Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 241: Big fire and (7)

"Why..." Maeda slowly put down the wine glass, and put his hands in the sleeves of the kimono.

Here must introduce this Maeda Masami. He is a graduate of the 25th Engineering Department of the Japanese Army Corps, and the 25th Advanced Department of the Japanese Army Artillery School (the Japanese Army’s training artillery and engineering officers’ specialty An honorary student of the school), a thirty-fourth graduate of the Army University. From this resume, it can be seen that he is a standard professional and technical officer and a member of the imperial Japanese Army.

The major general of the army started as a specialist in engineering and military. He spent a while in the General Staff Headquarters. He also sneaked into the Philippines as a professional surveying and mapping officer to conduct secret topographic surveying and mapping (whether it feels like familiarity). He served as a squad payer for the First Railway Wing and worked as a staff member in the Personnel Bureau of the Ministry of Military Affairs. As a result, he was favored by the then Secretary of the Army, General Sadao Araki, and served as Secretary of the Land Division for two years. Perhaps because of this experience, it only took two years for Maeda to be promoted from a junior engineer to a senior engineer. After he was promoted to an engineer's chief, he was sent to the Kwantung Army by the Ministry of Military Affairs for training. At that time, senior officers wanted to go a step further, and the Kwantung Army's service experience would be helpful.

Maeda's job is still in the old line of the engineers. He served as the head of the Kwantung Army Command and was the squad leader of the fortification department. Of course, the fortification department here does not mean in Chinese characters. The Japanese military's "fortification" refers to the construction and construction of various defensive fortresses and barracks. Therefore, this department controls a large amount of manpower, material resources and funds. At the same time, it also controls the approval, accounting and subcontracting rights of various military projects, which can be said to be a big shortage in the Kwantung Army.

In history, in order to prevent Soviet attacks, the Japanese built a large number of fortresses and permanent fortresses in the Northeast. Among them, the most famous 17 large fortresses such as Dongning and Hutou were all built during Maeda’s tenure. It can be said that Maeda's hands were stained with the blood of Chinese laborers and prisoners of war.

In 1949, Maeda finally got his wish and was promoted to Major General of the Japanese Army, and thus became a member of the precious "Your Excellency". In March of 1940, he was transferred from the Third Army Staff Headquarters to the Thirteenth Army, where he served as the head of the headquarters and concurrently as the head of the secret service. As mentioned earlier, Major General Maeda has always been a technocrat. He is a complete layman in intelligence work. God knows how he was sent as a major general from an engineer to serve as the chief of this important secret service.

There are some gossip rumors that it was Ying Zuozhen’s idea to ask a layman to come here. The big pusher behind it was Tu Feiyuan. They felt that sending a layman to Shanghai would be more convenient for them to continue to control Shanghai’s spy agencies, because If you change to a professional intelligence officer, such as the Kwantung Army Intelligence Department or the head of the Intelligence Division of the Army Staff Headquarters (the latter is obviously more dangerous than the former), the unscrupulous transactions conducted by the Tufeiyuan Agency in Shanghai, There may be a risk of complete exposure.

They are not worried that the methods they use will be criticized by their superiors. As long as they don’t poke an international big basket, the army’s senior officials will usually open their eyes and close their eyes. What they worry about is that they are doing it under the guise of "collecting intelligence funds." Illegal business, once the real profits of these transactions are discovered by superiors, they will definitely ask for a share of the pie. What is more likely to happen is that a certain high-level person simply pryed the entire stall over, and then replaced his confidant in the position of the chief official, while kicking the original owner out. It's not that this kind of thing has never happened in the Japanese army. To say that the battle for power and interests within the Japanese army is more exciting than the battle between the Japanese army and the navy, and at the same time it is more cruel and dark.

In history, Maeda also served as the chief of the secret service for ten months, then he was promoted to lieutenant general, and after a few months as the chief of staff of the 13th Army, he was finally transferred to the 14th Army. The headquarters has gone to become chief of staff. Frequent transfers like this are not very common in the Japanese army. If it is not for the superiors to cultivate someone specially, it is to use someone to fill the hole.

It’s hard to tell what kind of general he belongs to until his death. He ushered in the outbreak of the Pacific War as the Chief of Staff of the 14th Army. During the battle on the Bataan Peninsula in the final stage of the Battle of the Philippines, because The U.S. Army stubbornly defended the line of defense, and the progress of the Fourteenth Army's operations was unfavorable. As a result, Maeda was transferred from his post and immediately transferred to the reserve. At this point in time, he was transferred to the reserve. This lieutenant was obviously carrying a big pot for others. In fact, his superiors should be very clear about Maeda’s resume. Since joining the army, he has always held technical positions and has never commanded troops. Practical experience.

I don’t know how to evaluate the experience of Lieutenant General Maeda in history. As a Japanese officer, his career was over, but at the same time, he also escaped the post-war U.S. military’s attack on Japanese war criminals. Liquidation. We must know that if he successfully defeated the Bataan Peninsula at that time, then the next commander of the famous "Bataan Death March" may be the Chief of Staff Maeda. The pot is much larger than the one he carries now. Yes, all high-ranking Japanese generals who are involved in the crime have a fixed-term imprisonment of ten years or eight years, and the serious ones have to swing on the gallows of the Americans, such as his boss, the Japanese 14th Army's Honma Commander Yaqing. Because Maeda was ordered to retire before Bataan fell. As a result, even the responsibility of the Philippine campaign was completely eliminated.

Now let’s turn the topic back to Shanghai. In the end, Kage Sao Akira looked down on the technical officer. Maeda had been in the Kwantung Army’s fortification department. That place was not so much an army department, but more like Ming The **** workplace where swords and arrows fly all over the sky, because the interests of military engineering are too entangled. Some people say that there is no corruption in the Japanese army~IndoMTL.com~That is the black material written by the Japanese army veterans. At that time, the Japanese army made financial false accounting and was as good as they falsely reported the results, even as early as the Sino-Japanese War. During the period, they did it like this, which can be regarded as the consistent tradition of the imperial army.

Maeda clearly sensed that Kagezuo and his subordinates were hiding something from him, but he didn't care too much. He knew that he didn't know anything about intelligence work. As long as he was able to survive his tenure, he was not interested in it. What kind of conflict is caused by the sneaky spies. Besides, the oil and water on the beach are also very abundant, and Maeda is also a little bit reluctant to greet the flowers and wine places every day.

But he never imagined that Kagezuo and his lackeys would cause him such a catastrophe. If he could not make an effective remedy in time before the military leaders came back to remembering himself, In all likelihood, his personal future will end.

What made Maeda even more angry is that just before the superiors launched an investigation, Ying Zuo Zhen Zhao secretly left Shanghai Beach. It is said that there has been a breakthrough in Chongqing’s work. He wants to go to Wuhan to check it. Sufficient, Shuo Shuo of words made him find no reason to stop him.

PS: The first chapter is here. Thank you for your support. Take a break and continue to the second chapter, maybe later.