This will be the beginning of Chapter 2.
- Yamaga
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2-1
On the morning of December 17, 1541 (?), a meeting of all the generals of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy who had thrown into the past was held at the Governor General's Office in Manila. One of the topics of the meeting was who should be chosen as the Governor-General of Manila.
"The first thing we need to think about is getting to our homeland, Japan, and securing fuel, among others."
Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the highest-ranking officer of those present at the meeting, who was to act as a chairman, made the statement at the beginning of the meeting, which caused all the officers of the Army and Navy present to ponder.
They learned from the residents of Manila that there are apparently such islands, the Dutch East Indies, as they used to be called in the former world. But are there really oil fields there? Even if there were, they might be on a much smaller scale than those in the former world.
(Of course, there may be large-scale oil fields there, but since they were in a situation where it is no exaggeration to say that they were groping in the dark, it was unavoidable that they had to assume a worst-case scenario.)
Nevertheless, not moving at all is not an option. But if they continued to move, they will run out of fuel.
"Shall we have a small fleet escort them and secure Borneo, or more precisely, Brunei, first? If we are to believe the residents of Manila, although there is a kingdom around Brunei, it is little more than a city-state. If we send a fully-equipped infantry battalion to Brunei, it would be enough to make it a Japanese territory, as long as they don't employ guerrilla warfare. As for the rest of Borneo, we will secure it in due course. We will secure fuel thereby," Navy Vice Admiral Ibō Takahashi said.
On the island of Borneo, there was supposed to be the so-called Seria oil field right next to Brunei. It was the first candidate for an oil field that would be readily available under the current circumstances, and the Army and Navy officers present did not raise any particular objections. Originally, they would have liked to secure other potential oil field sites and conduct exploratory drilling there.
"We already have to be concerned about the bottom of the fuel supply. Furthermore, even if we were to mine the oil fields and refine the oil, we wouldn't have enough equipment to do so."
Army Lieutenant General Yūitsu Tsuchihashi, commander of the 48th Division, spoke to himself half in self-deprecation.
He had not expected to suddenly lose contact with the Japanese mainland. After securing the oil fields, materials for full-scale development of the oil fields were to be transported from the Japanese mainland. There was no shortage of exploratory drilling materials and simple oil refining equipment on hand, but even if they gathered up all the reserves, and even if the Seria oil field was located as it had been in history, only a small portion of the field would be in operation.
Unless a mass production system for exploration materials and oil refining equipment could be established, the elite Imperial Japanese Army and Navy would be forced to suffer from fuel shortages. For this reason, it was decided to limit the number of oil fields they would secure to the Seria oil field.
Lieutenant General Tsuchihashi was right to scoff half-mockery at this, but there was another reason. The 48th Division was one of the first two mechanized divisions in the Japanese Army, with a complete vehicle organization that eliminated horses.
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Emperor's Armed Forces in the Warring States
Historical Fiction"Are we 400 years in the past?" In December 1941, with the outbreak of the Greater East Asia War, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy units that were moving by sea to capture Malaya and the Philippines were astonished. It took them some time to unde...
