This left Itagaki Seishiro greatly irritated. It was not that he was unhappy his proposal had failed to pass, but that he was dissatisfied with having too few supporters within the Army. After all, he himself knew that the "Northern Advance" plan was not reliable for Japan.
But there was no use saying more now. Even those from his own faction did not approve of the "Northern Advance" plan, so there was no need for him to keep wrangling over it.
He could only say in an even tone, "Since most of you support 'Southern Advance' and seizing the resources of the Nanyang region, then besides maintaining and accelerating the Far East battlefield, the Empire should begin preparing to head south!"
Invading the Far East Empire was currently the core of Japan's foreign war. Compared with it, whether the "Northern Advance" or "Southern Advance" plan, both were more like secondary directions centered around the Far East battlefield.
Northern Advance was meant to resolve the security threat behind the Japanese army's invasion of the Far East Empire—that was, the Soviet Union's military presence in the Far East.
Southern Advance, meanwhile, was intended to plunder the Nanyang region's resources, thereby obtaining the supplies needed to sustain the war and supporting Japan in continuing the Far East War.
This was easy enough to understand. After all, the Far East Empire was the essence of the entire Far East, the absolute core of East Asia and Southeast Asia since ancient times. Any nation in East Asia or Southeast Asia with even a little history had basically either bowed its head in submission to the Far East Empire or voluntarily learned from and engaged with it.
If Japan wanted to become the Far East's new hegemon, it had to replace it and destroy or dismantle