Chapter 235: The Army Commands the Navy

Shimada shuddered: "Minister, you..."

"I'm not talking about surrender." Yamamoto waved his hand. "I'm saying, for the Empire, for the Navy, preserve some seeds. Save some things, so that in the future... when perhaps there's a chance, we can start over."

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

He pushed the document 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 from today, so that one day in the future, they can rebuild the Japanese Navy."

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

"That's why it must be done in secret." Yamamoto sat back down, wearily rubbing his temples. "Use merchant ships, use fishing boats, use any means available. Send them out in batches. Clean up the files, make it look like they went missing or were killed in action."

He paused, his voice growing softer: "This is the last thing I can do for the Navy as Navy Minister. Preserve the embers. Maybe these embers will never reignite, but at least... we tried."

Shimada's eyes reddened. He stood up and bowed deeply: "Minister, I... I will get it done."

"Go. Be careful. The Army has eyes everywhere now."

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

One after another, like wounds stabbed into the Empire's body, bleeding endlessly.

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

"Minister Yamamoto, please come to the Prime Minister's residence immediately. Emergency meeting. The Army Minister, Foreign Minister, and Finance Minister are all here."

"Agenda?"

The other end of the line was silent for two seconds: "News of the Spring Day Maru's sinking has spread. The public is panicking. The Army is demanding 'decisive measures.' The Prime Minister requests your attendance."

Yamamoto put down the phone. He knew what "decisive measures" meant—either the Navy sorties, or the Army stages a coup.

Both were dead ends. But he had to choose one.

He stood up and straightened his uniform. In the mirror, he was sixty-two years old, hair completely white, heavy bags under his eyes, but his gaze was still resolute.

"At least," he said to himself in the mirror, "I'll die like a Navy Minister."

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

The corridor was empty, only the echo of his footsteps. Like funeral drumbeats, for the Imperial Navy, and for himself.

Prime Minister's Residence Conference Room, 10:30 AM

The atmosphere in the conference room was worse than yesterday. Oka Ichinosuke's face was dark enough to drip water, Finance Minister Wakatsuki Reijiro was deathly pale, and Foreign Minister Kato Takaaki kept wiping sweat. Only Terauchi Masatake maintained a surface calm, but his hands under the table were trembling slightly.

When Yamamoto Gonnohyoe pushed open the door, everyone's eyes fixed on him. In those eyes were expectation, hostility, despair, and... a faint glimmer of hope.

"Minister Yamamoto, please sit." Terauchi said. "We are discussing countermeasures against the Lanfang blockade. The Army has some suggestions."

Oka immediately cut in: "Not suggestions, demands! The Navy must sortie immediately and break the Lanfang blockade! Otherwise, national morale will collapse, the economy will collapse, the Empire will collapse!"

"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?"

"Use anything! We must sortie!" Oka roared. "Let the world see that the Imperial Navy still has courage! Still has the will to fight! Otherwise, what difference is there between us and lambs waiting for slaughter?"

"The difference," Yamamoto said coldly, "is that lambs waiting for slaughter don't actively throw themselves onto the blade. There's only one outcome to a sortie—sending our last few ships to the bottom, making it easier for the Lanfang to blockade our maritime transport lines."

"Then are we just going to sit and wait for death?!" Oka slammed the table and stood up. "One merchant ship sunk today, another tomorrow! Do you know how much cargo is piled up in the ports that can't be shipped out? Do you know that factories are shutting down due to raw material shortages? Do you know how much rice prices in Tokyo have risen today?!"

"I know." Yamamoto's voice remained calm. "But sortieing will only make things worse. If we sacrifice our last naval forces, the Lanfang battleships can swagger into Tokyo Bay and directly shell Tokyo. By then, the losses won't just be merchant ships and ports."

"You're fearmongering!" Oka pointed at Yamamoto's nose. "You're a coward! A traitor to the nation!"

"Minister Oka!" Terauchi finally couldn't hold back. "Watch your language!"

"My language?" Oka sneered. "Prime Minister, do you know what the Army is saying internally? They say if the Navy doesn't dare to fight, then let the Army command the Navy! They say all those cowardly Navy admirals should be replaced with people who dare to fight!"

"The Army command the Navy?" Yamamoto laughed, his smile full of mockery. "Minister Oka, do you know how to sail a ship? Do you know how to calculate artillery firing parameters? Do you know how to command a fleet in battle?"

"I don't need to know! I only need to know that soldiers should fight! Not hide in port waiting to die!"

"And then take everyone to die with you?" Yamamoto stood up and walked to the map. "Fine, since the Army is so courageous, let me ask a few specific questions. First, if we sortie, what's the target? The four Lanfang battleships are scattered in the waters from Kyushu to Honshu. Which one do we attack?"

"Attack them all, of course!"

"How? Our battleships are slow, our guns have short range. How do we simultaneously attack four dispersed targets?"

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

"Concentrate our forces?" Yamamoto turned to look at Oka. "The only capital ships we can currently deploy are three—Katori, Kashima, and Aki. And Lanfang has four Bismarck-class ships. Even if we concentrate all our strength, we can only handle one. What about the other three? Will they just watch us attack their comrades?"

Oka was speechless.

"Second," Yamamoto continued, "even if we miraculously sink one Lanfang battleship, what's the cost? Can our three old battleships withstand the bombardment of the Bismarck class? The Kongo-class had armor twice as thick as our ships, and they were annihilated within an hour. How long can our ships last? Half an hour? Twenty minutes?"

The conference room fell silent.

"Third, and most critical." Yamamoto's voice dropped, but every word struck like a hammer on everyone's hearts. "Even if we win, even if we sink all four Lanfang battleships, then what? Lanfang still has two Hood-class ships in Borneo, and four more Bismarck-class under construction in Dubai. They can rebuild. They have plenty of oil, plenty of steel, plenty of money. And us? After we lose these last three ships, what do we have left?"

He looked around at those present: "We have nothing left. No navy, no maritime transport lines, no future. By then, Lanfang won't even need to send warships anymore. Just continue the blockade, and wait for us to starve, freeze, and go broke on our own."