NIS Agents Tearing Up the Japanese Empire - Chapter 102



Only Krnovel

Little Boy (1)

Time passed relentlessly.

Five hours after the gunfire fell silent in Tokyo.

The armies of both sides were quietly passing the time in positions made by hastily piling up the rubble of collapsed buildings and hastily constructed earthen forts.

“… … .”

“… … .”

“Abe… … That guy was a tough guy who liked to steal other people’s stuff, but he was a fun guy… … I didn’t know he would end up like this.”

“He’s still lying there.”

“The lower half of his body was blown away. Anyone can see that he died instantly.”

“You could just jump up with both arms and walk over.”

“No matter what, that’s a bit… … .”

“Huh? Are you supposed to spit on your senior’s words?”

“… … .”

As the heat of battle subsided and silence fell over Tokyo once again, several things that had not been felt during the battle began to surface among the soldiers.

Like the pain from a wound sustained in combat, or the experience of real blood splattering on a bayonet.

The Japanese military’s last combat experience was nine years ago against the Germans stationed at Tsingtao and their Austro-Hungarian allies.

However, in the case of the Battle of Qingdao, it was not an all-out war between nations, but rather a local war fought by a small number of units.

The last war in which the entire Japanese military participated was the Russo-Japanese War, fought about 20 years ago when the Soviet Union was still called the Russian Empire.

Strictly speaking, this meant that the Japanese military, with the exception of a few divisions stationed in Korea, had enjoyed a period of peace for nearly 20 years without any major armed conflicts.

Maybe that’s why the command system, battle composition, and progress were all a mess.

“Where did the 3rd Platoon disappear to!”

“Commander, the 3rd Platoon was charged toward the enemy machine gun position in the morning, but half of the company, including the company commander, Captain Masaru Gojo, were killed and the company was declared annihilated.”

“What? Then, half of them survived! You guys are so heartless… …!”

“… … .”

“Go and call the 1st Platoon Commander!”

“Kitagawa was also killed in battle.”

“Then 2nd Platoon… … .”

“Nishino too… … .”

As the field commanders charged the machine gun positions with their soldiers on the front lines, the casualties among the officers were considerable.

In short, soldiers could capture any idiot wandering the streets, dress them in military uniforms, and give them guns to use as meat shields, but officers were a resource that could not do that.

“… … Among the battalion members who were deployed in the sequential attacks that took place in the morning and afternoon, more than half were killed or injured and had difficulty moving, so there were not enough troops available for the next attack right away… … .”

The few remaining troops suffered severe damage as they were swept away in a brutal war of attrition.

“Have you tried asking headquarters for support?”

“You have been instructed to carry out your goals with an iron will, fueled by your undying loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor.”

“hmm.”

There were some units that were better than this one, and some that were worse than this one, but the army that was on the offensive was generally in a similar situation.

It was a situation where nothing was good, but the Navy’s Land Forces, which were the Army’s counterparts, were no different.

Rather, the Navy’s corps, which had fewer troops than the Army, continued to suffer losses from the Army’s continuous onslaught, and the unit was on the verge of collapse.

The fierce fighting had depleted all of their ammunition, and in the attrition war with the army, more than half of their troops were killed or seriously injured to the point where they could not move.

In this situation, the only support for the naval ground forces deep inside Tokyo was actually the gunfire of the 1st Fleet stationed in Tokyo Bay.

The Navy also wanted to send support to them, but since they had already called up all of the special amphibious forces and the shipborne amphibious forces, they did not have enough sailors to protect the Navy at the moment.

“Should we just leave them all to die like this?”

“There is no way. There is no way.”

“How about mobilizing the sailors of the 1st Fleet? Since the ships will just stay afloat, we can leave behind only the personnel necessary for firing the cannons, and form a reserve force with the remaining sailors.”

“That’s a good idea. How many reserve forces can we secure that way?”

“I’ll have to investigate to find out more, but I’d guess it’ll be somewhere between a thousand and two thousand people.”

“Absurdly strong enemy.”

Even if all sailors were mobilized immediately, it seemed impossible to close the gap in manpower with the army.

There were many headaches to be had, including sorting all the different types of ammunition and firearms that had been collected from the ammunition depot and distributing them to the sailors.

“Um… … What about the Army?”

“They also seemed to be out of their minds. According to our insider sources, there was talk that they were going to send up the troops in Osaka.”

“Huh, what are you going to do by bringing in those guys who know how to fight the police? Looks like they’re underestimating us too.”

In this way, the situation was not good for both sides, and with aftershocks continuing to occur after the earthquake, the tedious standoff between the two sides showed no sign of ending.

Do that for half a day.

Citizens of Tokyo, who decided that the streets were safe, began to pour out into the streets one by one.

After days of fighting and aftershocks following the earthquake, civilians who had been holding their breath walked the streets, clutching their hungry bellies, amid the rubble of collapsed buildings.

In the city where everything had collapsed, starving citizens wandered around where the military was stationed, begging for food or rummaging through the rubble, but to no avail.

The former were often caught by soldiers who were highly sensitive due to stress after battle and the absurdity within the barracks, and were often beaten or treated badly, while the latter were often treated similarly by the refugees around them.

No one in Tokyo paid them any attention or offered them a helping hand.

The soldiers who were supposed to protect the country and the citizens either showed little interest in them or exploited the citizens in need like servants, and the Emperor, the father of the subjects, turned a blind eye to this situation.

Tokyo, which had prided itself on being the center of Shinto and the center of Asia, was utterly destroyed.

Once by the will of the god they believed in, and once by the army they did not believe in.

Surviving citizens clutched their hungry stomachs amid the rubble of collapsed buildings in Tokyo.

And a massive social experiment unfolds in Tokyo.

It’s just a simple experiment that you might do in a third-rate university sociology department to see how people react when they’re cornered.

“Masashi, you’re alive.”

“Phew… … I barely managed to survive, now I’m penniless, without a home or a temple.”

“The third child in our family died of illness, but this little guy had no place to be buried, so we put him in an urn.”

“Oh my… … . My mother is also very sick, and I’m worried because there’s no place to get medicine.”

“But you should at least go to the hospital.”

“Hospital? No, it’s a morgue. I went there yesterday around lunchtime, and the wards were all filled with soldiers, and civilians were groaning and dying in the hallways.”

“Oh, like that.”

As the military controlled all supplies, the city became short of supplies, public sentiment became unstable, and public order deteriorated.

The poster was posted in Tokyo, where kindness among people had disappeared and suspicion and distrust had filled the air.

[The cause of the Tokyo fire was a political operation by the Navy Ministry in collusion with socialists to drive citizens into poverty!]

The paper quality was poor, perhaps because it was hastily printed, and the ink didn’t hold up well, but the image of a soldier in a pure white naval uniform holding hands with a red devil was printed clearly.

People didn’t know exactly who took this picture, but they guessed it was the Army.

[The reason Tokyo’s streets are clean is not because of the hard work of janitors, but because of the Army’s excellent food culture.]

Of course, the Navy did not sit still either.

If the Army tried to frame the Navy as traitors in league with socialists, the Navy reduced the Army to an animal on the edge of humanity.

“It seems like these soldiers really have nothing to do.”

“Tsk tsk… … Why are these soldiers so busy fighting among themselves instead of helping civilians… … This is the end of the world, this is the end of the world.”

At first, the citizens of Tokyo did not react much to the sight of the Army and Navy posting posters criticizing each other instead of shooting guns.

But as time passed and the poverty grew more severe, more and more people began to take interest in the street posters.

[The Navy that assassinated His Majesty the Emperor!]

[Army bombs school and dances on top of it!]

“I knew it.”

“Those damn guys!”

People were outraged by these unclear posters and cursed and ridiculed the soldiers.

The discontent of Tokyo citizens who suffered both a national disaster and a disaster caused by human greed soon turned into hatred for the military.

Stories of soldiers who were doing their business a short distance from their units being attacked and beaten by civilians are no longer considered accidents, and there was even an incident where an officer who had briefly visited the Admiralty and was returning to his unit was murdered by a mob.

In some cases, civilians formed vigilante groups and, under the pretext of protecting themselves, raided military supply trucks and stole food.

As this continued, the soldiers became enraged and began to capture and kill civilians under the pretext of tracking down criminals, or to confiscate goods under the pretext of local requisition, regardless of whether they were in the army or navy.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department tried to stop these military misdeeds, but it was difficult for a single police officer to stop a heavily armed military force.

In a situation like this, it would have been better if there had been a military police officer, but ironically, the military police commander was in prison after he had stormed the palace last time to voice his grievances.

The military police there were also being investigated for treason, so in reality they were unable to perform their role.

All of this comes together.

“Soldiers! Soldiers are coming!”

“Hide the women and children, and take the extension cord!”

“Everyone, get in position!”

Gunshots and screams could be heard everywhere in Tokyo, and the streets were littered with corpses every day, as the army, navy, and self-armed vigilante groups, the Metropolitan Police Department, and rescue teams rushed to rescue people, all intertwined.

When things turned out like this, the Ministry of the Army and the Ministry of the Navy, who had actually done the work, were shocked and tried to control the troops on the scene, but in the end, things only got a little better.

Since the confrontation between the Army and Navy was not over, the soldiers returned to their original positions.

“Tokyo’s air is dirty.”

“It was because people became corrupted by greed that they were punished by heaven.”

“It’s no longer a place fit for human habitation… … .”

“This is just the right place for soldiers to live.”

Eventually, as people who could no longer endure this situation fled Tokyo in large numbers, the horrors of Tokyo began to spread throughout Japan.

But because of the military’s censorship of the press, the newspapers were reporting completely different stories, so this was just a rumor…

[Exclusive! The collapse of Tokyo was not a natural disaster, but a secret plan to bring down the empire from behind the scenes!]

A newspaper published by the Chosun Ilbo in Gyeongseong across the sea has landed in the Japanese archipelago.

NIS Agent Tears the Japanese Empire Episode 103