Great time travel

Chapter 11. The country is about to perish, and there are ship girls everywhere

Western Pacific Ocean, 150 degrees east longitude, [-] degrees north latitude, Caroline Islands, Truk Atoll
A calm and beautiful lagoon, like a pool of purest emeralds, surrounded by lush coral reef islands.

From a geostrategic point of view, the Caroline Islands have always been an affiliated island of the Philippine Archipelago.It was originally attached to the Philippine colony of Spain.When Spain was defeated in the Spanish-American War and lost the Philippines, it sold these islands that could not maintain its rule to the Germans.

Truk Island is a volcanic island surrounded by coral reefs, located in the center of the Caroline Islands.In the center of the lagoon, there are twelve volcanic islands. Although the height is only 64 to 500 meters, they are steep and tall.It makes people feel extraordinary momentum, so it is also called "Mountain in the Cloud".

This is an ideal natural berth. No matter how stormy the outside is, the mountain in the clouds is still calm. It can accommodate many large ships to park, and there are six channels for ships to enter and exit.Truk Island is also the core of the Caroline Islands, located in the center of the Pacific Ocean, and its strategic position is very important.As long as Truk is defended, the east can go out to the Gilbert and Marshall Islands to meet the enemy at any time, the south can collect resources from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the west can protect the line from Palau to the Philippine Islands, and the north can become the Ogasawara Islands, Maria It is the barrier of the Nami Islands and even the three islands of Japan.

To put it simply, the Caroline Islands where Truk is located, the Mariana Islands in the north, including the famous Saipan, Guam and Tinian Road, the Palau Islands in the west, and the Marshall Islands and Gilbert Islands in the east. The famous Tarawa Atoll is in the Gilbert Islands.To the south are New Guinea and New Britain, which are vast and resource-rich, to the southeast is the Solomon Islands, whose capital is on Guadalcanal, and to the southeast is New Caledonia with Noumea as its capital. island.Like bright pearls, inlaid in the vast blue ocean.

These islands and the waters around them are rich in natural resources.First of all, this seemingly wild sea area is actually the world’s largest tuna production area. The tuna production here accounts for more than half of the world’s total production. About 50% of the world’s canned tuna is produced in this Southwest Pacific region. In addition, it is also rich in prawns and lobster.Although agriculture is limited due to the small land area, the crops in the tropics grow rapidly and are still at least enough to support tens of millions of people. You can also rely on convenient sea transportation to grow coconuts, cocoa, coffee, palms and other tropical plants locally. As trade goods, rice is imported from the Philippines and Indonesia, wheat is imported from Australia, and meat and dairy products are imported from New Zealand.

Next, from an industrial standpoint, New Guinea is home to high-quality copper deposits, as well as oil and natural gas.There are huge bauxite mines in the Solomon Islands, and the quality of nickel mines in New Caledonia is the highest in the world. Almost a layer of topsoil is shoveled and it is an excellent nickel mine.Moreover, quite a few islands are very rich in geothermal resources, which can be directly used to generate electricity, and there are hot springs that the Japanese like very much...

Although due to environmental, human, technical, financial and political reasons, the rich resources of this archipelago and sea area have not been fully developed until the early 21st century, let alone rationally planned and utilized.However, if one day, a certain nation or force can rule this vast wild sea, and then overcome the test of hot climate and tropical diseases, and master enough technology to develop and refine these sleeping resources.Then, in this fertile sea area, there is really the possibility of forming a powerful industrialized country!
In the strategic geography of the Western Pacific, Truk is equivalent to being in the middle of a crossroads, occupying the position of the "Central Plains".As long as a powerful mobile strike fleet is deployed here, it can easily control a large and extremely vast archipelago and sea area around it.

Therefore, since the end of World War I, after the Japanese government took over Truk Island from Germany, it immediately designated it as a military restricted area and started construction, built a dock in the saltwater lake, and built a floating dock in the deep water of the lagoon. , The lagoon has become a mooring point for the fleet. Repair workshops, barracks, large warehouses and caverns have been built on the island, fortresses have been built on the hills, and trenches and bunkers have been built on the shore.

In the living area on the island, there are also complete daily facilities such as cinemas, military stores, brothels, pubs and hospitals, making it look like a small modern city.Busy soldiers and workers can be seen everywhere, as well as thousands of Japanese immigrants, especially military families, who come here to make a living.At first glance, it seems to give people a feeling of returning to Japan.In fact, it is a full [-] kilometers away from Japan, hanging alone in the vast Pacific Ocean.

Before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Truk was already the main anchorage of the combined fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy going out of the South Pacific, and was proudly called "Gibraltar in the Pacific Ocean" and "Pearl Harbor in Japan" by the Japanese Navy.

With the outbreak of the Pacific War and the successive victories of the Japanese army, Truk Island and its surrounding islands have changed from the forward barriers of the Japanese Navy to a safe rear hinterland. There was another wave of big construction boom.Immigrants from China and laborers from North Korea and China flocked in quickly, causing the population of Truk and the entire Caroline Islands to explode rapidly.

——Just like the Westward Movement in the United States, tens of thousands of poor Japanese were either forced by their livelihoods, or obeyed the call of the army, and went south across the sea to the legendary "new Japan" that was extremely rich, to build their own The new world of the Yamato nation.

Although most of the territory of this "new Japan" is still in a primitive state to be developed.Mosquitoes are rampant, drinking water is difficult to guarantee, rains and typhoons are frequent, tropical diseases are rampant, and they are often troubled by volcanoes and earthquakes, but the Japanese don’t care. Diet, I am used to working in pavilion-like factories and living in pigeon cage-like rooms... I can eat sweet potatoes and brown rice in Nanyang, where the crops are cropped three times a year, and a good tuna for teething sacrifices from time to time. What's not to like?
Under such conditions, the tenacious Japanese immigrants gave full play to their inherent industriousness and wisdom, and launched an arduous battle with nature: felling trees, reclaiming wasteland, building dams, sowing rice, vegetables and melons, raising pigs and Chickens, fishing shellfish, fish and shrimp... Along with countless blood and sweat and even bones, rice farms, sugar cane plantations, tobacco plantations, rubber plantations, family farms, salt farms, agricultural and seafood processing and trading enterprises, Commercial warehouses have sprung up like mushrooms after rain.

The oil rushing out from the shallow sea continental shelf has injected fresh blood into the industrial development and transportation of this land.The asphalt and oil residue left over from oil refining can be directly used for road construction, supporting large-scale road construction in tropical rainforest areas on the spot.

Countless wealth spewed out from this fertile sea, allowing the port of Truk to be greatly expanded. Although it is still heavily guarded and there are many cannons, it is already used for both military and civilian purposes. Fishing boats, ocean-going freighters and oil tankers The siren blares all day long, and people come in and out constantly.In recent years, Truk has not only built more deep-water berths, warehouses and port railways, but also greatly expanded the scale of the island by reclamation.

And on the islands around Truk that are rich in resources and convenient for shipping, a series of modern industrial, mining, shipbuilding and fishing towns are also rising at an unprecedented speed.The flickering of bright electric lights and the roar of various machines completely broke the silence of the tropical desert island.

Iron from Australia and Indonesia, copper from New Guinea, oil from Borneo, nickel from New Caledonia, struvite fertilizer from Nauru, sulfur from various volcanic islands... the natural resources that have been dormant for countless years have been captured by Japan It was developed by immigrants and labor coolies from East Asian countries, and was continuously transported to various emerging island industrial bases, turning into an astonishing number of various industrial products, which also made the population of Truk Island swell like a balloon. Get up - Japanese-style wooden houses and concrete western-style buildings are everywhere, and construction sites surrounded by fences or barbed wire can be seen everywhere.

In just a few years, Truk was no longer just a military fortress, but an orderly and prosperous port city.

Or rather, the great capital of a nascent maritime empire...

——The current Japanese nation is in the most glorious moment in history: they have occupied a vast land equivalent to hundreds of times the area of ​​the Japanese archipelago, and realized the dream of an empire that has not been realized for thousands of years.Their territory runs across Asia and Oceania from south to north, and across the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean from east to west.They defeated all Western powers from Europe to America, and let the rising sun of the Yamato nation illuminate half of the Pacific Ocean and half of the Indian Ocean!Their fleet is recognized as the absolute overlord of this vast ocean, making the Westerners who have dominated the sea for hundreds of years disillusioned and terrified!
However, as the saying goes, "There is no good day for a hundred days, and there is no red flower for a hundred days."At this time, the Japanese, who are full of confidence and pride, don't seem to have seriously thought about whether their current unprecedented glorious hegemony will suddenly wither like cherry blossoms after blooming like cherry blossoms...

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On the hill behind the Combined Fleet Headquarters in Truk stands an exquisite and luxurious shrine.

——Japanese-style wooden houses made of mahogany and yellow rosewood, dark red torii gates made of high-grade rosewood, the most beautiful corals and shells are decorated everywhere in the courtyard, and gorgeous pearls are inlaid on the offering boxes... Around the shrine, Surrounded by dense palm trees, laurel, oak and beech, mixed with some plants of myrtaceae and salicaceae.Tropical flowers of bright red, pure white, pea green, golden yellow and purple blue bloom all year round, dotted among the trees swaying in the wind and thatched grass undulating like waves, as if the shrine is surrounded by a colorful auspicious cloud.

Here is the "Navy Shrine" laid by the Commander of the United Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto 56 himself. It enshrines the model of every ocean-going ship above the destroyer level of the United Fleet. Adjustment.

No one knows why the Marshal invested in the construction of such a shrine, but it does conform to the Japanese religious cognition of "animism"...Since even old clothes and broken rice jars can be turned into fusangshen, those majestic Why can't the steel warships give birth to heroic souls?
——There is even an "Electric Shrine" in Japan, where Edison and Tesla are enshrined as "Electric Gods"!

Since the completion of this "Navy Shrine", it has become one of the most mysterious places on Truk Island.Because there are always a group of young and beautiful "princesses" with mysterious origins living here, and the hair color and appearance of some of the "princesses" even obviously have characteristics that are very different from the Japanese... So there were rumors about this shrine for a while Four times, some people say that the Western mistresses and illegitimate daughters of the high-level generals of the United Fleet are placed here; …

Rumors of all kinds of scarlet sex are flying all over the sky, but there is still no consensus.Because, all idlers and spies from all over the world who try to sneak into this shrine will end up evaporating and disappearing without a trace... Over time, this place has become the most mysterious forbidden place in Truk .

However, it must be admitted that the above-mentioned rumors are, to some extent, a little bit on the edge of reality.

——Although the "witches" of the Navy Shrine, their real identities are far more than just female spies...

It was a gloomy morning, and light gray and purple gray clouds gathered and rolled over Truk, obviously a heavy rain was coming.

Obviously, in such weather, no one is willing to step on the slippery mountain road to visit the shrine located halfway up the mountain.

Therefore, at this time, in this naval shrine, there are only a dozen beautiful women of different ages and hair colors, lazily staying in a Japanese room with tatami mats. Some of them were dressed as maidens in red dresses and white dresses, and some were dressed in brightly colored embroidered kimonos. Each of them was holding a simple black pottery tea bowl, and facing the fresh sea breeze blowing from the courtyard, they closed their eyes and meditated.A gust of wind blew, gently shaking the glazed wind chimes hanging under the eaves, breaking the silence in the house, and there were bursts of crisp and pleasant collision sounds...

All of the above constitute a seemingly classical Japanese tea ceremony beauties Ukiyo-e scroll... But in fact, the tea bowls in their hands are not traditional Japanese matcha or sencha, but the strongest vodka and whiskey , brandy and rum; the reason why they tilt their heads and close their eyes to rest now is not to feel any Zen, but to capture and listen to the invisible radio waves that shuttle back and forth in the sky.

In the Earth's atmosphere in 21, the radio environment was much purer than in the future [-]st century.

Although there was interference from lightning and thunder in the clouds, after some attempts and efforts, even in the Truk Atoll on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, they managed to capture a broadcast signal of a radio station in the United States thousands of miles away.

"...ZiZiZi... Next is the news briefing. President Truman delivered an important speech, resolutely denying the previous rumors about the secret peace talks with Japan, and hoped that all the people would remember the shame of Pearl Harbor and continue to support this campaign against Japanese fascism The battle of revenge, declares that no matter how long it takes and how much it costs, the righteous army of the American people will surely defeat this despicable and evil opponent and win a complete victory..."

"... General MacArthur, who just won the victory in the defense of Melbourne, was interviewed and once again publicly stated to reporters that the defeat of the Japanese in Australia was only the beginning, not the end. He will definitely set foot on the Philippines again with the soldiers of the United States In view of the current record of General MacArthur and the current situation in Australia, the reporters on the scene expressed cautious optimism..."

"...The Pacific Fleet Command issued the latest battle report, claiming to have destroyed a Japanese submarine in the waters of Midway Island on the [-]th of this month."

"...President Roosevelt's widow recently delivered a speech, again calling on women to come out of their homes and use their hands to do more for the country."

"... in order to maintain the consumption of the war on the Pacific front, the gasoline rations of the contiguous states of the United States will be reduced by another 10% next month."

"...The American Red Cross is recruiting the third batch of volunteers this year, and is preparing to send them to southern Italy to help local war refugees."

"...the vanguard of the Spanish Intervention Army was bombed by the Soviet Air Force in Toulouse in southern France, and a major general was attacked and killed."

"...the Zionist movement committed another crime in Jerusalem, bombing a local barracks and killing ten British soldiers."

"...frontline correspondents based in Rome reported that the brutal social reforms and illegal confiscation of private property by the Bolshevik regime in the major cities of northern Italy had resulted in a very serious humanitarian tragedy and the massacre of tens of thousands of middle-class Italian families. Large-scale southward flight..."

"...A large-scale anti-war demonstration broke out again in London, England. It is said that 10 people took to the streets to participate in the demonstration. The London authorities dispatched mounted police to suppress and disperse the crowd, and at least thousands of people were arrested at the scene...Britain Labor leader Attlee issued a statement condemning the atrocity..."

"...Today marks the first anniversary of the founding of the state of Hawaii. In order to thank the Hawaiian people for their great contributions and sacrifices in this war, on this day last year, Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass the advance of the Hawaiian Islands. Promoted to state bill..."

"...The following is the main news of the day. The British Prime Minister Churchill, who is currently caught in a cabinet collapse and facing a political crisis, rushed to New York yesterday to attend the United Nations preparatory meeting. Speech. Highlights include the threat to the entire world from the Soviet Union and Red Europe, and America's responsibility to lead the free world. Now play the recording..."