Yes, Prime Minister of Japan

Therefore, Nobuyuki Baba first went to arrest Hiroshi Shinkawa, the Vice-Minister of Finance in charge of money.

Several increasingly violent leaders began to interrogate the suspects:

"Give me the money!"

The Ministry of Finance, of course, refused, leaving Hiroshi Shinkawa sweating profusely.

You haven't explained clearly what your attributes are yet.

If it was a coup d'état or treason, then we can give it to them, since we were forced by the thieves.

If they're really here to get revenge on Li Xinghe, then what the hell are we supposed to do with them?

As a result, Hiroshi Shinkawa was severely beaten and detained in the Diet, preventing him from leaving.

Li Xinghe would absolutely not give Shinkawa Hiroshi a chance to board the ship, and most of the administrative vice-officials in the departments had not received any notice to board the ship. They either drove out of Tokyo on their own or were still working in their departments.

Many provincial vice-ministers were arrested by Nobuyuki Baba's men and ordered to return to work.

On the streets, more and more ordinary soldiers of the Reform Army discovered that as long as they carried a gun, they could eat for free, buy things for free, and even patronize prostitutes for free.

Wouldn't that be incredibly awesome?

So that very night, Kabukicho in Shinjuku suffered an epic defeat. More than 700 poor street urchins from the Meiji Restoration Army robbed people of their loot without paying and even opened fire indiscriminately, infuriating the people of Kabukicho.

Upon learning of this situation, Yajima Hiroshi finally understood why Li Xinghe wanted her to expand rapidly and launch a major offensive.

The Japanese government has completely lost face, how can it not launch a major attack?

Red Halberd Society, move out!

The following morning, the Red Halberd Society launched the "Operation Protect the Agreement," carrying out a large-scale cleanup of the Restoration Army in the underground districts under their control. They then began openly attacking and occupying government facilities such as ward offices, hanging red flags in government offices, and announcing the establishment of grassroots government.

Gunshots!

"The Communists are here!"

A cacophony of noises filled the city. The Restoration Army, having only enjoyed a day of free food and loot, was gradually driven out of popular urban areas like Shinjuku and Shibuya, and forced to return to Nagata-cho.

On this day, red flags were raised in the streets and alleys of Tokyo, and the control of the red regime expanded significantly.

Organizations such as the Central Nuclear Faction, the Revolutionary Labor Association, and the Revolutionary Commonwealth also began mobilizing grassroots neighborhoods, carrying guns, cannons, and bombs to organize the operation of grassroots society and drive away various robbers and criminals.

The people of Tokyo were suddenly all dyed red.

The biggest problem is that you don't know how many people are actually members of the Communist Party in secret. During the global revolutionary wave of the 70s, almost all of the young elites had raised the red flag of "rebellion is justified" and confronted the Japanese government.

Most of these people later returned to their normal lives; some ran for parliament, some became company presidents, and some became bureaucrats, seemingly having little to do with the revolution. However, the secret list of Communist Party members that the Japanese Communist Party had been hiding all along, and the reality that left-wing movements were easily triggered in various places, fully demonstrate that the underlying sentiment of many people was still stuck in the day of "Long live Chairman Mao."

While the Communist Party in Tokyo is fluctuating, the Liberal Democratic Party remains as stable as a mountain, showing no signs of weakness.

Even the Japanese were dumbfounded.

The general public still has a limited understanding of politics, and they are even more afraid that their everyday world will suddenly shatter like broken glass.

Where did all these ghostly Communists come from? Do they usually hide among me? Holy crap, am I living with hidden Communists every day? Are all ordinary people secretly pro-CCP and pro-China, and I'm the only one who's truly naive?

What is the Liberal Democratic Party doing?

How did the rebels suddenly occupy the National Assembly while the Communist Party defended the country?

Your Liberal Democratic Party, along with the Emperor's family and right-wing lawmakers, ran to a ship at a US military base to hide. Have you no shame?

This is also a form of political maneuvering.

Vance and Tulsi Gabbard directed the CIA to conduct a limited color revolution in Japan, in which case Shigeru Ishiba and the Liberal Democratic Party unleashed various factions of the Japanese Communist Party and communist movement's violent groups to retaliate. This, in turn, became leverage to blackmail the United States: if you push us any further, we'll let the Communist Party come to power.

On the Ryujo.

Hua Yingmei and Li Xinghe shared a room. She was sitting at her vanity, helping Nagumo Asuka, who knew nothing about makeup, to apply her eyebrows, when she overheard Li Xinghe complaining:

"Let the Communist Party take over the positions... The Liberal Democratic Party is really good at political infighting."

Hua Yingmei smiled humorously.

"Anyway, it's the Liberal Democratic Party that's losing face."

Li Xinghe, on the other hand, appeared to be concerned about the country and its people.

"But it's the foundation of the entire party that's at risk."

This is perhaps the most shameful thing about these powerful figures. As a long-ruling right-wing party, the Liberal Democratic Party, from the time of Shigeru Yoshida to the present, has somehow managed to turn itself into a minority party in parliament, thanks to these seemingly clever but self-serving individuals who prioritize their own interests and undermine the party's efforts.

Soon, Misaki Nagumo delivered new urban intelligence:

"The Restoration Army arrested many vice-ministers, including Hiroshi Shinkawa, and demanded that they plunder the treasury to give them money. Shinkawa was severely beaten before he paid. Now they have started causing trouble and looting in the city and are trying to seize the properties of wealthy people in the port area."

This is just the beginning. The money given by Hiroshi Shinkawa will only satisfy them temporarily. When the rioting poor realize that they can seize more with their guns, they will storm the Bank of Japan, seize real estate in the port area, and take everything they could not obtain before.

At this time, a hero is needed to step forward and save the people.

Li Xinghe straightened his clothes and stood up:

"Now, it's my turn to go on stage."

The author says:

Author's Note: Thank you all for your support. Here's 4600 words. A touch of dark humor.

Chapter 651: The Great Theft of the Nation, Koizumi's Daughter's Marriage (4600 words)

"Director Jian, it's getting dark."

When Li Xinghe left the room, he received a hint from his North Korean subordinates.

The entire ship was covered in Li Xinghe's spies; this meant that many politicians and bureaucrats were secretly operating at night.

"Give this note to former Prime Minister Koizumi."

Li Xinghe casually handed over the note, then went outside to light a cigarette. He didn't smoke it, just silently waited for it to burn out, making a show of it for everyone else before returning to his room. He looked like an unlucky husband who had been kicked out to smoke by his wife.

He threw the cigarette butt into the sea and then used his mobile phone to confirm that Police Section 9 and his family were all safe and sound at their home in Jixiangji before returning to his room.

The Nagumo sisters behaved like concubines, behaving very obediently in front of Hua Yingmei. After all, she was the daughter of a former prime minister and a minor leader in parliament.

Seeing Li Xinghe enter, Hua Yingmei, who was pinching Nagumo Misaki's hidden large breasts, casually asked:

"Why are you back again?"

Li Xinghe sat down and pondered:

"We need to keep accounts. If I personally take action to eliminate the thieves, how much benefit will I gain? If I support Koizumi's return to the Cabinet Office, how much benefit will I gain?"

"You were just mocking the Liberal Democratic Party's lawmakers for only protecting themselves, and now you're saying the exact same thing. You're such a scoundrel."

Hua Yingmei smiled radiantly, actually delighted by the messy things that Vance was doing to blackmail Shigeru Ishiba, that Ishiba was allowing the Communist Party to grow stronger and blackmail Vance, and that Li Xinghe was using his command of the troops to blackmail Vance and Shigeru Ishiba.

This is normal political thinking.

A normal, capable, and enterprising politician must demonstrate this kind of shamelessness to prove they have the ability to enter the political arena.

Hua Yingmei signs an execution order for one death row inmate a day. When she took office, she executed 100, and now she executes one a day. To the public, she's seen as an incredibly brave and impartial female daimyo, but to the vast majority of Japanese legal scholars, she's a populist version of a female Trump, a mad executioner, and a public enemy of the judiciary. It's shameful that the Jian and Mizukage families would cooperate with such a populist woman.

But she still manages to leisurely visit Mikasa and Chiyo every day, casually appearing as their daughter-in-law, regardless of their age difference of only a few years, and ignoring the hostility from the entire Ministry of Justice and the legal community. This is the life of a politician.

This is why she held the top lawyer, the fake Xianzi, in higher regard than Shui Jingtianping. However, while the fake Xianzi was shameless and unscrupulous, she lacked the unwavering resolve expected of a politician, and thus her determination was not as firm as Shui Jingtianping's, ultimately turning her into a subservient figure who groveled before Shui Jingtianping.

.

She offered Li Xinghe guidance on political principles:

"Most importantly, who will help you?"

This is perhaps the reason why Li Xinghe has been living so carefree, always hiding behind different people to steal the fruits of victory, but no matter how much he avoids it, he must face this problem.

Previously, Li Xinghe had always been a fence-sitter, sitting on six walls—China, the US, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Russia—without ever breaking free.

He spun around in the middle, dancing like a top to earn money and build up his workforce.

But from today onwards, things will be different.

Li Xinghe wants to overturn Japan's political order, to overthrow the so-called 'democratic rules' of the past decades in one fell swoop, and to push Koizumi to become the first dictator who violates the bad rules. So, the problem comes back to its origin.

Whom do you rely on to rise to power?

Without sufficient support from a population with financial resources and connections, such a dictatorial regime is unlikely to survive.

Li Xinghe asked Hua Yingmei to explain to him:

"Please speak."

Hua Yingmei knelt on the bed in front of Li Xinghe and said solemnly:

"Among Japanese parliamentarians, there are the so-called 'Big Three': agriculture and forestry, industry and commerce, and construction. There are also other departments, such as defense, diplomacy, education, labor, and police. A few, like Okinawans, are members of specific ethnic groups, and there are also Shinto members. But if you're from the Shinto group, the Shintoist Federation probably won't like you very much, after all, you... have half Chinese ancestry."

Ethnic minority politicians are common in Japan, emerging after Kakuei Tanaka established a new money-driven political system. They are affiliated with different government departments and specific industries. They have close ties to these industries and can communicate with their financial backers at any time. In return, these backers provide money to ensure their election victories. This is the political system of money-driven transactions.

Nowadays, with the overall functional decline of Japanese parliamentarians, their main focus is on winning votes and incidentally engaging in legal corruption to make money; they are absolutely unwilling to do anything.

But deciding which race to rely on requires careful consideration.

Hua Yingmei's guidance:

"Who we should cooperate with specifically depends on who has driven Japan's economic development over the past thirty years."

Li Xinghe countered:

Has Japan's economy developed?

Hua Yingmei's doubts:

"No?"

Li Xinghe shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.

This needs to be viewed from different perspectives.

Looking back at the bubble crisis of the 90s, it's less accurate to say that Japan fell into recession and more accurate to say that it was paying the price for the failed economic and industrial policies of the crazy 80s. It was as if it had inflated its own bubble and was now reaping the consequences of its own actions.

However, starting with Koizumi's neoliberal reforms, Japan's industry and economy entered a stagnant phase, losing their ability to develop. The answer is quite straightforward: neighboring China was rapidly catching up, and with its industrial breakthroughs, Japan's chances of climbing higher had vanished. This wasn't a problem specific to Japan, but rather a sign that the overall economic trend had reached its limit.

At the same time, Japan's international investment strategy, which is pegged to the US dollar, has also resulted in the continuous reaping of profits generated by Japanese capital by the United States, leading to economic bleeding.

However, they agree on the answer:

"The financial industry."

The only thing they could rely on was the Japanese financial industry elite.

However, if we completely abandon industry and shift from real to virtual, focusing solely on Japan's financial sector, we find that Japan has indeed developed, achieving significant progress in the financial industry, following the United States. Whether it's the use of the yen and the dollar for arbitrage or the record-breaking surges in the Tokyo stock market, Japan has cultivated a financial rent-seeking group primarily composed of wealthy financial elites in the Minato and Chuo wards, leveraging the Tokyo and New York stock markets to reap financial profits globally.

In a financial sense, Japan is both a target of exploitation by the United States and an accomplice in helping the United States exploit other countries. It is a sub-financial imperialist country that appears to be loyal to the United States but actually uses the name of the United States to continuously plunder in small ways.

Japan and the United States are like a large orc and a small goblin; the large one is ferocious, and the small one is cunning.

Li Xinghe began to ponder:

"If there's anything good about Japan's financial system, it's that at least it hasn't gotten out of control and has always been very obedient."

Since the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, when the American financial class discovered that the government would bail them out no matter what, the American financial sector went mad and out of control, even attempting to hold the government hostage, leading to a nationwide economic collapse and directly resulting in the rise of Trump.

Japan's financial sector is quite stable and obedient.

However, the problem is that, whether in the United States or Japan, the economic development shaped by the financial industry, the value generated and traded in the stock market, securities, bonds, and quantitative exchanges, is a financial game without any anchor, a kind of illusory and exaggerated false prosperity based on the rules of the game.

Only 1% of the rentier class can continuously profit from the booming financial industry.

The money received by this financial industry is plundered from the hands of the poor.

The more developed the financial system, the more capital will accumulate and concentrate solely in the hands of financial conglomerates, excluding even industrial capitalists, small business owners, and other real-economy groups. Like the big fish eating the small fish, the US eating Japan, financial conglomerates are like an ouroboros, repeatedly devouring the very tail of the snake.

However, if we disregard the people and focus only on the power of the financial class, they continue to grow stronger.

Otherwise, why does Japan keep chanting slogans like "trade-based nation," "investment-based nation," "tourism-based nation," and "technology-based nation," but rarely actually shout "finance-based nation"? Even though they have been frantically rushing in that direction all along?

The reason is that the previous so-called "nation-building" projects failed to materialize, but they did provide employment. While the financial nation-building project succeeded, the consequences were severe.

But it is precisely these crazy rentiers who are the most suitable to be won over by Li Xinghe and have him support them.

Because the financial rentier class cares least about ethnic affiliation. So what if Li Xinghe is half Chinese? There are plenty of Americans and Koreans in the financial district. Does that mean they're not allowed to enter? Many children of conglomerates marry foreigners. They actually welcome this kind of foreign bloodline, as it's a useful tool in diplomacy and trade.

Furthermore, the financial industry has no nationality; they can switch sides at any time for their own interests. Today they can be pro-American, tomorrow they can be pro-China—they can manipulate things with ease.

Having considered this, the two had already tacitly accepted the outcome.

The most suitable people to follow Li Xinghe are actually the financial class, whom he most wants to destroy and swallow whole. It's a dark kind of humor, to say the least.