Summoning Japan × The New Order: Last Days of Europe

Chapter 2

June 1, 1963, shortly after noon

Not much time has passed since the revelation of a major corruption case involving not only a zaibatsu but also top government officials. The resignation of the Prime Minister and others has left the government leaderless. Despite this situation, a debate was raging in the Diet over who to appoint as prime minister.

"As long as the nation is in such a crisis, the majority should decide!"

"Well, shouldn't we decide based on His Majesty's advice...?"

"But if the Kidoites persuades His Majesty to appoint a Prime Minister, will the Conservatives and Reformists... in the other wing and the Technocrats object vehemently?"

"Never before in the Japanese Empire's political history has there been such a state of chaos..."

The current political system of the Japanese Empire is the Taisei Yokusankai, a unified cabinet system that runs a system of national unity. In the prewar Japanese national political system, the Prime Minister was appointed after receiving the confidence of the Emperor, the symbol of the nation. In other words, if the Emperor ordered, "I want to appoint this person as prime minister," the order was passed.

However, since the Shōwa Emperor was committed to democracy, he appointed the leader of the ruling party as prime minister, thereby creating a pseudo-parliamentary cabinet system. In normal times, this would not seem like such a serious matter, but the situation was becoming more and more urgent with each passing moment.

Because at first, an audience was held with the Emperor to appoint a person recommended by Kido *1 and others in the Taisei Yokusankai as prime minister, but the Emperor refused on the grounds that it would be contrary to democracy. As a result, the various factions within the Taisei Yokusankai were in the midst of a dispute over who should be appointed prime minister.

The economic crisis surrounding Japan today is due to revelations of corruption at the Yasuda Zaibatsu. The resulting political distrust of the political world. To top it all off, there was news on NHK from around 09:00 this morning that communication networks from the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Karafuto, and other areas had been cut off.

In addition to the commotion caused by the news earlier in the morning that the Japan-Korea Tunnel had collapsed, making the railroad impassable, it is unthinkable that communications would be disrupted as well. In particular, the Japan-Korea Tunnel is not an old tunnel, but a new tunnel that was opened in April 1963 at a huge cost to demonstrate the technological prowess of the Japanese Empire both at home and abroad. It is still understandable that only the tunnel would be crippled by some accident.

However, the Korean Peninsula, where the communications infrastructure was built after the Greater East Asia War, is home to the manufacturing bases of many conglomerates, and the companies are now consulting one after another with the Ministry of Communications, which is in charge of postal and communications infrastructure, about the inability to communicate with each other.

'What does this mean? No way, the military couldn't...'

The members of the Reformists led by Takagi, *2 whose goal is to enact political reforms, first suspected a military coup when they heard this NHK news bulletin. Takagi himself, judging that it was out of the ordinary for communication networks to be cut off all at once, ordered his secretary to gather information via the Navy.

The secretary contacted Takagi's friends and current naval officers and received the latest information from the First Fleet, whose flagship was the battleship Yamato, docked at the naval base in Sasebo, and from the naval headquarters in Kure shortly before the lunch break. However, the content of the communication was so shocking and insane that he handed the information he had gathered to Takagi with a pale face.

Takagi, who received the documents, is a skilled man with experience in naval factional disputes and having been in the thick of the fray many times before during the war. Even Takagi, who had received the documents, was so overwhelmed that he realized that he could not solve this case by himself. The situation was so extraordinary that it would have been better if the Empire of Manchuria's military had suddenly revolted. It was a shock that shook Takagi to the core and was too much for him to handle alone.

Perhaps because the situation was so serious, Takagi held an emergency meeting during a break in the Diet session with members of the Reformists.

"I don't think so... but is there anyone inside the military trying to stage a coup?"

"No, I don't think so. I heard the NHK news this morning and asked my colleagues and subordinates, but the situation is more serious than a military coup. The situation is so bad that I think it's better than what happened on February 26."

"...A situation more serious than a military coup?"

"This is information by the Navy that my secretary just brought me... I hope all of you read it. However, if you read it, you will lose your mind."

At the meeting, the leading members of the Reformists, whom Takagi trusts the most, see the classified material handed to them by a trembling Takagi. When the politicians saw it, they began to tremble at the sheer absurdity of the contents.

"Not only were military and civilian communications within the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere from San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Rabaul, Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, and Free India, but communications with Germany, the United States, and other countries were also cut off. At the same time, our Navy lost all communications with the rest of the fleet on the mainland, and naval reconnaissance aircraft confirmed the physical disappearance of the Korean Peninsula and Karafuto Island. Therefore, we request the government to take immediate measures..."

The esteemed Empire found itself physically isolated.

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Notes:

*1: An influential figure in the court and trusted by the Shōwa Emperor. In OTL, he made peace efforts during the Pacific War and narrowly avoided the death penalty at the Far Eastern Tribunal by exposing the inner workings of the government and military in order to save his own skin.

*2: A former naval officer, he was involved in the assassination of Prime Minister Tōjō in 1944 and was ordered by the Navy's Yonai to work quietly on the end of the war. He played an important role at the end of the war as well as leaving behind wartime documents in the postwar period by recording information on Japanese political affairs up to the end of the war.