a full 10 days. In the end, with the support of Yamamoto Isoroku and others, they passed the following resolution:

1. Immediately request His Majesty the Emperor's approval to build the

Build the "Snow Wind" and conduct a comprehensive technical verification of this batch of data, and rearrange the production plan;

2. Immediately begin phasing out the defective "Hayabi", "Tomozuru", "Tsoukumo", "Mutsuki", "Yugiri" and other "big and small carriages" that have been built, are under construction or are planned to be built, and sell them all to Manchukuo;

3. Immediately begin comprehensive improvements on existing ships that are not currently planned to be eliminated or cannot be eliminated, in accordance with the problems and solutions provided in the drawings.

4. The top brass immediately sent someone to visit His Royal Highness Prince Kanezane, hoping that he could use his connections and intelligence network in the United States to obtain more valuable naval intelligence;

5. Immediately...

It's hard to say how much of the decision-making process of the naval high command was due to the importance attached to the Yukikaze, but it was definitely due to the importance attached to Prince Kanezane.

Who knows, is this the future emperor?

If this is true, the navy will face great "danger";

Because, this person's first foundation is with the "Army Idiot"... In short, the navy started another round of big moves, with constant clamor from top to bottom, overshadowing the army that was being purged by Hirohito.

At the same time, Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito, who was commissioned by Fujiwara no Kanezane and also wanted to make a difference, began to contact those "Imperial Navy talents" according to the names previously recorded.

The first person to be contacted was naturally his "senior big Buddha" - Kudo Shunsaku.

"...Prince Kanezane specifically sought me out?"

An extremely tall and sturdy man wearing round glasses, who looked a bit ferocious yet inexplicably honest, pointed at his nose in disbelief and looked down at Xuanren, who was much shorter than him.

"Your Highness Xuanren, although I was wrong to get you drunk and ask you to pay, please don't make fun of me. I'm just a lieutenant, and I've never had any contact with that prince. How could I possibly ask him to condescend to me?"

Kudo Shunsaku naturally knew the name of Fujiwara no Kanezane, one of the top royal family members in Japan;

But he was just a mine captain on the tiny destroyer "Peach", and the distance between him and His Highness was too great.

Not to mention him, it is no exaggeration to say that even the captain of "Tao" is probably not qualified to speak directly to the other party.

In fact, let alone the extremely honorable Prince Kanezane, even the honorable Prince Nobuhito actually remembered a nobody like him. Kudo Shunsaku himself, who came from a poor family, found it hard to believe.

(From a poor background, meaning that the village was so poor that they couldn't afford to eat, so they had to pack up all the young women in the village and sell them to brothels in exchange for food... By the way, this is the norm for Japanese farmers)

Even though he had stopped countless bullying incidents at school and even though he had rescued Nobuhito on the "Nagato", he knew only too well what a noble person like Nobuhito looked like.

(Nobuhito's legs had always been bad, and two days before Emperor Taisho inspected the Nagato, he happened to break his leg again and was forced to wear a bandage;)

(If I go to see Taisho like this, I might get whipped by that psychopath who has no idea what's going on in his head (remember how Taisho liked to whip the military band members in white clothes into zebras with a whip soaked in black oil?))

(So, Kudo Shunsaku lent his oversized boots to Nobuhito (some say he lent them on his own initiative) to hide his bandaged leg from Emperor Taisho. Afterwards, Nobuhito treated Kudo to a drink and the two of them got drunk.)

"Kudo-senpai, do you think I would joke about something like this? I'm really here at the request of Prince Kanezane. He wants you to be transferred to Manchuria, China, to help train the Manchukuo navy."

Kudo Shunsaku was silent for a few seconds, then asked softly: "Your Highness, is this an order?"

"No, this is not an order, it's just an invitation." Xuanren shook his head:

"Lord Kanezane said he doesn't force anyone, everything is voluntary... Oh, and there's one more thing I can tell you. The 'Peach' you're on will probably be ordered to be decommissioned soon and sold to Manchukuo."

According to the preliminary resolution of the naval meeting, not only the "Tao" destroyer would be sold, but all the "Tao" type destroyers including "Yakura", "Hinoki" and "Yanagaki" and the earlier "Birch" type destroyers were estimated to be sold to Manchukuo.

After all, these destroyers have not only been in service for some time, but according to the information, most of them have some design flaws. "It's just right to sell them to Manchukuo for recycling and to earn some military funds to build new ships.

Anyway, the Japanese Navy felt that they had made a profit, and Fujiwara Kanezane felt that Manchukuo and the Chinese Communist Party also made a profit.

win win win!

"..."

Kudo Shunsaku still didn't say anything, and no one knew what he was thinking.

Seeing this, Xuanren was neither anxious nor annoyed, and put out the lines that Fujiwara no Kanezane had prepared:

"Kudo-senpai, His Majesty-sama has asked me to ask you a question." "...Please go ahead."

"He asked me to ask you, in your eyes, what is a samurai? What is the samurai spirit?"

"..."

Kudo Shunsaku narrowed his eyes.

This question is both easy to answer and difficult to answer.

The answer is easy, because under the teachings of his grandfather and father, and in his own life over the years, Kudo himself has long understood the answer in his heart, and firmly believes in it;

It's hard to answer because after so many years of military service, Kudo knows very well that the Japanese army, at least the Japanese navy, is definitely not an army that believes in this kind of spirit.

He insisted on his beliefs, but not only did he not receive much support, he was ridiculed as "a man of such a big stature but without any backbone." Even some of the people he had protected thought so.

So, what does it mean that His Highness Kanezane, who is known within the navy as being extremely belligerent and aggressive, specifically sent His Highness Nobuhito to ask me this?

Despite his doubts, Kudo Shunsaku decided to answer truthfully. After all, this was his lifelong belief, and no one could shake it.

"A true samurai must fight violence and punish injustice. He must never bully the weak or humiliate women or children... The true way of the samurai is the spirit displayed by such a samurai..."

After listening to Kudo Shunsaku's answer, Nobuhito was deeply moved and nodded in agreement:

"Kanezane-dono guessed you would say that, and he gave an answer very similar to yours."

"Ah?"

This... This is not the same as the legend...

"...So he asked me to tell you that he wants you to go to Manchukuo and help him build a navy that believes in true Bushido."

“Help…him…build?”

"That's right. As long as you agree to go there, you can directly take the captaincy of the destroyer 'Peach' and build a new navy according to your ideas and beliefs, a navy without spiritual injection rods and where everyone is fair!"

"Didn't we learn that in Naval Academy? Become a gentleman first, then a sailor."

"His Highness Kanezane told me to tell you that it's time to put all this into practice!"

"..."

This time, Mr. Dafo was finally moved. His Highness actually thought this way?

He not only recognized my ideas, but also wanted me to carry them forward.

They even sent a distinguished prince to invite me personally??

Kudo Shunsaku is also a human being and has received traditional Chinese cultural education. Naturally, he would be moved by "respecting the wise and humble".

What's more, the one who "respected" him was someone who recognized his ideals. No one would be so shameless as to refuse to accept the favor.

Kudo Shunsaku no longer hesitated and bowed deeply:

"Hi! Your Highness! Please tell Lord Kanezane! I accept his invitation! And I will obey his orders!"

"it is good!"

The first person was easily dealt with, and Xuanren was very happy:

"Then just wait patiently, I'll contact the others right away." "Oh? And...who else..."

"besides...""

Come, take the destroyer "Tornado" to salvage 422 British sailors who fell into the water,

Kudo Shunsaku, who always treats his colleagues and ceasefire enemies with kindness;