Chapter 3572
Chapter 3572
Chapter 3572
Late June 1658, Hangzhou.
After a few months, Shi Diwen finally returned to this familiar city. He came back from Japan this time to attend the Executive Committee's first half of the year work summary meeting, and also to report to his colleagues on the current situation of the Japanese civil war.
Shi Diwen asked his second son Shi Chengxin to stay in Kyushu, Japan temporarily. Firstly, he wanted to supervise the war on his behalf and ensure that the Kyushu forces would not compromise and cease fire with the shogunate. Secondly, it would allow Shi Chengxin to take this opportunity to improve his resume, which would definitely be of great benefit to his future promotion.
In addition, Shi Diwen also sent a message to his eldest son Shi Chengwu, asking him to return to Hangzhou from Nanjing. The father and son had not met for a long time, and Shi Diwen also wanted to confirm in person what his eldest son had gained from serving as the garrison commander in Nanjing for a year.
Shi Diwen's trip back to Hangzhou was not publicized, and even many of his subordinates did not know that he had quietly returned. With his current status, there was no need to prove his importance to the outside world by showing his presence.
After dinner, Shi Diwen took a short rest and came to the study to deal with some government documents that had been piled up during his time abroad.
In addition to two piles of documents more than a foot thick, there were also several newspapers that had just been published in recent days. Shi Diwen did not rush to review the documents, but first opened the newspaper to see if there was any recent news worth paying attention to.
During his stay in Japan, he inevitably had a long time lag in getting news from China. Although national events would be notified instantly by telegram, information platforms with a strong timeliness, such as newspapers, would often lag several days when they were delivered to Japan, greatly reducing the value of the information.
What Shi Diwen was most concerned about, of course, was the domestic coverage and response to the Japanese civil war. However, perhaps because the war had lasted for several months, domestic attention to it had gradually faded, and there were not many related articles in the newspapers.
It was not until he turned to the third page that he saw a palm-sized article that briefly summarized the recent situation of the Japanese Civil War, but there were basically not many details. The person who wrote the article probably compared the public war reports in China and made such a summary.
Shi Diwen could understand this, after all, Hai Han did not directly participate in the war, but watched the fight from the sidelines as a third party. The newspaper writers had no heroic deeds to write about, and they could not report in detail how Hai Han's arsenal and shipyards made huge profits from the war, so they could only write brief reports.
However, the decline in domestic attention will inevitably affect the resources needed to maintain the war. Shi Diwen does not want the Executive Committee to take the initiative to stop the war due to problems such as tight supply of military supplies.
This was not just his groundless worry. Whether it was materials or production capacity, the amount that the country could provide to the outside world was limited, and the Japanese civil war had entered a stalemate phase. It was impossible for the Executive Committee to continue to pay close attention to this.
Once new demands emerge in other places, the Executive Committee may change its current attitude.
As for where the current domestic public opinion is focused, we can get a glimpse of it from the hot articles in the newspapers.
After Shi Diwen put down the newspaper, he ordered someone to bring Ji Yuanqing, director of the regional military intelligence bureau.
After receiving the notice, Ji Yuanqing did not dare to neglect it and immediately took a carriage to Shi Mansion. On the way, he also secretly pondered the reason for the urgent summons. He thought that there was no major domestic event recently, and this summons was probably related to the current international situation.
Sure enough, after Shi Diwen saw him, he got straight to the point: "I just read the new newspaper, and a lot of space is talking about the New World. Tell me if you have any specific news."
Most of these articles in the newspapers are written for ordinary people to read. The information in them is half true and half false, and may not be accurate. Shi Diwen must find the most reliable source to understand the situation, and this is the function of the Military Intelligence Bureau. In addition to all the war reports from the New World reported by the participating troops themselves, the Military Intelligence Bureau will also have its own channels to compile various war reports, and in some aspects, they will be more comprehensive and detailed than the war reports of the participating troops.
Although Ji Yuanqing was in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, with his identity, he could definitely access these confidential war reports, so Shi Diwen directly called him in for questioning.
Ji Yuanqing did not dare to hide anything, and immediately told Shi Diwen what he knew.
As a member of the Executive Committee, Shi Diwen was of course aware of the fact that Xingdao and Luzon were competing to explore the new continent in the south. However, he had been staying in Japan for the past few months and had not had much time to pay attention to the affairs in the south. He did not expect that the two regions had already carried out large-scale colonization operations.
There were numerous reports on this in the newspapers because this matter was worthy of hype. First, it was the open competition between the two regions, second, it was the development prospect of the unowned New World, and third, a new round of war had broken out between the Luzon Expeditionary Force and Spain.
Any of these topics can rekindle the interest of reading newspapers for readers who are aesthetically fatigued by the Japanese Civil War.
In order to increase newspaper sales, the newspaper naturally shifted the focus of its recent reports to the New World in the South.
However, since the New World is too far away, there are not many first-hand sources of information for domestic newspapers, so the articles in these newspapers are mostly full of exaggerations, and many of them are made up by writers out of thin air, which are far less reliable than the information provided by Ji Yuanqing.
When Shi Diwen learned that the Luzon region had once again gone to war with the Spaniards and the situation was rather stalemate, he secretly felt that things were not going well.
Since the Luzon region's operations are hindered, it will inevitably request more military resources from the Executive Committee, and this request will definitely be met, because this is related to Hai Han's development prospects in the South Pacific. The Executive Committee will definitely clear the obstacles on the road ahead at all costs.
No matter whether you are Spanish or alien, if you dare to jump out and block the way, you must be taken down.
However, if the Executive Committee decides to provide more military resources to the Luzon Region, it may inevitably affect the progress of the East China Sea Region in delivering weapons and equipment to both sides of the Japanese Civil War, and thus affect his layout in Japan.
After listening to Ji Yuanqing's story, Shi Diwen was silent for a moment before asking, "What does the Ministry of National Defense think of the war situation in Luzon?"
Ji Yuanqing responded, "The meaning of the ministers in the Ministry of National Defense is to see the actual needs of the Luzon region. If reinforcements are needed, they will be dispatched from the Fujian-Guangzhou region. I heard that Xu Yuzhuo in Fujian has been quietly working on this matter and wants to get this job."
Shi Diwen said noncommittally: "The Xu family has wanted to send troops to earn military merit for a long time, but it is difficult to wait for the right opportunity."
Ji Yuanqing was unsure of what he meant and didn't dare to continue, so he had to continue with the previous sentence: "If the Luzon region does not want reinforcements, but only wants armaments, then the Ministry of National Defense will most likely agree to it and draw supplies from arsenals across the country to give priority to meeting the combat needs of the Luzon region."
(End of this chapter)