"End the war between China and Japan, restore peace, and embark on a road of coexistence and co-prosperity." Such words were constantly spreading through leaflets among the Japanese troops in Taiwan. Of course, there were officers who excitedly tried to criticize these words, saying that only by defeating China could Japan obtain unlimited space, but this approach clearly failed. The warlike clamor only elicited eye-rolls from the Japanese soldiers and did not achieve any real effect. Those officers who were still truly loyal to the Emperor had already led teams to attack the People's Party, and turned into corpses that were carried back, or simply could not be carried back at all. The guys who could encourage soldiers to die without being harmed themselves were not heroes with outstanding military exploits.

Captain Ando Teruzo's unit was also in Taiwan at this time. He had always suspected that this transfer was the result of pure political maneuvering. Although a large number of people in the Japanese parliamentary elections played the banner of "anti-feudalism", many small political parties even wanted to join Kita Ikki's "Japan Anti-Feudal Alliance". However, the biggest difference between Kita Ikki's organization and other organizations was that the first step to entering this organization was to confirm the view that "the state is a tool of class rule".

As long as one truly understood this, one's view of the world would be completely different. Acknowledging the existence of class oppression naturally meant distinguishing between the ruling class and the ruled class. The most important thing was to determine the class one belonged to and establish one's own class stance. Anyone who could complete the above ideological cognition, without even needing special emphasis later, whether they were the exploited proletariat, small producers, or even the bourgeoisie, could discover that the biggest problem in Japan was nothing more than the suppression of the feudal system. At this time, taking out "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society" and explaining it to these people, the entire situation in Japan would become suddenly clear.

Some people really could not generate the courage to confront Japan's deep-seated feudal system. They found that the enemy was not just a few corrupt officials, or the few big bad guys around the Emperor who bewitched and deceived the Emperor. The enemy ranged from the Emperor down to the bureaucrats, and even included those gangs secretly colluding with the officials. Everyone from top to bottom formed a system. Although there was flattery and deception within the system for their respective interests, the system itself was too powerful in Japan.

Some people chose to withdraw. These people were without exception the vassal stratum of this ruling class. Recognizing the truth about their masters helped them hug their masters' thighs tightly. The contradiction between the enemy and us that they thought of was actually the contradiction within the Japanese feudal ruling class, not the contradiction between the Japanese ruling class and the people.

But more people chose to stay. Those who could stay with Kita Ikki were basically that part of people who despaired of the Japanese ruling class. Even if they were born into the ruling class, they had decided to betray their own background.

Fortunately, Kita Ikki was considered a big celebrity, and many practical policies promoted by Kita Ikki had also become policies for some of the propertied class to settle down and get on with their pursuits. Even if the "Japan Anti-Feudal Alliance" attracted the attention of the Japanese upper echelons, it had not yet been banned. However, the core members of the Japan Anti-Feudal Alliance organization were invariably watched. Especially the members in the Army were all sent to Taiwan to participate in the war.

However, Captain Ando did not regret his choice. The revolutionary principles told by Kita Ikki really illuminated the world in front of Captain Ando like a bright light. Reading a large number of revolutionary documents and articles, and listening to Kita Ikki's narration of these documents and articles, Captain Ando changed from a hot-blooded youth who opposed "eating people" to a revolutionary who realized that he was "not necessarily unintentionally one who had eaten people" and then wanted to overthrow this man-eating system.

Kita Ikki had been to China. When he introduced China's system, he did not describe China as a country full of selfless and fearless revolutionaries. On the contrary, Kita Ikki used "the great people know best what is most beneficial to themselves" to describe China.

No one would do a losing business; this is the same under heaven. Even the loyal and brave Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army could not possibly enter the battlefield disregarding life and death just by listening to a few sentences of propaganda about communism. Without land reform, without industrialization, without culture, education, and technology going to the countryside, without the methods and systems of a New China where life could be gradually changed and improved by labor, it would be impossible for the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army to be willing to face death in order to defend their current life. Kita Ikki emphasized this point when introducing the situation in China.

Japan once had the upper hand when facing the Manchu Qing, but lost every battle when facing the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. In order to maintain an offensive posture externally, Japan had to squeeze its own people desperately. These simple facts were written clearly in the People's Party's leaflets. "Japanese officers and soldiers, do you think the food you eat every day is bestowed upon you by the Japanese upper class? The Japanese upper class does not farm, does not produce, and does not have the magic to excrete gold and urinate silver. Aren't those grains and materials the fruits of your parents' and brothers' hard labor? Most of the products produced by these laborers are taken away by the Japanese upper class, and most of them are used by themselves. The remaining dregs are thrown to you, do you have to thank the corrupt Japanese upper class for this?"

The People's Party always dared to say these words loudly, not only within the party, but also to the people of all China, "The state is a tool of class rule." After the NPC gained a part of the real supervision power, the propaganda of these basic political principles became deeper and broader. But this was only China doing this. Japan's propaganda machine promoted words like "Loyalty to the sovereign and patriotism, serving the country for seven lives, long-lasting military fortunes, see you at Yasukuni Shrine".

So Captain Ando Teruzo, whose horizons had been extremely broadened, saw clearly that Japanese officers and soldiers had also thought about this kind of thing in private, but this was the first time that someone had openly and straightforwardly pointed out that they were being exploited and driven. If the Japanese army could win through war and plunder the wealth of enemy countries, the Japanese army might still be able to persist. The current situation was that the war situation was unfavorable, and in the long run, the possibility of failure was extremely high. The morale of the Japanese army became increasingly difficult to maintain as the war continued. In order to maintain morale, Japanese officers talked big about clichés that had been said countless times. These nonsense words that had been heard countless times failed to play a good role. On the contrary, they made the Japanese soldiers loathe this war even more.

The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army's policy of preferential treatment for captives, etc., was also explained in the leaflets. It listed that in the previous wars with Japan, although they were ruthless during the battle, once the enemy surrendered, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army never mistreated captives. The number of Japanese troops who actively defected to the Chinese side could be said to be negligible, but when they could not resist in battle, there were more and more cases of Japanese troops raising their hands to surrender. These news quickly spread throughout the Japanese troops in Taiwan. The Japanese upper echelons could only lie that this group of people had been killed by the Chinese side. But those seriously wounded were returned to the Japanese army by the Chinese side after treatment.

These guys who were supposed to have been "cruelly killed by the Chinese" actually came back alive, effectively debunking the lies of the Japanese army. What was worse was that some of these people were transported back to Japan, and some died of illness in Japanese military hospitals because they could not be transported in time. The saying "Maybe it would be better not to come back" also spread throughout the Japanese army.

Captain Ando Teruzo believed that it was impossible for Japan to win by dragging on like in the First Sino-Japanese War. It was only possible for Japan to be dragged down by dragging on. As he thought, the Japanese Taiwan Command, which was beaten by the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army in mountain warfare until it had no ability to resist, gave up the plan to compete with China in the mountainous areas and formulated a new plan in July. In the new plan, the army would be divided into two groups. One group would attack southward along the railway, and the other group would take a boat around to southern Taiwan to carry out a landing. Captain Ando was in the unit that was marching south on foot.

Captain Ando had an indescribable feeling about such an offensive plan. Kita Ikki had also talked about the essentials of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army's mobile warfare: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue." Japan had never regarded Taiwan as Japanese territory, and most local Taiwanese had never regarded Japan as their true motherland. The Japanese troops fighting in Taiwan were basically in enemy territory. Such a southward plan was completely a conventional mode of engagement between two armies. What would be the outcome if they encountered mobile warfare?

Even considering such a difficult situation, when Captain Ando personally embarked on the journey, he discovered that reality was more terrible than imagination.

The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army had as many as 60,000 troops in Taiwan at this time. The opponent was 120,000 Japanese troops. Although the military strength seemed disparate, in fact, the Japanese army did not have any military advantage as imagined. The Chinese Air Force easily solved the Japanese Air Force and controlled the sky over Taiwan from then on.

Before World War II, airplanes in various countries around the world showed a situation where civil aircraft technology advanced by leaps and bounds, while military aircraft progressed clumsily. China's airlines were all state-owned, so they achieved a pattern of desperate accumulation for civil use and extremely "advanced" research for military use. Propeller planes were not that advanced either. What Chen Ke was most familiar with were some characteristics of the three models: BF109, P51, and Zero. Because the Zero was a heresy, Chen Ke never made up his mind.

China and Germany had originally cooperated in many aspects of military technology. As soon as the Great Depression began, many German aircraft designers were either unemployed or could not find investors at all. So China logically cooperated with Germany in this regard. The BF109 was obtained by several major German aircraft design companies in exchange for helping China perfect wind tunnels, and they received full help from Chinese wind tunnels to complete aerodynamics experiments for Germany.

In terms of jet fighters, the young German turbojet engine designer Ohain came to China in 1930 to lecture, study, and work to earn money, participating in China's plan to improve turbofan generators using steel mill exhaust gas. This person did not want to return to Germany either, and applied for turbojet engine, and even turbofan engine projects at the school. After approval, he engaged in R&D and production with the development team in China. The new engine was not only used on propeller fighters, but also considered for jet fighter projects.

After the prototype of the BF109 came out, the German side used the engine they produced themselves, while China used a new engine with a turbocharger, and the engine output power was greatly improved. However, what made Chen Ke a little unhappy was that according to the finalized naming, this aircraft got the name J-8. This took Chen Ke quite a while to get used to.

Whether Chen Ke was happy or not, the combat capability of the J-8 fighter was unquestionable. After aerodynamic optimization in the wind tunnel, the appearance of the aircraft was more beautiful. Japan's old-fashioned biplane fighters, which were not many in number originally, suffered a devastating blow in front of the J-8 fighters.

Without air cover, the march of the Japanese main force immediately encountered problems. It was cloudy on the first day of the march. The railway had long been stripped of several kilometers of rails by the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, and the train locomotive could not be used. The Japanese army could only rely on their two legs to walk. Captain Ando suddenly saw several planes rushing down from the clouds, strafing the Japanese marching column fiercely with machine guns, and attacking with rockets under the wings. The whole process did not exceed three minutes. By the time the planes pulled up and ran away without a trace, the Japanese troops marching on the ground had just had time to deploy air defense firepower.

These attacks were not fixed in time or place. After the fighters finished fighting, it was the turn of the light bombers to drop bombs on the Japanese column. Although the accuracy was worth considering, the deterrence was solid. No one could stand suffering such slaughter unilaterally. The Japanese army could only carry machine guns on one side, ready to engage in air defense combat at any time, and continue to advance with fear and trembling on the other.

At night, the familiar sound of automatic rifle fire made the Japanese army sleepless all night. The next day during the day, the fighter jets did not appear again, and it was the turn of the bombers to appear. China's four-engine bombers crossed the Taiwan Strait and dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on the Japanese marching column at a height that Japanese anti-aircraft machine guns could not reach at all.

The bombs were not just ordinary high-explosive bombs, but also some steel ball bombs. Whether exploding on the ground or in the air, the flying red-hot steel balls killed and wounded the Japanese marching column in patches.

On the second night, the Japanese army stopped walking. Soldiers on the front line generally hoped to withdraw. Following this way of walking, no one could guarantee that they would reach the destination alive. Not only did the soldiers demand a retreat, but even those Japanese officers who shouted about fighting to the death with the Chinese no longer dared to say any beautiful words.

In the command post to which Captain Ando belonged, the tent for discussion was tightly closed, and a marching lantern with dim light was lit inside. This was a trick learned from the navy to prevent light leakage from inviting enemy bombing. It was July now, and everyone was covered in stinking sweat after marching. Covered like this again, the smell inside the tent was very unpleasant.

Even though it was so uncomfortable, everyone participating in the meeting, from the regiment commander to the battalion commander and company commander, seemed to be competing in composure and did not make a sound. The weather was hot, and the tent was airtight. Everyone was soon sweating profusely, aggravating the unpleasant smell of sweat and sourness in the air. These soldiers did not speak even if they sat dryly like this.

Continuing to move forward meant waiting for attacks from the air at all times. But no one was willing to say anything. If they took the mountain road, they would have to fight directly with the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. During the day, fighting had already taken place. The Japanese troops pursuing the Chinese troops who seemed to be fleeing broke into a minefield and suffered more than two hundred casualties. Japan no longer dared to march into the mountainous areas.

Finally, the regiment commander probably couldn't stand the humidity and heat, and finally opened his mouth to order: "Gentlemen, prepare yourselves. We will continue marching tomorrow."

No one dared to object, and the meeting broke up like this. Walking out of the tent, Captain Ando took a deep breath of fresh air. The sense of relaxation that should have come from physical comfort was absent because of the extremely pessimistic prediction of the war. The tragic expectation of the future pressed on Captain Ando's heart like a big stone.