On September 5th, a Lieutenant Colonel appeared outside the cell of the police station prison where Kita Ikki and the students who followed him were detained. He looked down at Kita Ikki with a slightly contemptuous gaze, then said to the soldier beside him, "Release them."

Kita Ikki had expected to rot in prison, so being released so quickly was truly beyond his expectations. Even more surprising was that the one who came to release him was an Army Lieutenant Colonel.

"I am Obata Toshishiro. Kita-kun, you have been released," Lieutenant Colonel Obata Toshishiro said rather unfriendly.

"Obata-kun, is there any food?" For the past few days, Kita Ikki and the others had only been given half a rice ball each day. He and the students detained with him were starving.

Obata Toshishiro was slightly taken aback, but seeing the weak and feeble state of Kita Ikki and the others as they came out of the cell, he turned to his orderly and said, "Give them a few rice balls."

After sharing the rice balls with the students, the students were released on the spot, while Kita Ikki was taken away by Obata Toshishiro. The treatment was not bad; there was even a car responsible for the transport.

Prisons are certainly terrifying, but at least the interior of a prison still looks normal. Because the army and police maintaining order adopted high-pressure tactics, criminals caught were executed on the spot, so no new criminals were sent to prison. The original criminals in the prison had also been dragged out and executed outside the police station. Plus, the police knew that Kita Ikki and his group were not common criminals, but were arrested for acting imprudently. They even had some credit in disaster relief, so they weren't treated too harshly. The empty prison wasn't actually too hard to bear.

Leaving the prison, what entered Kita Ikki's eyes were ruins full of shocking sights. During the earthquake, there was no mood to care about things far away. On the day he was arrested, Tokyo was still burning. Fire is a strangely bewitching thing; even when the fire was raging, it gave a feeling of vitality. Now that the fire that had burned Tokyo for a full three days had finally been extinguished, what was reflected in Kita Ikki's eyes was the brokenness after the fire. The vast majority of things that were once buildings, after being burned by fire, seemed to have their life force completely exhausted, leaving only that characteristic charred brokenness. Looking around, medium and high-rise buildings had disappeared completely, and the entire sky of Tokyo seemed to be much higher. In the low and broken Tokyo, there were "streets" full of charred objects sealed off by soldiers and police everywhere. Although he couldn't see very clearly from inside the car, Kita Ikki could roughly notice that the people in the disaster victim gathering areas were all dirty and their complexions were very bad. Recalling the lively scene of Tokyo before the earthquake, Kita Ikki couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air.

The raging of the fire had passed, but the slaughter between humans had not ended. Kita Ikki saw many ordinary young people with cloth strips tied around their heads escorting many people who had been beaten black and blue to the disaster victim gathering points. He originally thought those were thieves and the like. But after looking a few more times, Kita Ikki discovered something was wrong. The expressions on the faces of the Japanese youths were not hatred, but an indescribable excitement and distortion. They punched and kicked those bound guys, driving them towards the victim area like livestock. The soldiers and police on the roadside actually turned a blind eye to this.

"Who are those people?" Although it was the first time meeting Obata Toshishiro, Kita Ikki couldn't help but ask.

"They are Koreans," Obata Toshishiro answered coldly, his expression holding a sense of impatience.

"Why arrest so many Koreans?" Kita Ikki was very puzzled by this.

"Kita-kun, you don't think about yourself now, what kind of Koreans are you caring about?" Obata Toshishiro became even more impatient.

"What do I have to care about? At this time, the army already controls Tokyo. They can deal with me however they want. Is there any use in caring about that?" Kita Ikki didn't want to spend any thought on such meaningless things. When he was first thrown into prison, that unknown Lieutenant Colonel said that killing dozens of people meant killing dozens of people. So-called extraordinary measures for extraordinary times; if that Lieutenant Colonel had ordered Kita Ikki killed then, he would have been killed.

Now, there was some respect in Obata Toshishiro's eyes when he looked at Kita Ikki. Even if not in an organization like the Japanese army that advocates Bushido, ordinary people are easily filled with reverence for such a realistic attitude.

The car took Kita Ikki into a military camp in an unknown location. Kita Ikki was taken down in a place with few people, but he saw that the person waiting outside was actually Okamura Yasuji. While Kita Ikki was surprised, he saw Obata Toshishiro ask in surprise, "Okamura-kun, you're back!"

"Ordered by His Highness to protect the Emperor, but was driven back after arriving," Okamura Yasuji answered calmly.

Ordering someone to take Kita Ikki inside first, Obata Toshishiro began to communicate privately with Okamura Yasuji in a low voice outside. Okamura Yasuji asked first, "Why is there such a massacre going on outside?"

"They are killing Koreans," Obata Toshishiro answered.

"The military headquarters let them do this?" Okamura Yasuji was very puzzled. What he saw when he came back was not such a simple matter. Thousands of Koreans were driven together by many youth groups, subjected to all kinds of mockery and insults. Then after a so-called "street trial", they were pushed in front of the earthquake survivors and beheaded in public. This was not being burned to death, but a collective massacre. As a Japanese, Okamura Yasuji could accept this scene, but he couldn't understand why they had to do this.

Obata Toshishiro and Okamura Yasuji were allies in the "Baden-Baden Three Crows", so he didn't hide it from Okamura Yasuji. He whispered, "I heard it was His Highness's order."

After the earthquake, Crown Prince Hirohito immediately mobilized the army to the disaster area to maintain order. Through General Fukuda Masataro, he announced the implementation of martial law, and immediately accused Koreans and socialists of offending the gods, leading to the occurrence of this great disaster. The people below deeply understood the "superior's will" and began to accuse Koreans in Japan of attempting to loot during the fire. There were originally rumors among the people that Koreans disrespecting Japanese gods led to natural disasters. Under such more efficient official demagoguery, the Japanese who feared the gods believed it to be true. Immediately, they began a massacre of Koreans in the disaster area.

Such a smart guy as Okamura Yasuji instantly understood what Obata Toshishiro did not say explicitly. After the great earthquake, railway transport on land and shipping transport at sea in the Kanto region had been interrupted, and supply could not be restored in the short term. If the government ordered full-scale disaster relief at this time, the dissatisfaction of the victims would be entirely directed at the government. It wasn't that the government didn't want to provide full-scale disaster relief, but that it really couldn't be done. Then finding an acceptable scapegoat to slaughter would alleviate the emotions of the populace on one hand, and on the other hand, through this action, find those guys who still had the ability to act. After controlling this group of guys who openly killed people, it would reduce the potential hidden danger of victims causing trouble, and could also intimidate the common people. Okamura Yasuji personally witnessed two public slaughter incidents, each place chopping off the heads of over a thousand people. Japanese people believe that blood sacrifice with living people is a very effective method of sacrifice. Okamura Yasuji observed that many Japanese, especially middle-aged and elderly people, had no interest in the slaughter itself, but silently chanted prayers facing the site where thousands of headless corpses were piled up, as if performing a religious rite.

Okamura Yasuji was very satisfied with Crown Prince Hirohito's decisive approach. If the lord is incompetent and indecisive, the people below certainly have more room for action, but at critical moments they will often drop the ball. Hirohito usually didn't like to intervene in so many things, quite able to maintain the detachment an Emperor should have. But being able to make the correct choice at critical moments, such a lord is most liked by people with ideas like Okamura Yasuji.

"Are we going to purge the socialists this time too?" Okamura Yasuji put the matter of Koreans aside and asked about the other target for elimination mentioned by Obata Toshishiro.

"Arrests have already begun," Obata Toshishiro answered.

"How to deal with the Chinese?" Okamura Yasuji asked the question he was more concerned about.

Obata Toshishiro paused slightly. China and Japan have had trade exchanges for thousands of years, and Japanese people are accustomed to Chinese people appearing in Japan. If they insisted on spreading rumors that Chinese people caused the natural disaster, ordinary Japanese people wouldn't really believe it in their hearts. The military headquarters really wanted to vent their anger on Chinese merchants in Japan, but they were worried that doing so would give China a pretext. It would be terrible if China immediately sent troops to attack Korea. "We are putting all Chinese into concentration camps and will repatriate them collectively very soon," Obata Toshishiro answered. "The military headquarters intends to order people to tell the Chinese that they'd better reciprocate."

"Are you planning to let Kita Ikki go?" Okamura Yasuji asked.

"If we don't let him go, he is dead for sure. I feel it is not yet time for Kita Ikki to die," Obata Toshishiro answered.

The arrangement was very reasonable, so Okamura Yasuji stopped asking about this matter. Obata Toshishiro asked, "Okamura-kun, did His Highness entrust you with any position this time?"

Okamura Yasuji answered, "The military headquarters ordered me to the Propaganda and Intelligence Department of the Martial Law Command, responsible for news censorship during the martial law period."

"Then what plans do you have, Okamura-kun?"

"I want to go to Korea," Okamura Yasuji answered with abnormal firmness.

Obata Toshishiro sucked in a breath of cold air slightly. Korea is currently the place Japanese soldiers least want to go. Continuous battles, endless encirclement and suppression campaigns. Climbing mountains, crossing old forests. The Japanese army fought extremely hard in battles against Korean guerrillas. He didn't expect Okamura Yasuji to actually want to go to a place others avoided like the plague.

"Since we aspire to serve the country, it is only natural to take up responsibility. If there are no achievements, we won't receive His Highness's true trust no matter what," Okamura Yasuji answered steadily.

"I will go to the Army War College as an instructor next year. So I will definitely do my best to help you this year, Okamura-kun," Obata Toshishiro answered.

"Many thanks!" Okamura Yasuji felt a burst of relief in his heart. Although it was going to that hellhole of Korea, Okamura Yasuji was already a Colonel at this time, which meant he would be a Regiment Commander if he went. After becoming a Regiment Commander and having certain achievements, he would be transferred back to the Army Ministry for further studies, and then it would be possible to become a General. Now Okamura had gained Hirohito's favor, and on this threshold of being promoted to General, he could be considered to have "people above". In the Japanese army, everyone is shrewd. Even if Korea is a dragon's pool and tiger's den, if it involves a critical moment that could pave the way for others, setting up stumbling blocks is all too common. Obata Toshishiro's father was Baron Obata Bito, a top graduate of the 16th class of the Army Academy in 1904, and a Sword Group graduate of the 23rd class of the Army War College in 1914. If he could help with all his might, these things would be relatively easy to settle.

After the two finished discussing, Okamura Yasuji hurried to report to the Martial Law Command. After knowing the inside story, hearing the shouts of "Catch that Korean", Okamura Yasuji lost interest.

When walking past a street corner, another small team arresting Koreans appeared. Okamura Yasuji simply stopped and let those people pass first. Unexpectedly, when the Korean being chased in front saw Okamura Yasuji, this Army Colonel, he actually pounced violently in front of Okamura Yasuji and hugged Okamura Yasuji's thigh. He shouted in a Hakodate accent: "Sir, my younger brother is serving in the army, I am not a Korean! I am not a Korean!"

Before his voice fell, the Japanese youths chasing up from behind rushed up and pinned this guy down. First, they pulled him off Okamura Yasuji's leg. Some apologized to Okamura Yasuji, saying their actions were clumsy, while others punched and kicked this guy who was defending himself with a Hakodate local accent.

Japan has many dialects, and there are people from all over in the army. Okamura Yasuji could also hear that the unlucky guy indeed had a Hakodate accent. He first called a stop to the youths punching and kicking that guy who was likely from Hakodate, and then asked, "How do you determine if someone is Korean?"

"Let them say 15 yen 50 sen," the youth in front answered excitedly.

"Huh?" Okamura Yasuji pondered for a while before he understood what was going on. Because there are no voiced sounds in the Korean language, speaking the words "15 yen 50 sen" presents difficulties. Identifying whether someone is Korean or Japanese solely based on the pronunciation of these few words, even Okamura Yasuji who could completely accept this slaughter felt it was too rash. Japanese people from outside Tokyo could also be mistaken due to speaking with local accents. Just like this unlucky guy from Hakodate, he might lose his life just because his pronunciation was not right.

"I hear his accent should be from Hakodate, you can check again." Even so, Okamura Yasuji didn't want to get himself involved in boring trouble. After saying this, he didn't care what result that guy from Hakodate would have in the future. Parting the crowd, Okamura Yasuji strode towards his destination, the direction of the Martial Law Command.