Watching Taira Toyomori's retreating figure, Saionji did not conceive any intention to eliminate this source of turmoil. Through the conversation just now, Saionji believed that Taira Toyomori's goals were different from those 'revolutionaries' who only knew how to shout for Heaven's Punishment.

Killing alone could not solve problems; even the Japanese upper class avoided killing too many people. It wasn't that the Japanese upper class was so sympathetic to the people; whether slaughter or punishment, the goal was to maintain social order. Leaving aside whether the Japanese upper class had enough power to kill one-tenth of the Japanese people, even if they really had such ability, as long as they did so, they would completely lose the trust of the remaining nine-tenths of the population.

Decades had passed since the Meiji Restoration, yet some prefectures in the Hokuriku region still hated the Satsuma region to the bone for the massacres committed in Hokuriku back then. Nowadays, unless they had a compelling reason, people from the Satsuma region were unwilling to go to the Hokuriku region. Going there rashly might very well result in a beating.

But leaving Taira Toyomori alone wouldn't work either. Originally, Saionji wanted to help Taira Toyomori get released from house arrest, but now he believed that letting Taira Toyomori continue under house arrest was best. If Taira Toyomori didn't contact people, a lot of trouble could be reduced.

Through this conversation, Saionji determined that He Rui should have made certain promises to scholars like Taira Toyomori. Based on Japan's experience in buying off powerful figures in China, as long as the price was named, the Japanese side would cooperate with whoever could fulfill the requirements.

Since He Rui had already named the price, the current Japanese government might not lack the opportunity to cooperate with He Rui. As for the requirements proposed by He Rui, the Japanese government could also realize them by first concluding a peace treaty with the Chinese government, or even a mutual security treaty.

Thinking of this, Saionji felt that Taira Toyomori and his ilk were inevitably still young. In the eyes of young people, the old guys were all stubborn and inflexible. In fact, the reason the old guys acted this way was precisely because they had experienced too many attempts at flexibility in their youth and found that not releasing the hawk until the rabbit was seen was the most reasonable choice.

Returning to the study and picking up the phone, Saionji dialed the Prime Minister's office. When the other party picked up, Saionji went straight to the point and informed Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi of some news he had obtained, then said, "The Chinese government might need a security treaty more right now; we should propose it proactively. If the Chinese government doesn't have excessive demands, sign it first."

Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi on the other end of the line hesitated for a good while. "Excellency. Could you come to my office to discuss this matter?"

When Saionji walked into the Prime Minister's office, he was very unhappy. Seeing Saionji's displeasure, Hamaguchi Osachi's secretary behaved much more politely than usual. Saionji completely ignored these people. Taira Toyomori criticized the Japanese government for being short-sighted, and this remark really hit the nail on the head. With the situation as it was, if the Japanese government kept putting on airs, the situation between China and Japan would only remain deadlocked.

However, as soon as he entered the room, he saw that the glass in Hamaguchi Osachi's office was actually broken, and maintenance workers were installing some shutters outside the glass window. The cold wind blew in through the open window, making the room chilly; even the heat from the fireplace couldn't warm up the office.

At this moment, Hamaguchi Osachi's voice sounded behind the stunned Saionji. "Excellency, you've come. Please come to the office next door."

During the short walk, many thoughts arose in Saionji's mind. What he could be sure of now was that Hamaguchi Osachi had been attacked. With so many 'Heaven's Punishment' threats against the Japanese government nowadays, the Cabinet had become completely numb. Arriving in the next room, Hamaguchi Osachi sighed. "Excellency, someone threw a bomb into my office today. The bomb malfunctioned and didn't detonate. If it had exploded, I'm afraid this office couldn't be used either."

Hamaguchi Osachi spoke lightly, leaving Saionji speechless. The Japanese government was losing control. previously, in order to maintain order, they had to deploy a lot of police power to the urban areas, directly leading to a significant reduction in the number of guards at the Prime Minister's office. This instead created an opportunity due to the vacancy in the Prime Minister's residence's defense.

Helpless, Saionji could only ask, "Have you found out who did it?"

Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi's tone remained calm. "It seems to be the Japan United Youth League."

Hearing this, Saionji was speechless. The Japan United Youth League was created by Tanaka Giichi of the so-called local faction. Saionji really didn't think this was an attack ordered by Tanaka Giichi. Before Hamaguchi Osachi was pushed out to be Prime Minister, the bigwigs had asked Tanaka Giichi if he had the will to be Prime Minister. Tanaka Giichi explicitly rejected the invitation. Although Tanaka was somewhat annoying, he wouldn't stoop to such despicable tricks.

But Saionji wasn't happy because Tanaka didn't pull any tricks; on the contrary, Saionji felt greater pressure. Tanaka Giichi had been publicly shouting 'in the same boat' and 'bear the burden for the country' these days. At a time when Tanaka had made such a clear stance, there were still people in the Japan United Youth League coming to assassinate the Prime Minister, which meant Tanaka Giichi's actual control over the Japan United Youth League was merely so-so.

Or rather, the Japan United Youth League was originally a mob, and now the little internal discipline maintaining this organization had lost its effect. If things had reached this extent, Japan would only fall into greater chaos.

At this time, Saionji could only do what was within his power. He asked Hamaguchi Osachi, "Prime Minister, is there any progress with the negotiation delegation we sent to China?"

Hamaguchi Osachi was not of military background but a graduate of the Tokyo Imperial University Law School, and was Taira Toyomori's senior. So Hamaguchi Osachi was quite calm about the negotiations. "The negotiations so far have basically agreed to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries. But there is no progress on other content. Excellency, I think we can restore relations immediately first and send this news out through the newspapers."

Saionji agreed with Hamaguchi Osachi's view. What Japan needed most now was good news, any good news. It didn't matter even if the Cabinet was cursed by people; as long as confidence began to recover and order began to be restored, everything else could be put aside for now.

And Hamaguchi Osachi continued, "I am considering whether to propose a two-year peace agreement to China to replace the armistice agreement. The peace agreement will continue to be implemented if there is no explicit opposition between the two countries."

Saionji thought this was a very good idea, but what Japan truly needed was to restore trade relations with China. As long as trade relations were not restored, signing more agreements wouldn't be of much use. China could wait, but Japan couldn't wait any longer.

"Please be quick," Saionji replied.

On January 28, 1927, Chinese newspapers published news about the latest Sino-Japanese negotiations. Except for intelligence personnel from various countries, the Chinese public, who were celebrating the Spring Festival, had little interest in this news. The intelligence gathered by various countries' personnel from the news was also very scant.

'...The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that the prerequisite for signing a peace treaty between China and Japan is to reach an agreement on a series of issues such as the exchange of prisoners of war as soon as possible, rather than simply signing a peace treaty...'

Experienced intelligence personnel could analyze that China was currently employing delaying tactics. China had captured 100,000 Japanese prisoners of war; just transporting these prisoners back to their country would take a long time. Because neither side had put forward their own propositions, it was difficult for intelligence personnel from various countries to analyze what China's asking price would be. The only certainty was that both China and Japan believed it was necessary to recognize each other's government.

On February 6, Japan and China signed a communique on establishing diplomatic relations, deciding to restore ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations. The Japanese government hoped to use this as a stress test to see Japanese society's reaction to this matter. Waiting until February 9, however, they waited for no news. Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs told the Prime Minister coldly, "The Tokkō is still conducting news censorship and has taken away all letters from readers."

Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi was furious and immediately ordered his secretary to go to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which was responsible for this matter. When the secretary returned, Hamaguchi Osachi saw unease on the face of his cousin and secretary. The secretary's tone was somewhat difficult, "Prime Minister, the Ministry of Home Affairs says they intercepted a plan to assassinate you. Several groups have stated that you ignored the blood of hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers and bowed your head to the Chinese. You are a national traitor!"

Anger flashed across Hamaguchi Osachi's face, but he quickly forced himself to calm down. The difficult negotiations with China had just begun, and already someone was starting to play tricks behind the scenes. Hamaguchi Osachi believed the ones playing tricks were likely the Ministry of War. Because Hamaguchi Osachi himself had not hidden his views: military expenditure must be reduced to below 300 million yen. The saved resources must be invested in domestic economic construction.

The biggest problem causing Japan's current economic recession was that the credit issued to the disaster areas had expired. A large number of banks and merchants were taking the 'Disaster Area Coupons' previously issued by the Japanese government to banks to exchange for yen. There was also a portion of people who wanted to exchange yen for precious metals.

The Japanese government had already issued an order prohibiting Japanese domestic residents from exchanging precious metals. But the result of doing so was very serious; unable to exchange for precious metals, citizens who lost confidence in the economy went to buy food and daily necessities.

According to the usual situation, this round of panic buying should have been able to promote economic circulation and allow manufacturing enterprises to restart work. Unexpectedly, due to the economic depression in the past year, a large amount of backlog inventory had appeared. This round of panic buying didn't even completely consume the inventory; merchants' willingness to restock was very scarce, and everyone was holding currency and waiting. They completely intended to use the cash in hand to ride out the storm.

Those who had no money became poorer, and those with a little money clutched it tightly. Seeing this situation, the financial groups dared not start work even more; apart from the necessary corporate operations, they wouldn't add a single copper coin of investment. With the economy at this stage, it had turned into a pool of stagnant water.

Unlike Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi, Ishiwara was certain that it wasn't the Army exerting pressure on the Ministry of Home Affairs, this special service agency. Ishiwara had only known when studying political economy that such an economic stagnation situation could occur, but he hadn't expected that one day he would actually witness this situation happening in reality.

Ishiwara was not the only one who could see such a situation and feel the intense pain brought by the near standstill of the economy. Recently, Ishiwara had met quite a few field officers and even generals. Facing such an economic situation, these officers had to decide to abandon the current upper class and choose to defect to Ishiwara's side.

What Ishiwara hadn't expected even more was that with the economic situation like this, the Tokkō had been infiltrated by the Future Society like a sieve. The selection conditions for the Tokkō were quite high, and those selected could count as elites. Precisely because they were elites, after understanding Japan's reality, their sense of despair far exceeded that of ordinary Japanese.

When ordinary Japanese were suffering, they always had some unrealistic expectations that these hard days would definitely pass. But the elites could see the root of the pain and could clearly understand that if certain problems were not solved, the suffering would have no end.

Although this group of people was not the core layer, they won in numbers. Intelligence provided by these people showed that the ones trying to prevent Sino-Japanese rapprochement were that group of privileged rentier class from aristocratic and domain clique backgrounds. The privileged rentier class were all major landlords without exception; they understood the content described in the "Japan Land Restoration Outline" and the "Outline for Japan's Future Construction" better than the Japanese public. In their view, Sino-Japanese rapprochement meant the risk of revolution becoming greater.

People from the Tokkō also provided information that this group of privileged rentiers was not only preventing Sino-Japanese rapprochement, but the Sakuradamon Massacre was also nine out of ten planned by them.

Ishiwara had long been clear about the nature of this group of privileged rentiers; apart from having long listed them on the purge list, Ishiwara didn't care about this group. At this moment, Ishiwara was staring at these newly joined officers with sharp eyes. "Gentlemen, my Japan has a population of 60 million and a territory of 600,000 square kilometers. do you really not believe that Japan's economy can recover relying only on these resources?"

These newly joined officers couldn't help pursing their lips. If they really believed it, they would have joined the Future Society long ago. Taking this step only now was precisely because there was not a single word about restoring trade relations in the Sino-Japanese communique on re-establishing diplomatic relations.

These officers had certain contacts with the academic community. After communicating with their trusted university teachers and the academic community, their understanding of Japan's situation became clearer and clearer. The reason the officers persisted until now was really that they felt the war was truly over, and even if China wanted to buy off the Japanese upper class, they should at least relax trade a little. However, the Chinese government made no moves in this regard. Then the only ones likely to persuade the Chinese government remained Taira Toyomori and Ishiwara.

Hearing Ishiwara question them like this, the officers couldn't refute it. Because Ishiwara was right; Japan's future could only rely on itself. After an awkward silence for a good while, Major General Namekawa, Chief of Staff of the Osaka Division, puffed out his chest and asked, "Excellency, we are all willing to agree with the Future Society's program. However, is Your Excellency certain how long it will take to restore the economy?"

Ishiwara looked at the expectant gazes of the officers and answered word by word, "The Chinese revolution has already produced experience. As long as you gentlemen read Professor Taira Toyomori's report once, you will know at what time each change will occur."

Although Major General Namekawa was from the Osaka Division, he was from Kyushu. The miners of Kyushu were resolute and prudent but had no concept of economic theories. Hearing Ishiwara speak firmly, Major General Namekawa decided to read Professor Taira Toyomori's report again after returning.

After sending this group of people away, Ishiwara wrote an order: "The Future Society will suspend recruitment of new members and organize all members to conduct a comprehensive study of the main program documents to resolve the vague understanding of new members."

After sending the message out, Ishiwara stood by the window with his hands behind his back. With the situation at this point, it was about enough. The enemy was clear. More than 15% of the lower and middle-ranking officers in the Japanese mainland army were Future Society comrades. Most importantly, the active group in the Japanese intellectual community had already stood on his side.

If he waited any longer, he feared that long delays would lead to trouble.