Chapter 878: Japan's Grand Strategy

The operational plan to strike south all the way to the Middle East, “liberate” India and all of Southeast Asia, completely occupy Australia, and drive the United States back to its homeland was utterly shattered after the disastrous defeat in the Battle of Imphal.

The great figures in the Great Japanese Empire’s Imperial General Headquarters, finally like sleepwalkers awakened, saw clearly the gap between themselves and the Western powers in strategic deployment and campaign execution. The experience of dominating Asia with a slight advantage was no longer applicable. The powerful Japanese Navy was trapped in the waters of the Solomon Islands, unable to advance or retreat.

Here, it’s worth explaining what the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters really was. In fact, this so-called “Daihonei” was mainly managed in its day-to-day guidance by the Chief of the Army General Staff, the Vice Chief of the Army General Staff, and the Chief of the Navy General Staff. The Ministers of the Army and Navy of the Great Japanese Empire were nominally the heads of the Daihonei, but in reality, the actual work was handled by their chiefs of staff, army staff, and naval staff. Below them were the Aide-de-camp, the Military Affairs Bureau, the Inspectorate General of Military Training, the Transportation and Communications Department, the Field Supervision Department, the Field Sanitation Department, and the Administration Department. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, a staff office and an intelligence headquarters were added.

Such a comprehensively configured institution should, by rights, be at least on the same level as the German High Command, right? But Japan just happened to lack a figure like Akado who could make all the generals bow their heads in submission. And so this Daihonei had become a place for the Army and Navy to bicker.

As a member of the Daihonei’s army generals, General Sugiyama Hajime’s mood had been very bad recently. As the Army Minister, he was in a difficult position because of the 15th Army’s disastrous defeat in Burma. His Majesty the Emperor had already summoned him several times, and each inquiry had made him feel as if he were sitting on pins and needles.

One hundred thousand elite Japanese troops, in the process of advancing south, had been inexplicably defeated, and defeated very ugly, a truly tragic sight. To be beaten back by the British was one thing; after all, the British army had always been a world-class force, and to lose to them was not particularly disgraceful. But to be defeated by the Chinese Expeditionary Force—what was that all about?

That Chinese Expeditionary Force, weren’t they just a bunch of small fry who had been doing odd jobs for the British on the flank? When the 15th Army was at the height of its power, they hadn’t even thought of taking this Chinese force seriously, thinking that after finishing off Imphal, they would just gobble them up as an afterthought.

But things had not gone as planned. The Battle of Imphal had ended in a complete collapse for the Japanese army. And the fact that was most unbearable for the Japanese was that in the final stage of the campaign, that Chinese Expeditionary Force, which they had previously looked down on, had delivered the most fatal blow to the Japanese army at the most critical time and in the most critical place.

Fifteen thousand men! The losses alone were as high as fifteen thousand, not to mention the fact that because of the Chinese interception, the Japanese army’s original marching plan had been disrupted, leading to troops starving to death or getting lost. In any case, the Japanese army only had a rough estimate, which was that of the one hundred thousand Japanese troops who had set out, minus the twenty thousand or so who had managed to escape back, the result was that nearly eighty thousand had been killed in action.

Comparing this with the feeling of heartache that had permeated the German army from top to bottom when they had lost ten thousand men at Stalingrad, one could appreciate General Sugiyama’s current grief and indignation. He wished he could gather his forces right now and fight a decisive battle with the cunning Chinese army, but his plans had been completely rejected, and the idea of a full-scale war in China to completely crush them had ultimately come to nothing.

If they could have crushed China once and for all, turning it into an obedient vassal state or a colony, then the Japanese would not have had to launch a long and arduous expedition to some damn Southeast Asia to open a second front. Only now did the Japanese high command remember this fact—it was because they were bogged down on the Chinese front that they had, in a fit of pique, gone looking for trouble with the United States.

Now, a quarter of the Japanese army was bogged down in Southeast Asia and could not be extricated. A quarter was bogged down on the main front in China and could not be extricated. A quarter was bogged down in the Pacific theater and could not be extricated. In any case, the options available to the Japanese Army now were really not many.

The only force that could be considered a mobile field force was the Kwantung Army in northeastern China, whose elite had been mostly drawn off. This force was now entrenched in northern China. Because it was in a standoff with the Soviet army and had not gone to war, the military pressure was relatively light.

To sit and wait for death, or to be a quiet pretty boy, was clearly not in the character of the army bigwig Sugiyama. This was not to say that his big, round face was far from that of a pretty boy, but that he had been silent recently, enduring the cold taunts of the Navy Minister. The main reason was that he was looking for an opportunity to revitalize the Great Japanese Army.

“Your Excellency, General! Your Excellency, General!” Ueno, a young man in the office, rushed into Sugiyama’s office, so flustered that he had forgotten the decorum he was supposed to maintain.

Sugiyama frowned, somewhat displeased with his subordinate’s rash behavior. He spoke in a cold, admonishing tone, “Bakayaro! What are you panicking about? A soldier of the Great Japanese Empire must have the composure to remain calm in the face of danger!”

“General! Top-secret intelligence just came back from Vladivostok! General Yamashita says this is the army’s last chance to wipe away its shame,” Ueno said. Although his rank in the Daihonei was only that of a Lieutenant Colonel, which meant he wasn’t even a lackey, he was a trusted aide of Sugiyama and had dealings with some of the high-ranking army generals. His status was not much inferior to that of a Colonel at the front.

Sugiyama took the intelligence report from the Far Eastern border region and, after reading it carefully, felt his pores open up. This was a very good opportunity. At least on the surface, this was one of the few chances for the army to make a comeback.

Japanese spies, while operating secretly in the Far East, had luckily discovered and killed a spy from Germany. This was originally just an ordinary little incident in the endless spy wars, but it had provided the Japanese army with a huge amount of important intelligence.

This killed German spy had a whole roll of microfilm on him, which densely recorded all the key military points of the Soviet army in the Far East. This intelligence was very important for the German army, but for Japan, it was even more attractive.

The intelligence showed that the Soviet army, in order to cope with the German army’s frantic offensive at Stalingrad, had once again transferred 30 divisions from the Far East to the west. Including the troops that had been transferred before, the main force of the Soviet army in the Far East had been completely drawn off, leaving only a meager 700,000 men.

To corroborate this troop movement, a German spy in Chelyabinsk had verified the Soviet army’s material movements and train schedules, confirming the authenticity of this transfer.

In addition, a huge amount of American aid to the Soviet Union was piled up on the east coast of the Soviet Union. Among them, just the strategic material of oil, which the Japanese army desperately needed, was a full 1 million tons. If one included the machine tool equipment that Japan was very interested in, the technical workers, the countless amounts of steel and rare metal reserves, as well as the ammunition, weapons, and heavy armored vehicles—that place was simply a great treasure trove.

“If Heaven gives it to me, I must take it!” This was the sentence that now filled Sugiyama’s mind. He felt that as long as the army could seize the eastern region of the Soviet Union, then all of the Japanese army’s difficulties would be solved. The supplies there would be enough for Japan to continue the war for another three years!

The matter of getting rich overnight was something Japan had experienced too many times. The whole country had fought a do-or-die battle and had wiped out the Qing Dynasty’s Beiyang Fleet, becoming the strongest in Asia overnight. They had flirted with Britain and had defeated Tsarist Russia in one go, becoming a world power overnight. And now, to take another strategic risk, this was clearly a moment to witness a miracle again!

This country, Japan, from top to bottom, the experience they remembered most was to win every gamble. With such a brilliant past, then this time, to push all their chips in for a dashing all-in was simply a matter of course, wasn’t it?

“The Soviets have transferred 60 divisions of their Far Eastern forces? This matter, our intelligence department, why did they not know?” Sugiyama asked, squinting his eyes and looking at Ueno, who was standing to one side, not daring to make a sound.

“Your Excellency, General, because of the racial issue, it is almost impossible for us to infiltrate the Soviet army,” Ueno said, defending his colleagues in the intelligence department. “And it’s not that we are completely unaware of the Soviet troop movements. After repeated confirmation, we have already detected that the designations of 19 Soviet divisions have disappeared from the northeastern region.”

“Sō ka… the part we have already proven is a third… in that case, this intelligence from the German spy is entirely possible to be true? It’s worth thinking about… it’s worth considering carefully,” Sugiyama said, stroking his bare chin, as if talking to himself.

Since that idiot Mutaguchi had not completed the plan to take Imphal and eat the British army’s strategic supplies, then to go north to the Soviet Union, to take the Soviet Union’s supply bases, and to eat Stalin’s supplies was not something that couldn’t be considered.

Now, what made Sugiyama and Tojo Hideki hesitate to act was only that unforgettable Battle of Nomonhan. Who could guarantee that this time the Soviet Union would not produce a second Zhukov, to use a resounding victory to sound the death knell for the Japanese army?

“This time, we cannot make the same mistake of underestimating the enemy! We must concentrate our forces! We must prepare at least 400,000 soldiers, using seventy percent of the forces in Manchuria, for this risky offensive operational plan,” Sugiyama said, trying to persuade Tojo Hideki at a meeting of the Daihonei. “Even if it benefits the Germans, we must eat this batch of supplies, to save the fate of the Empire, to save His Majesty the Emperor. Only the army of the Great Japanese Empire can do it!”

“Yoshi!” Tojo Hideki nodded, a murderous look in his eyes.

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