Chapter 1676 Evidence
Here we must again name Britain. After Japan launched a full-scale invasion of the Far Eastern Empire, there is no doubt that Britain was the imperialist country that suffered the greatest loss of interests in the Far Eastern Empire.
However, since the outbreak of war, Britain has basically taken no action.
This was essentially Britain's "Asian version of appeasement," and this strategy toward Japan implemented by Britain happened to conflict with East Africa.
The so-called Asian version of appeasement was almost exactly the same as the policy Britain implemented in Europe. Its core objective was to guide Japan toward war with the Soviet Union, an objective that coincided with the group within Japan that supported the "northern advance" policy.
However, as mentioned earlier, East Africa preferred Japan to "move south," so East Africa's and Britain's diplomatic policies toward Japan were fundamentally in conflict.
Yoshijiro Umezu was unaware of the schemes of both countries, but he did have some guesses about the British mindset.
"Although Britain's interests in the Far East were damaged because of this war, they simply did not have the time or the ability to be an enemy of the Empire at this time."
"Britain's focus is on Europe. Although the Royal Navy is powerful, it has to keep an eye on countries like Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union."
"Therefore, Britain's naval power is now concentrated in the North Sea and the Mediterranean. In other regions, Britain can hardly take care of them. The Indian Ocean is basically East Africa's backyard, while in the Pacific region, the empire is the undisputed hegemon."
This statement is just flattering Japan. On the surface, the Japanese navy is indeed the strongest in the Pacific, but even without considering East Africa, Japan cannot do without the United States if it wants to dominate the Pacific.
East Africa is confident in suppressing all destabilizing factors in the Indian Ocean. Can Japan do the same?
The Indian Ocean is East Africa's backyard. This is not something East Africa boasts about, but a point that is generally accepted by all countries in the world, including the United States, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Which country would dare to challenge East Africa in the Indian Ocean?
In contrast, in the Pacific region, the United States and East Africa paid little attention to Japan's naval power. Although the Soviet Union, Britain, and France had to admit that Japan's naval power surpassed theirs, they still had the strength to fight Japan if they were to open up the issue.
For these countries, even if they lose to Japan, it would only mean losing their interests in the Pacific region, not damaging their fundamental interests.
In the Pacific, or more precisely in the Far East, apart from Japan, all other powers were considered "outsiders." Even though the Soviet Union had considerable Far Eastern territory, its focus was still on Europe.
In recent years, the United States has placed more importance on its interests in the Far East, but like East Africa, it does not currently intend to be deeply involved in wars in the Far East.
Yoshijiro Umezu said, "Britain's military strength in the Far East has declined drastically. Twenty years ago, the Empire might have had to consider Britain's strength, but now the tide has turned!"
"However, the British are very smart. They see the situation clearly, unlike East Africa and the United States, which are jumping around in circles."
"The British knew that they could not protect the interests of the Far Eastern Empire, so it was better to be on good terms with the Empire than to make things difficult for it."
"In this way, in addition to gaining the empire's friendship, they can also temporarily stabilize their colonies in Southeast Asia and Australia."
Here, Yoshijiro Umezu specifically emphasized the word "temporarily," which fully demonstrates that Japan has not given up its covetousness for Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Driven and guided by East Africa, Japan places far greater emphasis on the importance of these regions than in its previous era.
Even without the instigation from East Africa, given Japan's past behavior, they would never have given up the two lucrative markets of Southeast Asia and Oceania.
In its previous life, Japan had attacked the aforementioned regions, including Australia, and had even attempted to land there, though it ultimately failed.
The head of the Jinyang Special Service Agency said, "The British are wise to yield to circumstances; they have no choice but to submit to the overwhelming power of the Empire!"
Yoshijiro Umezu also said with great pride, "Once we integrate the entire Greater East Asia, the Empire will be an unshakeable top power in the world."
Japan's current goals are actually those of East Africa and the United States, both of which are continental superpowers. The former has no rivals on the African continent, while the latter has no equal on the North American continent.
Furthermore, both countries have extended their reach into other parts of the world.
For Japan to reach this level, it would have to dominate the entire Far East. Even if it could dominate the Far East, Japan would still be slightly inferior to East Africa and the United States.
After all, East Africa and the continental United States can almost be considered as separate continents, while the main body of Japan is merely a resource-poor archipelago.
Yoshijiro Umezu was unwilling to delve into this point, which is a common trait among "gamblers." Just like Germany's attempt to dominate the world, they only saw the benefits and deliberately ignored the risks.
"Alright, let's get back to East Africa," Yoshijiro Umezu said after a moment's thought. "Has your intelligence agency discovered any evidence that proves East Africa is involved in activities within the Far Eastern Empire?"
The head of the Jinyang Special Service Agency said with a stern expression, "Commander, through our efforts over the past few months, we have indeed obtained quite a few clues."
"According to our investigation, East Africa may have been behind the scenes supporting the development of the Far Eastern Empire's industry."
“Especially in the western regions that are very close to us, including the Loess Plateau and the Guanzhong Plain, we have found that there are sizable East African business activities in these areas.”
"Involving industries related to coal, steel, textiles, and other war potential!"
This traitorous spy lacked a deep understanding of East Africa. The so-called East African industrial investment, which he considered to be of "considerable scale," was actually negligible for a large country like East Africa.
The so-called industries that East Africa invested in and built in the northwest and southwest of the Far Eastern Empire, by East African standards, were only slightly better than traditional handicrafts.
Taking its so-called coal industry as an example, it can only be considered a slightly more advanced illegal coal mine. Apart from adopting some modern machinery and equipment, it mainly relies on manual labor.
This was not something East Africa did intentionally, but rather a reflection of the current situation of the Far Eastern Empire, which did not allow East Africa to provide large-scale industrial aid.
First and foremost is the environmental issue. East Africa's investment in the coal industry of the Far Eastern Empire, specifically the Loess Plateau, is a region with virtually no transportation, complex terrain, and scarce water resources.
Therefore, it is currently very unrealistic for East Africa to build a large-scale coal mining industry there.
Secondly, there are political reasons. East Africa has many concerns about investing in the Far Eastern Empire, the first of which is Japan's current invasion and naval blockade of the Far Eastern Empire.
The former implies that the area lacks a safe and stable environment. After all, the Japanese invaders are not far from the Loess Plateau. If large-scale industries are built there and the area gains Japanese attention, it could easily become a new target of Japanese aggression.
Even assuming Japan doesn't attack and occupy the region, it could easily send bombers to bomb the mines.
Therefore, building some small mines, which have the advantages of being both dispersed and concealed, is more practical for the current Far Eastern Empire.
After all, the Far Eastern Empire currently has a low level of education and lacks a large number of experienced workers, so workshop-style industries that are less difficult to build and relatively simple to operate are more suitable.
Finally, there are technical and theoretical issues, which is a rather awkward point.
Ernst, having lived in the Far Eastern Empire in his previous life, was well aware of the abundant coal and other resources in the northwestern region of the Far Eastern Empire.
However, in this era, discovering and mining these coal resources through technological means is not easy. In the previous life, the Far Eastern Empire did not discover large quantities of local coal resources until the 1970s and 1980s.
This also raises the issue that the Far Eastern Empire was not East Africa, so East Africa's resource exploration work was obviously not as thorough or convenient as that of the East African mainland.
On its own soil, East Africa could effectively utilize its most advanced and cutting-edge technologies to explore its own resources. The Far Eastern Empire, however, was so far from East Africa, and its northwest was an extremely remote place for East Africans.
In this situation, even if East Africa wanted to send professionals to the northwest to explore for coal, it would have to pay a higher price, especially considering the needs of its own personnel. For East Africans, the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire was clearly a backward and harsh place.
For various reasons, East Africa's support for the coal industry of the Far Eastern empire has yielded very limited results, and the same applies to other industries.
However, these industries were almost insignificant by East African standards, but this was not the case for the Far Eastern Empire, especially given that the Far Eastern Empire's own industry had been almost completely destroyed by Japan.
These small, weak, and impoverished industries even attracted great attention from Japanese intelligence organizations such as the Jinyang Special Service Agency.
The head of the Jinyang Special Service Agency said, "Based on the information we currently have, there are several places that deserve special attention, and these places should also be the key areas in East Africa supporting the Far Eastern Empire."
"Including Xi'an and Baoji in Guanzhong, Tianshui on the edge, Yulin and Shenmu in the north..."
“In these places, there are industries directly invested in by East Africa, which have become an important source of materials for the anti-Japanese armed forces of the Far Eastern Empire.”
"This is only the intelligence we can gather. In fact, there should be many similar arrangements in other parts of the Far Eastern Empire, such as East Africa."
The Jinyang intelligence agency's activities were clearly limited to Shanxi and the surrounding areas, so the intelligence they gathered could only reach these regions.
“Especially in Yulin and its surrounding counties, we learned directly by bribing local people that East Africa has invested a considerable amount in the area in recent years.”
"It was probably a few years ago when East Africa started to attract local construction companies. At that time, it was very difficult for locals to see unfamiliar faces, especially foreigners from East Africa."
It is not surprising that the Jinyang intelligence agency was able to obtain intelligence on Yulin, since Yulin itself was still under the control of the Jiangcheng government of the Far East Empire at that time.
However, Yulin is still relatively safe in theory. Between Yulin and the occupied areas, it is the base for the construction of the Northwest Workers' Party's armed forces.
It was precisely because of the existence of these bases that the infiltration of Japanese intelligence organizations was somewhat hindered; otherwise, the report presented by the head of the Jinyang Special Service Agency to Yoshijiro Umezu would probably have included the specific coordinates of many factories and enterprises.
The head of the Jinyang intelligence agency said with some regret, "Although we can detect some of the activities of East Africans in the area, it is more difficult to obtain deeper intelligence."
"Moreover, it's very difficult for us to seek redress from East African governments for these investments by third-party countries in the Far East!"
Yoshijiro Umezu was very dissatisfied with his refusal and angrily retorted, "Baka! You can't even handle such important intelligence. I don't want to hear any support from East African anti-Japanese organizations."
"What I need is concrete evidence of the distribution of these factories and mines."
The head of the Jinyang Special Service Agency said with a bitter face, "This is going to be difficult. After all, it is very difficult to find out the specific information about the other side's factories during wartime, and the industries in the Northwest region are inherently difficult to identify."
It is an objective fact that the northwestern region of the Far Eastern Empire is backward, but even in such a backward region, there are many locals who have invested, especially in major northwestern cities like Xi'an and important industrial cities like Baoji.
Even without East Africa, the local industries were not too bad compared to other cities in the Far Eastern Empire. Of course, this "not too bad" was only true for the Far Eastern Empire at that time.
"We know that East Africa is supporting the Far Eastern Empire, which was revealed to us by officials within the Far Eastern Empire. However, it is difficult to investigate East Africa's investment in the Far Eastern Empire based on the information provided by the Jiangcheng government of the Far Eastern Empire."
During this era, foreigners in the Far Eastern Empire enjoyed immense privileges. Even when the Far Eastern Empire's Jiangcheng government was in Nanjing, it almost completely ignored any behavior of foreigners within the Far Eastern Empire.
This means that even if East Africa develops some special industries within the Far Eastern Empire, the Far Eastern Empire government probably wouldn't even know about them.
In addition, the East African side itself did not trust the Far Eastern Empire government, which in turn increased the difficulty of the work of Japanese intelligence organizations such as the Jinyang Special Service Agency.
If they are foreign industries and factories that are actually registered with the Far Eastern Empire government, it would be even more dangerous, as they would be almost completely transparent to Japan.
Yoshijiro Umezu was aware of the difficulty of the work of the Jinyang Special Service Agency, so he had to say: "Right now, the most important thing is to find out how much support East Africa has provided to the Far Eastern Empire, how much production is involved in this support, and how much of the produced materials are used in the battle against the Empire's soldiers!"
"Following this line of thinking, your intelligence agency conducted investigations into the major cities of the Far Eastern Empire in the Northwest region."
"Secondly, we should not overlook some county towns in the northwest, and we should also have detailed information on how East Africa and the Far Eastern Empire communicate."
"The Empire has already blocked the Far Eastern Empire's maritime trade, so other countries must have used other means of transportation to support the Far Eastern Empire."
"Therefore, important infrastructure such as railways, highways, and airports must also be included in the key inspection and screening scope of intelligence organizations!"
Yoshijiro Umezu had no good solution for clarifying the ways in which the Far Eastern Empire contacted and communicated with foreign countries, and could only continue to increase the workload of the Jinyang Special Service Agency.
This made the head of the Jinyang Special Service Agency look distressed, because the Jinyang Special Service Agency already had an enormous workload, especially since the Workers' Party armed forces had established a large number of bases in Shanxi and had organized manpower to specifically "take care" of spies and traitors like them.
(End of this chapter)
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