Chapter 242: Land and Navy Conflict

Guangzhou, Japanese Army 23rd Army Headquarters.

Lieutenant General Jiu Jinglong, the commander, was standing by the window, looking through a telescope at the rolling thick smoke rising toward the Baiyun Airport direction. The air was filled with a sharp burnt smell, the scent of the Imperial's proud fighter aircraft turned to scrap metal.

"Baka!" he punched the window frame, and the glass let out a wail.

"Sir Commander!" a combat staff officer rushed in, a strange excitement on his face, "Good news! Our anti‑aircraft artillery units and the remaining fighter planes, near the airport, shot down three enemy aircraft! Two of them were P‑40 'War Axe', and one was a B‑25 'Mitchell' bomber!"

Jiu Jinglong was extremely angry. Was this good news?

This was simply the worst possible news.

All those land‑based combat aircraft were so easily destroyed on the ground by those American Army planes.

Until now, all Japanese Army officers believed this was done by the United States.

This was also because Jiang Anguo's flight squadron was overly arrogant, but this had already reduced the loss to the minimum; successive sorties cleared the airports around Central China, and naturally, for the other defensive zones of the Japanese Army, the 11th Army of Wuhan, A Naganuma, had already informed the surrounding Japanese Army.

This allowed the 23rd Army to make some preparations in advance.

Jiu Jinglong spun around abruptly, grabbed the staff officer's collar, "Are you sure? Did you see clearly? Is it an American plane?"

"Yes, sir! The dispatched units have already found the wreckage; it bears the mark of American land‑based aviation! Absolutely correct!"

Jiu Jinglong released his grip and staggered back two steps. Humiliation and anger intertwined on his face, but slowly a hint of sudden realization appeared.

"So that's it... so that's it!" he muttered to himself, "I told you! I told you those China trash couldn't have this capability! It's the Americans! It's the United States that did it!"

That thought, like a lifeline, gave him an outlet and an excuse. Being defeated by "China" was a humiliating disgrace. But being defeated by the world's leading industrial power, the United States, while still shameful, was at least "reasonable".

"They must have secretly built a huge air base somewhere we don't know!" Jiu Jinglong's eyes reignited with ferocity, "They want to replicate the Pearl Harbor tactics! They want to trap us in China!"

He immediately walked to the telephone and dialed Tian Junliu in Nanjing.

"Marshal! I am Jiu Jinglong! I have identified that the mastermind behind this raid is the United States! My unit shot down their aircraft; the models are indisputable! We must report to headquarters immediately! This is not a China provocation; this is a full‑scale war escalation by the United States against the Japan Imperial!"

"Nani!" Tian Junliu said, bewildered.

"Yo! This is the United States retaliating against us; our Navy won a splendid victory in the Coral Sea, sinking two United States aircraft carriers!" Tian Junliu said.

The Japanese Army and Navy were constantly at odds, and Tian Junliu did not want to be looked down upon by the Navy.

The incompatibilities were many and absurd: the Japanese Army's screws turned clockwise, while the Japanese Navy's screws turned counter‑clockwise.

Tokyo, Imperial Palace.

Emperor Yu Ren sat quietly in his study, listening as the chief attendant read telegrams arriving from the front lines, vague yet filled with ominous overtones.

"... Wuhan Airport, massive fire, no contact..."

"... Guangzhou sector, air raid encountered, heavy losses..."

"... Nanchang, lost contact..."

The emperor's face showed no expression, but the hand gripping the scroll had whitened at the knuckles from strain. He did not understand military matters, but he understood numbers. Japan's air force in China was a figure he cared deeply about. Now, within a few short hours, that figure seemed to have been wiped out by a large chunk out of thin air.

"Where did they come from?" the emperor asked softly, his voice trembling faintly.

The chief attendant lowered his head, unwilling to answer.

At that moment, a staff officer from the Navy General Staff, after receiving permission, presented a freshly decoded urgent telegram from Lieutenant General Jiu Jinglong in Guangzhou.

When the emperor heard the words "United States aircraft" and "secret base," his tightly knit brows finally relaxed a bit.

It was the United States.

That answer gave his chaotic thoughts a comprehensible logic. Japan was locked in a life‑or‑death struggle with the United States in the Pacific, and it was entirely possible that the United States was opening a new aerial battlefield in China.

Although this meant the war would become even more brutal, at least it was not the rise of the "China" he had always despised.

"Deliver my orders," the emperor's voice returned to calm, yet with a cold resolve.

"First, convey my orders to Marshal Tian Junliu, the commander‑in‑chief dispatched to China, and ensure he remains composed, stabilizes the front, and determines the location of the enemy's secret base."

"Second, order the Combined Fleet, at any cost, to search for and destroy the United States' aircraft carrier formations in the Pacific, cutting off their support to the China battlefield."

"Third, tell Tian Junliu that the Imperial... will not tolerate failure. Revenge is a soldier's duty."

In the early morning in Tokyo, the massive war machine of Japan Imperial, after suffering unprecedented damage, finally identified the enemy it believed in. It would turn with wounded pride and raging hatred, ready to pounce on the opponent it thought was the true adversary.

And all of them had guessed wrong.

May 25, 1943, Tokyo, afternoon.

Inside the Imperial Palace's archive, the air was oppressive like solid lead. The Japan Imperial Supreme War Guidance Council was convening urgently, the atmosphere deadly solemn.

Along the long conference table sat the pinnacle of Imperial power: Prime Minister Dong Tiao Yingji, Army Chief of Staff Shan Shan Yuan, Navy General Staff Chief Yong Ye Xiushen, and the recently recalled, ashen‑faced Chinese expeditionary army commander, Marshal Tian Junliu, from Nanjing.

Everyone's gaze focused on Emperor Yu Ren's throne. The emperor sat upright, expressionless, yet those deep eyes harbored a storm that could make the entire Imperial tremble.

"This is everything that happened on the Chinese mainland this morning," Dong Tiao Yingji's voice was low and hoarse as he pointed to the spread map, where the red marks denoting Japanese Army airfields were crudely crossed out with ink, "Wuhan, Guangzhou, Nanchang, Yichang... Japan Imperial's air power in China lost nearly seventy percent within a few hours. This is the most humiliating disgrace the Imperial Army has faced since the Russo‑Japanese War!"

Marshal Shan Shan Yuan, the hard‑liner who had constantly advocated "China's destruction in three months," now had a pallid, iron‑blue complexion.

He slammed the table hard, roaring, "We must avenge! I request immediate transfer of three elite divisions from the homeland and Manchuria to form the 'China Expeditionary Punitive Force'; no matter the cost, we must crush that enemy secret base!"

However, Navy General Staff Chief Yong Ye Xiushen immediately retorted, "Marshal Shan Shan Yuan, you speak lightly! Right now in the Pacific, our war with the United States is at a critical stage! Every aircraft carrier and battleship of the Combined Fleet is vital! We simply cannot divert enough naval forces to cover a large‑scale army landing operation!"