Struggle in Soviet Russia

Japan, Tokyo, Tokyo Marunouchi, where Daiichi Life Museum is located.

This building, designed by Watanabe Jin and completed in 1939, has now been confiscated by the Allies. Of course, the Allied forces mentioned here can simply be understood as the US military, because this building is now the Allied forces stationed in Japan. The headquarters of the headquarters is also the office of General MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces in Japan appointed by the United States.

Interestingly, this building is located on the edge of the moat of the Royal Palace, and on its left is the seat of the Imperial Palace. From the window of the building looking into the Imperial Palace, the bronze statue of Nanmu Zhengcheng is clearly visible.

At the beginning, when the large-scale bombing of Tokyo was launched, the US military deliberately avoided the emperor's imperial residence. Therefore, in the entire Tokyo area, only the buildings near the imperial residence are relatively well preserved, which is also the choice of the Allied Command in Japan. The most direct reason for Daiichi Life Museum, of course, another reason is that it is very close to the emperor's residence. General MacArthur hopes to exert enough pressure on the Japanese Emperor Showa, so that he can honestly be a puppet.

In September last year, Truman, the president of the United States, secretly issued a presidential decree. This presidential decree is only one page and involves three brief contents, the first and second of which are: first, The "rulership" of the Japanese emperor and the Japanese government belongs to MacArthur, who can exercise his power at will, and the Japanese side cannot question it. Second, when General MacArthur is exercising his power, if he can achieve his goals, he can promote the implementation through the Japanese government. If not, he can skip the Japanese government and take direct action, including the use of force.

In this secret order, it is necessary to pay attention to the first article. The ruling power mentioned in it is not only for the Japanese government, but also for the Emperor Showa of Japan. If you understand it with the second article, That is, General MacArthur not only has the right to "rule" the Emperor of Japan, but also has the right to use force against him, that is to say, he can choose to kill him directly.

With the existence of this presidential decree, MacArthur has become Japan's worthy emperor. His power in Japan is greater than that of any dictator, and the entire Japan is not allowed to oppose him.

Therefore, it is conceivable that when MacArthur lived in the First Life Hall, in the Imperial Palace, which was no more than 500 meters away from him, the Emperor Showa was trembling and panicking all day long.

In the past period of time, as the de facto supreme ruler of Japan, General MacArthur has reached the pinnacle of his life. His "I'm back" speech, accompanied by the broadcast of the Voice of Liberty, has spread all over the world. He has become a political star and, at the same time, the perfect embodiment of the American spirit.

Also in the past period of time, as the supreme commander of the US military in the Far East, MacArthur also became the commander at the forefront of the US-Soviet confrontation front in the Far East. It was under his leadership that the US military seized from the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Soviet Union's coveted Japan's Hokkaido region was excluded from the northern Kuril Islands. In his words, the Soviet Union would not even want to set foot on Japan's territory unless Stalin wanted Hiroshima and Changsha. The Qi disaster was also staged on the territory of the Soviet Union.

That's right, the first person who threatened to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union was not Truman, the president of the United States, nor Marshall, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but MacArthur, who was sitting in Tokyo. He was the first to use nuclear blackmail as a method. on the bright side.

When the Soviet Union's own nuclear weapons had not been successfully developed, no one would care that MacArthur used nuclear blackmail to deal with the Soviet Union, because everyone knew that in the face of such threats and intimidation, the Soviets could come up with very limited countermeasures. They can't even have any influence on the United States other than protest, even though the means of protest are ineffective.

But the situation is different now. Just half a year after the successful test explosion of the first nuclear bomb in the United States, the first nuclear bomb of the Soviets was also successfully tested. There are at least two or three nuclear bombs that can be put into practical use at any time. As a result, the United States of America is one step behind in the number of nuclear bombs at its disposal, and this backward situation will take some time to reverse.

It is in the face of such a situation that Washington's attention to Tokyo has intensified a lot in the past two or three months. , must remain calm and restrained, especially on the North Korean issue, it is necessary to give the other party a reason and pretext for provoking trouble.

This made General MacArthur very unhappy, not only because the United States asked him to exercise restraint in front of the Soviets, but mainly because Washington began to intervene too much in his work. You know, before this, Washington rarely intervened directly. As for the Far East affairs, here, he has the final say.

At this moment, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, MacArthur was smoking his corncob pipe with a strong symbolic meaning, looking through the big sunglasses in front of him, looking down at the imperial palace opposite the moat indifferently.

One thing that must be recognized is that General MacArthur is definitely a complete pretender. The corncob pipe, big sunglasses are his standard equipment for pretending, and of course, there is the military cap on his head designed by himself, although As President, Truman made it clear that he was extremely disgusted with his military cap, but MacArthur never thought of taking it off-he didn't want to bear the hat, but looked down on President Truman.

It was early in the morning, and the palace was silent, not a single person could be seen.

Just yesterday, a photo of MacArthur and Emperor Showa was published in major Japanese newspapers. This photo was taken by the photographer according to MacArthur's request. When it was published in the newspaper, various Japanese newspapers refused to publish it at the beginning. It was not until MacArthur threatened to seal the photo that it finally appeared in the newspaper. layout.

In this photo, Showa, the emperor, stands solemnly, while MacArthur, who is beside him, puts his hands behind his waist and looks very relaxed. In addition, Emperor Showa's stature was short. He stood with MacArthur, and the top of his head just reached the latter's shoulders. The whole person looked like a dwarf.

Such a photo, combined with the draft of the "Declaration of the Human World", is equivalent to rubbing the emperor's face on the ground. Therefore, once this report was published, it caused an uproar throughout Japan. Some people think that The emperor was humiliated and committed suicide because of it. Some people were angry and formed a secret organization to try to assassinate MacArthur and clean up the shame for the emperor.

As the initiator, MacArthur certainly knew what the consequences of this report would be once it was published, but he didn't care at all, or rather, this was the result he wanted to see. In order to bring changes to Japan smoothly, and to do it according to his own will and blueprint, MacArthur needs to retain the symbol of the emperor, and at the same time, he also needs to try his best to weaken the prestige of the other party in Japan. Therefore, he needs to While preserving the imperial system, he publicly humiliated the emperor again and again.

Originally, MacArthur was very satisfied with yesterday's report. Although the process of publishing the report was somewhat unsatisfactory, the result was always good, which was already very good.

What really annoyed MacArthur was another piece of news published in some newspapers, a copy from the Washington Post.

In this report, MacArthur learned that the Soviets had just conducted a successful rocket launch test. Those barbarians, who were only suitable for living on the ice sheet, actually invented a new weapon with a range of up to 900 kilometers, and, This new type of weapon can also carry nuclear bombs, which means that this thing can drop a nuclear bomb directly into Tokyo in the southern Sakhalin region, without the need to dispatch bombers or worry about being intercepted by local fighter planes.

What's worse, according to the "Washington Post" report, Moscow publicly announced that they will use this rocket as the core weapon to form four rocket battalions, two of which will be deployed to the Far East to deal with possible occurrences in the region. security threat.

For now, MacArthur doesn't know much about Soviet rocket technology. According to his speculation, and regardless of whether the Soviets can form four such rocket battalions, consider it from the worst point of view, if they really Being able to form four rocket battalions and deploy two of them to the Far East, what is Moscow's intention?

Judging from the current situation in the Far East, there are two points in the areas where there may be conflicts. One is the rapidly deteriorating situation in China, which is a point of contention between the United States and the Soviet Union. The other is the Korean peninsula. The confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union along the thirty-eighth line has continued to heat up because of the unresolved negotiations. However, considering practical problems, MacArthur believes that the Soviets are unlikely to use nuclear weapons to strike targets in China or the Korean peninsula. Once the situation deteriorates, the most likely to be attacked is an important target in Japan.

At present, the US military has two main deployment areas in Japan, one is Yokohama and the other is Tokyo. As said before, if the Soviets deploy a rocket battalion to South Sakhalin or even the Kuril Islands, then, These two main areas will be within the direct attack range of the Soviets, which is a major threat to the US military that cannot be ignored.