Chapter 223: Traitor
“What’s wrong? Why are you so angry?” Chen Biqun walked out from the room.
Since she was female, she did not participate in this formal negotiation occasion.
“Did the negotiations not go smoothly?”
“See for yourself!” Wang Ni said irritably: “We’re going to be ruined by these two idiots!”
Gao Zhongwu took out the document outline and handed it to Chen Biqun.
Chen Biqun took it and flipped through it. As soon as she looked, her brows furrowed, and the more she looked, the deeper her brows furrowed.
After reading it, she said: “How can the Japanese do this?”
After speaking, her gaze swept around, but no one offered an opinion, either not knowing what to say or feeling dispirited.
Chen Biqun looked at Minister Zhou, “Fohai, what do you think of this matter?”
Minister Zhou waved his hand and sat down on the sofa without a word.
Seeing Minister Zhou not speaking, Chen Biqun looked at Gao Zhongwu and the others, “Did you raise any protest with the Japanese on the spot?”
“We did.” Gao Zhongwu said in a low voice: “As soon as Minister Zhou got the document and looked at it, he slammed it on the table, making his intention very obvious.”
“What’s the use of showing intention!” Wang Ni got angry as soon as he heard him speak, glaring and cursing: “For such a big matter, you two didn’t know anything at all. How could there be two wastes like you!”
“Enough.” Chen Biqun patted his back to soothe him, “Sit down first, and let’s discuss it.”
“What’s there to discuss? Pack up and buy plane tickets to go back!” Wang Ni glared at Chen Biqun, “The Japanese clearly don’t want to talk, and we won’t sign either. Staying here to eat Japanese cuisine— is Japanese cuisine tasty?”
“No need to rush at this moment.” Chen Biqun did not argue with Wang Ni, soothed him to sit down, and said to the others: “You all sit down too, let’s talk together about how to handle this matter next.”
“You talk if you want to talk! I won’t talk!” Wang Ni did not sit at all, “If we talk under these conditions, I would really become the Japanese’s running dog, I would really become a traitor? Signing this document would let the whole world know, ruining my Wang family’s lifetime of fame. How could I go on living afterward?”
“Sit down first. We still have to handle the matters afterward. Let’s talk, come, have some tea first.”
Chen Biqun pressed him to sit down.
Wang Ni did not sit at all, his anger very great, and said incomprehensibly: “What’s there to handle? Just go back directly. Do we still need to talk about this kind of thing?”
“Will you never negotiate again?”
“If the Japanese have this attitude, what’s there to talk about?”
“What about the new government then? Just abandon it?”
“How to keep it? Become a traitor?”
“You think you’re not one?”
Chen Biqun’s voice suddenly got a bit louder, and her question indeed made Wang Ni stop quarreling and making noise, leaving him stunned in disbelief.
Chen Biqun said seriously and earnestly: “From the moment we went to Hanoi, we have already been traitors in the eyes of the world. Do you still not recognize this problem even now?”
“I’m not a traitor!”
“You are a traitor! You are a traitor, we are all traitors! As long as we associate with the Japanese, we are traitors! Ask them.” Chen Biqun pointed at Gao Zhongwu and Mei Siping, “Ask them if they know their identity is that of traitors!”
Wang Ni glanced at them and shouted at Chen Biqun: “We are not traitors! We are taking on this traitor role for peaceful nation building. We are doing it to save the 400 million people!”
“Saving the people is still being a traitor!” Chen Biqun nailed it down, “Why can’t saving the people make us traitors? We are doing peaceful nation building, but until the moment this matter succeeds, we are traitors.
You don’t need to hope for anyone’s forgiveness, don’t hope that many of the 400 million people you mentioned will understand or recognize you!
In their hearts, we will only have one identity, that is traitors, traitors colluding with the Japanese!
What you say, even being Goujian, even enduring hardships on burning firewood, we must carve out a piece of heaven from the Japanese’s hands!”
“Collusion I admit!
The nation is weak, traitors are in power, we can only pretend to go along with the Japanese, I understand very well!
For this, enduring the infamy, I am perfectly willing!
But look at this document.”
Wang Ni grabbed the document, flipped to the page full of advisors, and slapped the paper hard with his palm as he questioned: “Look, take a good look. Everything needs Japanese approval. If such a government is established, is it the Japanese’s government or my Wang Zhaoming’s government!
King Goujian of Yue could endure hardships on burning firewood because he still had his own military force, waiting for the right moment to strike and kill the enemy!
I can endure infamy, I can bear the title of traitor, but the premise is that we must have troops! Goujian’s troops for revenge!
But what about us? If we agree to this document, what do we use to accumulate strength?
Military power, financial power, personnel authority? All to be supervised by the Japanese. Even doing a little thing requires their agreement. Can we still achieve our goal?
We can’t beat the Japanese, but what we want is cooperation, not to be their colony!”
“If you don’t do it, how do you know you definitely can’t succeed?” Chen Biqun countered, “Don’t say the conditions offered by the Japanese can still be negotiated. We haven’t signed yet. Can’t we negotiate? Negotiation means negotiating.
Even if this is the final draft.
In China, in Nanjing, in Shanghai, if the Japanese send advisors, are we definitely unable to accumulate strength?”
“How to accumulate? Didn’t you see everything needs Japanese agreement!”
“It’s up to people!
He’s just an advisor, but the other people in the government are our people. The Japanese want to advise— can he advise over here?”
“How long will that take? What if it fails? Then we really become traitors?”
“If it fails, it’s simple. If it fails, is it still called being a traitor? If it fails, you would have helped China preserve the seed, and China would not have perished.”
“You can’t think of failure before even trying. Why don’t you ask how Goujian would handle failure?
Goujian took more than ten years to succeed. We’ve only been at this for half a year full count. Do you know what will happen in the next ten years?
What you say, waiting for the right moment, strike and kill the enemy!
Can’t we wait for this opportunity?
If it takes too long, you can’t wait?
You spent years fighting Old Jiang as vice president. Now you can be president yourself. Why can’t you fight the Japanese a bit?
If you give up now, yes, we can not sign the agreement and go back directly.
Go back to do what?
Go back to the Nationalist controlled area to kneel to Old Jiang and ask him for a vice president position again?
Even if you can swallow your pride to kneel to him, will Old Jiang give it to you?
He will happily receive you, and when you kneel, he will be even happier, agree to give you a vice president, then have reporters take photos, put your photo on the front page of all newspapers, with the headline Wang Zhaoming’s repentance to Old Jiang!
He Old Jiang will win the hearts of the people, and if you have the face to be that vice president, you continue being it!”
“I’ll go back to being a common person!”
“The Japanese won’t let you be that common person! Your speech in Shanghai is known worldwide. As long as you don’t die, the Japanese will use your name to do everything for you!”
“Then I won’t stay in the Japanese occupied area. I’ll go to Hong Kong, go abroad!”
“Then you’re still a traitor. You already are a traitor today. If you go abroad, you’re still a traitor, and moreover a thorough traitor with no chance of turning the tables!
Old Jiang won’t let you go, the Military Statistics Bureau won’t let you go, all Chinese people won’t let you go, even the Japanese won’t let you go. You, us, the people following us, all have to die! The whole family has to die!
Are you willing to die? Are you content? You Wang Zhaoming are a genius, why should you submit under Old Jiang?
If you don’t do it now, Old Jiang will laugh himself to death.
When Old Jiang is beaten badly by the Japanese one day and turns back to peace talks with Japan, you’ll be laughed at even more.
Letting you be the mascot vice president of the National Government in Chongqing, well-fed and supplied, and you don’t want it, come to Shanghai to jump around with the Japanese, get a traitor title and go back. Good? Now finding it troublesome, run away.
If Old Jiang knows about this, I can picture his laughing face in my mind right now.”
Wang Ni fell silent.
“Sit down first. We still have to handle the matters afterward. Let’s talk, come, have some tea to calm down.”
Chen Biqun pressed him to sit down, sat down herself, let everyone’s emotions calm a bit, then asked.
“Fohai, what do you think of this matter? Why did the Japanese attitude change so quickly?”
Minister Zhou furrowed his brows, sighed a long breath: “Looking back now, the Japanese have been luring us step by step onto the hook. Their attitude probably never changed.”
“How so?”
“Look, at first the Military Department sent Imai Takeo to contact us, promising to let Mr. Wang come out for peaceful nation building, saying no reparations, no land, withdraw troops in two years.
Then they lured us to Hanoi.
Just arrived in Hanoi and issued the statement, Konoe stepped down, and the Japanese said they wanted Manchuria, wanted Mengjiang, saying it was to defend against Soviet Russia.
We’ve been haggling for so long without agreeing. If not for the assassination, we probably wouldn’t have come to Shanghai in the short term.
I now even suspect if this assassination was done by the Military Statistics Bureau, or how it seems like the Japanese did it to force us to Shanghai.”
These words hit Wang Ni’s heart. At that time, if not for being assassinated at home, with a secretary even dying, he wouldn’t have rushed to Shanghai in panic, and wouldn’t have made the Japanese feel it was so easy to come.
Minister Zhou continued, “Came to Shanghai and agreed, thinking it was over. Now we’ve come to Japan, and they say they want to supervise our new government, want advisor rights.
Step by step, they are testing our bottom line, breaking through our bottom line. Doesn’t it seem designed? The Japanese probably came with this purpose from the start.”
Wang Ni was already wavering and asked upon hearing this: “You also think we shouldn’t agree?”
Minister Zhou glanced at him, thought for a moment and said: “I think we can still negotiate a bit.
Just as Biqun said, if we don’t negotiate now, what do we do?
We’ve already preached it. Your Greater East Asia theory has spread worldwide via newspapers and broadcasts. Sino-Japanese friendship— will it not be friendship after going back?
We’ve already recruited people, already said we’re establishing the new government. Some people have arrived in Shanghai, some are rushing to Shanghai. If we say the new government is off, what about these people?
The invitations for the sixth conference have already been sent out. Now in Shanghai, how many people have set off to various places to find people to come back for the sixth conference. Will that sixth conference still be held? If we don’t hold it, will the Japanese kill all these people?
Things have come to this, we are in a dilemma.
The only way is to negotiate with the Japanese, get good conditions, establish the new government, at least preserve the common people in the occupied area from dying in the war. Even if we bear the infamy, we can have a clear conscience.”
“This is all the good deed done by you two!” Wang Ni got angry thinking of these things and shouted curses at Gao Zhongwu and Mei Siping.
If the negotiators hadn’t failed to grasp the Japanese intentions, how would he have fallen to this state!
“You think we should negotiate?” Wang Ni looked at Chen Biqun.
Chen Biqun nodded, “I would rather die as the wife of a traitor president than die as the wife of an ordinary traitor.”
Wang Ni looked at Minister Zhou, “You also think we should negotiate?”
Minister Zhou nodded: “We must negotiate.”
The most important were these two people’s opinions.
Leaving Japan now was actually still feasible, as long as he had not signed the document yet, everything could be voided.
What the Japanese wanted was his influence and rallying power, which he knew.
As long as he didn’t sign, the Japanese couldn’t succeed.
But if not signing, Old Jiang’s mockery made him furious just thinking about it.
And what about personal safety afterward?
In a dilemma.
“Then let’s negotiate.” Wang Ni looked at Gao Zhongwu and Mei Siping, “Don’t take the initiative to negotiate. First reject completely, fully reject the advisor system proposed by the Japanese. Can’t let the Japanese think we’re easy to talk to anymore.
Must strive for all possible rights and interests.
The Japanese want a lot, so they must give us a lot too, whether money or equipment, all more.
And that advisor system, can’t agree wholesale, otherwise how will we do things later? Must strive for some initiative.
You two grasp the measure well, don’t disappoint me again.”
