Chapter 341
The attack at the Shinto Department of the Yasukuni Shrine suddenly made the atmosphere in the whole of Tokyo tense. No person or force claimed responsibility for the attack. Under pressure from the United States, the Japanese side quickly came to a conclusion that it was an accident and a private revenge incident.
The boy who threw the grenade at the convoy was named Takeshio Nagano, and he was once a member of the Tokyo District Volunteer Corps. The reason he took such an extreme action was that his father and two brothers died on the battlefield in the Philippines, and his mother and two sisters died of hunger half a month ago.
With his family destroyed, Takeshio Nagano became mentally unstable, which is why he committed such an extreme act of revenge. As for where the American grenade he used came from, investigators only gave a vague answer, saying that it might have been captured by his father and brother from the battlefield and kept as a souvenir.
Although only one U.S. military police officer was injured and disabled, the subsequent impact caused by this incident was very serious, especially because it was caught on camera by those media outlets that were not afraid of getting involved. These reporters were not military reporters, but major media outlets from various Western countries.
You have to know that Roosevelt, the President of the United States, died suddenly, and Truman, the Vice President, took over the presidency. Although this was inevitable according to the provisions of the US Constitution, in the United States, both the people and the media could not help but look at him with a critical eye and question the policies he formulated and the statements he made.
Truman's appointment of the hot-tempered MacArthur to preside over Japanese affairs was controversial, and the incident gave all parties an excuse to criticize him. Some public opinion pointed out that the attack showed that the order established by the US military in Tokyo and Japan was obviously not as stable as MacArthur described, and anti-American sentiment in Japan was still high, and countless facts proved this.
Fortunately, this incident did not last too long, because soon everyone's attention shifted to the establishment of the so-called "Supreme Commander of the United Nations in Japan Headquarters". This department was established in accordance with the spirit of the Potsdam Declaration. Its purpose is to rebuild the entire Japan after the war.
This department has great powers. Its actual role is to implement martial law over Japan. In Japan, all military, political and civil affairs are under the management of this department, including the establishment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Far East Procuratorate, etc.
In the previous life, because the Soviet Union did not launch an attack on the Japanese mainland, this department was monopolized by the Americans. From top to bottom, all positions were controlled by the Americans. However, the Americans can no longer do this now. After all, the Soviet Union participated in the offensive against the Japanese mainland. At the same time, Hokkaido and the four and a half counties in the northern part of Kyushu were controlled by the Soviet Union. If the United States excludes the Soviet Union again, then let alone what the Soviet Union’s attitude will be, the follow-up work alone will not be able to be done.
So, on the second day after the surrender signing ceremony, on the USS Independence, representatives of the Allied powers launched another round of consultations on the establishment of a general headquarters.
The consultation went very smoothly. In fact, the so-called consultation was similar to dividing a cake. The position of commander-in-chief must be held by an American, and the position of deputy commander-in-chief must belong to the Soviet side. As for the General Staff and the agencies under the General Headquarters, including the Civil Affairs Bureau, the Economic Science Bureau, and the Civil Intelligence Bureau, there are two positions, the chief and the deputy. The chief positions are held by Americans, and the deputy positions are held by Soviets. However, in terms of specific matters, they are one-size-fits-all. The Americans are responsible for the American occupation zone, and the Soviets are responsible for the Soviet occupation zone. The two sides do not interfere with each other, but they will consult and communicate on some key issues.
This is actually no different from the strategy toward Germany, which is equivalent to dismembering Japan with one knife. The only difference is that when it comes to the Japanese issue, Britain and France have no say and do not have their own sphere of influence.
Originally , according to Yuri's idea, he planned to return to Moscow after the surrender signing ceremony, but Moscow's order disrupted his plan. Comrade Stalin needed him to temporarily serve as the deputy commander-in-chief of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's General Headquarters. It can be seen that this was Comrade Stalin's recognition of his previous tough attitude.
Yuri called Moscow and recommended Meretskov for the position, but Comrade Stalin rejected the recommendation. He only said that he would take over for a period of time and Moscow would arrange a suitable candidate to replace him as soon as possible.
There was no choice, Yuri could only continue to stay in Japan and do his most disliked job - talking nonsense.
That's right, since he accepted the position of deputy commander-in-chief of the Supreme Commander's General Headquarters, it seems that what he does every day is quarreling, all kinds of quarrels, quarrels for various reasons, not only he quarrels, but also everyone in this department quarrels. In order to do a good job in quarreling, which is a promising job, Yuri even proposed to Moscow to arrange experienced military commissioners to take up corresponding positions by the General Political Department.
Mr. MacArthur was truly energetic and ambitious. As the commander-in-chief of the General Headquarters and the highest leader of the Allied forces in Japan's administrative agencies, he issued three orders on the day he took office: first, to forcibly dissolve all political groups in Japan; second, to confiscate all public and private enterprises in Japan; and third, to abolish all government agencies in Japan, both central and local.
As a soldier, and a soldier with a bad temper, Mr. MacArthur's style of doing things was absolutely simple and rough. As the only dictatorial political party in Japan during the war, the Taisho Yokusankai was the first to be hit. All members of the organization were blacklisted, and all assets were unconditionally confiscated. Some people who showed resistance were directly thrown into prison.
Then, all kinds of right-wing groups, with more than 600 on the list, were declared illegal, their assets were confiscated, and their members were put on the watch list.
However, when these political parties were purged, the Japanese Communist Party, which had just turned from underground activities to above-ground activities, was also included in the hit list, which triggered a new round of quarrels between Yuri and MacArthur. Yuri strongly opposed MacArthur's persecution of left-wing progressives, believing that his actions showed his ugly anti-communist and anti-Soviet face and undermined the US-Soviet alliance.
MacArthur argued that the Japanese Communists were not innocent in Japan's war of aggression because they did nothing during Japan's war of aggression, and since they did nothing, what was the point of keeping them around?
MacArthur's position on this matter was very firm, and he would not give in. In the end, Yuri had no choice but to follow Moscow's instructions and arrange for those blacklisted Japanese communists to carry out activities in the Soviet-occupied areas, and quickly established a provisional government composed of communists and left-wing socialists in the Soviet-occupied areas.
Among the three measures implemented by MacArthur, the most brutal one was the abolition of Japan's original administrative agencies. In less than a week, more than 200,000 civil servants in Japan were fired. At the same time, countless civil servants in prefectures and towns were also fired. This huge group was directly thrown into the army of the unemployed.
At the same time as these three measures were being implemented, the General Headquarters issued an order to forcibly disband all existing troops in Japan. At the same time, it issued an order to surrender within a time limit to those Japanese troops that had not surrendered and were still resisting stubbornly.
With the end of the surrender signing ceremony, the local war in Japan has not yet ended. In western and southern Kyushu, the Japanese army is still fighting, and the Americans are continuing to send troops to Japan at a fast speed. By the time Yuri took office as the deputy commander of the Supreme Commander General Headquarters, the US military had stationed more than 300,000 troops in Japan, and built garrison bases in eight important areas such as Okinawa and Sasebo.
In order to strengthen the Soviet presence in Japan and prevent possible disputes between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Far Eastern Front began to send more troops to Japan with the approval of Moscow. In just two weeks, six army groups were transferred to Kyushu, and two air force groups were stationed in Hokkaido. So far, the Soviet army stationed in Japan has reached 12 army groups, 4 air force groups, and the main forces of the Pacific Fleet.
After staying in Japan for nearly two months, the weather was getting hotter and hotter. It was already mid-August, and Yuri still had not received the order to return to Moscow. It seemed that Moscow had not yet found a replacement for him.
Yuri really doesn't like staying in Japan. This place is now in a dilapidated state, and there are too many things that he can't stand everywhere.
In Tokyo, after MacArthur dissolved Japan's old political system, in order to stabilize the situation in Japan and to make those Japanese troops that were still resisting lay down their arms, he brought out Toshihiko Higashikuni, who was from the royal family, as prime minister.
On the one hand, this old guy tried his best to safeguard the so-called dignity and interests of the royal family. On the other hand, he had no shame at all on certain issues. He actively cooperated with the General Headquarters in reforming the Japanese political system, and tried to persuade the stubborn Japanese troops to surrender. At the same time, he opposed the issuance of military notes by the United States that were harmful to the country and the people. However, in order to avoid doing something extraordinary to the American soldiers in Japan and to take US dollars out of the pockets of these American soldiers, he actually cooperated with the United Service Organization, set up a large number of comfort centers, and lured a large number of Japanese women to become military prostitutes.
