Empire of Japan
Imperial Japan, officially known as the Empire of Japan, is a state that is looking rather worse for wear. Ever since its rapid modernisation, inudstrialisation and reformation into a modern national-state during the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, Japan sought to assert its sovereignty and avoid falling victim to european imperialism by practicing it themselves; starting with the invasion of Korea in 1895 and the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-1895, where Japan conquered Taiwan. After this, a fierce rivalry emerged between Japan and Russia as both powers vied for control of Manchuria following the decline of Qing China. This dispute ultimately escalated into war, precipitating the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. Going into the conflict, Japan had high hopes, as succesfully defeating Russia would enable Japan to expel them from Manchuria and seize control of the region, opening up a pathway to subgjutate China. To further assist with winning the war, Japan sought to distract and destabilise Russia by arming and supplied rebellious elements in the already volatile Grand Duchy of Finland, precipitating a major rebellion in the area.
However, Russia proved to be a much more capable combatant than anticipated, thanks in no small part to Pyotr Stolypin's successful economic reforms. The war became a bloody stalemate that finally ended with a pyrrhic victory for Russia, cementing their hegemony over Manchuria and leaving Japan weakened and humiliated. The war became extremely costly to Japan’s prestige and economy, and triggered the most severe economic crisis ever happened since the Meiji Restoration. As government declared, nationalistic protests against Britain, France and Russia soon escalated to the nationwide “Hibiya riot”, named after the Tokyo park where the unrest started. Foreign Minister Komura Jotaro, the person responsible for signing the Treaty of Portsmouth, that was viewed humiliating by the Japanese public, was injured by an improvised explosive device thrown at his house and died a few weeks later. Prime Minister Katsura Taro resigned the premiership to jingoistic marshal and president of the privy council, Yamagata Aritomo, marking the rise of Japanese militarism. This painful and dishonorable setback left the Japanese government wrathful for revenge and, seeking to restore the nation's honor and shore up public support, rather than address the issues directly, the Imperial Military leadership pushed the Emperor to continue the policy of industrialisation and colonial expansion to rival the Russians and ultimately get revenge. The radicalisation of Japan had thus begun.
Japan allied itself with the United Kingdom in 1902 and despite being deeply dissatisfied by the result of the Russo-Japanese war and angered by the reluctance of the Western Powers to cancel the Unequal Treaties signed before and during the Meiji Restoration, this unstable Anglo-Japanese alliance continued.
When the Balkan Crisis escalated to a full-fledged war between major European powers, Japan participated in the war on the side of Britain and quickly annexed German colonial possessions in the Pacific and China. In 1916, with the French Republic on the brink of collapse after its humiliating defeat in the Great War, Japan "volunteered" to protect french interests in French Indochina, and then promptly seized the colony a year later. Despite Entente objection, Japan drew the newly independent Kingdom of Dai Nam to its own sphere after the French collapse in 1916 and negotiated a separate peace with Germany. This was a direct response to the Russian annexation of Heilongjiang of China and creation of the “Zheltorossiyan Governorate” earlier.
However, Japan's main focus was on China. During the Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1912 and the following Chinese civil war, Japanese government backed up the Qing in response to Russian expansion in Northern Manchuria, while pan-Asianists, progressivists, and young officers showed sympathy to Chinese revolutionaries. When the “Lu-Terauchi Agreement Scandal” exposed Japanese aim to expand its influence in China was exposed, widespread anti-Japanese sentiments and the pressure from other Great Powers forced Japan to withdraw its demands. After the scandal, Japan turned to various warlords outside the command of Beijing, including Duan Qirui and Yan Xishan. Duan agreed to the Japanese “21 Demands” that would greatly extend Japanese control of the Chinese economy after the reunification, in exchange for Japanese support in the civil war against the Qing. Soon, in 1916, the defection of Shanxi Warlord Yan Xishan and Duan Qirui’s victory turned the tide of war, and China was reunited in the following year, but this unity did not last, and the country soon collapsed into a state of warlordism.
These new acquisitions were a boon for Japanese power, with new resources and manpower helping the fledgling Empire to recoup its losses from 1905 and compared to the slaughter and bloodshed in Europe and the flood of revolutions that followed, this made Japan one of the only nations that truly benefitted from the war and emerged from it both stronger and relatively unschathed.
When the Bolshevik rebellion erupted in Moscow in 1917, Japan actively intervened in the Russian civil war on the side of the Whites and supported the Transbaikal Cossack Horde rebels, Far Eastern and Siberian White warlords and other counter-revolutionary forces (including one Roman von Ungern-Sternberg) in their fight against the Republicans in Russia, and occupied large swathes of land. Despite the victory in Russian Far East, the war effort was again costly for Japan and drew price levels higher, causing mass rural protests that eventually spread to the towns and cities sparking violent riots known as the “rice riot”. Peaceful petitioning quickly escalated to anti-establishment riots, strikes, looting, incendiary bombings of government offices and armed clashes and other violence. At least three thousand people were killed and some 25,000 people were arrested for “plotting socialist subversions”.
After the Russian Civil War, Japan consolidated its status as the dominating power of Asia, with its sphere of influence ranging from East Siberia to the Pacific Islands. Soon, the death of Yamagata Aritomo and the collapse of his so-called “Yamagata Shogunate” in 1922 marked the start of “Taisho-Showa Golden Decade”, a period of economic prosperity fueled by its new colonies. Japan recovered fast from the Great Kanto Earthquake by issuing government bonds at the cost of overextension of debts and exploitation of its newly-acquired colonies. Despite its rapid progress, Japan is still not a functional democracy, as 11 civil governments collapsed in only 6 years due to frequent scandals and constitutional crises, and the military frequently intervened to ensure stability. Given Yamagata’s legacy of “Gunbu Daijin Geneki Bukansei”- the law that Ministers of Army and Navy should be serving military officers – the armed forces have a high degree of control over the politics of Japan.
In January 1927, a rumor begun to spread that the banks holding these earthquake bonds issued in 1923 were at risk of going bankrupt. In the ensuing bank run, more than 30 banks throughout Japan did in fact go bankrupt. As a result of the collapse of many smaller businesses, the large financial branches of major zaibatsu houses were able to achieve a dominat position in Japanese finances, which seriously worsened social inequality and deepened the growing rift between the cities and the countryside.
In order to distract the public from the crisis, secure imperial interests and revitalise the struggling economy, the new Tanaka Giichi's Military Cabinet acquiesced the Imperial Army's attempt for a military intervention in China. Pro-Japanese Fengtian warlord Zhang Zuolin, winner of North China’s warlord games and the effective legitimate leader of China, requested Japan to act. A skirmish between the National Revolutionary Army under Jiang Xianyun and Japanese garrisons in Shanghai triggered the full-scale intervention of Chinese civil war led by Japan, Britain, the US, France, and Italy. Suffering multiple defeats against superior enemies, the revolutionary alliance led by Kuomintang soon dissolved, as left-wing Kuomintang members and their communist allies was purged by the right-wing Kuomintang with the help of the Great Powers. Backstabbed, outgunned and outmanned, the remaining loyal leftist Kuomintang was quickly overwhelmed.
As the 1930s dawned, things were beginning to sour at home. The 1931 London Stock Market, just as in many other countries, hindered Japan's economic growth as employment, prices, wages, and profits fell in every sector. In the primary industry, the decline was far worse due to large-scale land annexation by landlords forced millions of sharecroppers and landless laborers to displace to the cities. As democracy was discredited, Shirakawa Yoshinori’s military cabinet assumed control. The neglect and bungling of the civilian economy during the 1920s meant that leftist movements of various kinds mushroomed all over the country, with left-wing nationalists, liberals, socialists, labor unions and communists - who previously had been harsh rivals - forming an alliance to counter the escalating repression, becoming a serious issue for the Kenpeitai.
As the influence of the Imperial Army expanded after the failure of democracy, the reigning Restorationist Faction Isshin-Ha, became internally divided between two subfactions - the Chūō-ha and Sonnō-ha, who engaged in a power struggle for control, reshaping the politics of Japan in the process. Chūō-ha (Centralist Faction) was the dominating faction before 1934, as an alliance of moderate officers and strategists in Japanese Army who support modernization, mechanization, suppression of any anti-establishment social movement and the total control of technocratic military apparatus over the state to prepare for a total war. This faction was led by pro-technocratic General Nagata Tetsuzan and more traditional General Tojo Hideki, supported by the “reformist technocrats” faction in the Japanese government, various Zaibatsus and even Emperor Hirohito himself, who deliberately patronized this faction to counter the influence of the older marshals.
The domination of Chūō-ha ended quickly. On 19 March 1932, as Emperor Hirohito was departing the Imperial Palace via the Sakuradamon Gate on his way to reviewing a military parade, a young man emerged from the crowd and hurled two type 91 grenades at Hirohito’s carriage which exploded, injuring the Emperor. Hirohito was urgently rushed to a hospital, seeing the failure of the assassination, the bomb-thrower, whose identity remained unknown (though the Technocrats from the Japanese Association Of Futurists were the prime suspects), blew himself up with the third grenade. The Imperial Household Agency soon announced mournfully that Emperor Hirohito had died of his injuries, and his younger brother Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu assumed power.
After the death of Emperor Hirohito, Yasuhito's regime instutited a series of bloody purges directed at all potential conspirators against the throne, with many suspected traitors either executed or exiled to Mantetsu for hard labour. The Special Higher Police and the Kempeitai arrested tens of thousands of alleged conspirators in the government and military and replacing many of them with those loyal to Yasuhito. With its leader Nagata Tetsuzan and main supporter Hoshino Naoki “transferred” to Manchuria, the Chūō-ha lost influence to the rising Sonnō-ha (Imperial Reverence Faction), whose name derived from its slogan “Sonnō Tokan” (Revere the emperor, expel the evils), whch had gained popularity in the aftermath of emperor Hirohitos' assasination.
Led by Araki Sadao, the radical political philosopher within the army, Sonnō-ha was a union of older and younger officers who opposed the Chūō-ha and its percieved technocracy. Combining ideas of ancient bushido code and various western ultranationalist and reactionist ideologies, Araki envisioned a return to an idealized ancient Japan, in which the state was to be purged of corrupt bureaucrats, opportunistic politicians, and greedy zaibatsu capitalists. His ideology was soon endorsed by Yasuhito, who was coronated as the new Emperor of Japan with the era name “Eigen”(Eternal Reign). Unlike his brother, Yasuhito tended to run the state in a more absolutist manner assisted by the military, as his "Eigen Restoration" comprised of various means to eliminate oppression and centralize power to his own hand.
Under the order of the nationalistic emperor himself, the military machine of Japan was spooled up to its full speed. Its first target is obvious: China. When Japan’s ally, Zhang Zuolin and his Fengtian Clique collapsed in the 1931 Huabei War, the Shanxi Clique, the last and largest remaining Beiyang Warlord faction became the controller of the Beijing Government. Japan took this opportunity to seize southern Manchuria for itself, setting up the Company-Colony of Mantetsu for resource extraction, where the Zaibatsus run amok and individual investors and Generals command Japanese armies beyond the control of Tokyo. Its leader, Yan Xishan, maintained an equal and neutral relationship with all foreign powers, which angered Japan. As Japan’s interest in China remained and it’s relations with the Russian Republicans in Zheltorossiya warmed, the chance to backstab Yan Xishan and the northern warlords became an active goal for many in the military, especially General Araki Sadao, with relative moderates such as General Tojo Hideki being purged in 1932. On December 7th, 1935, Japanese forces outside the city of Tangshan had a brief skirmish with Yan’s garrison. The conflict soon escalated to a full-fledged war unwinnable to Yan, which Araki claimed would “remove China from the map in three months”.[1]
However, the Empire of Japan is in reality looking rather worse for wear and storms have begun to gather above the ōyashima. The singular focus on expanding and developing the military-industrial capabilites of the nation has led to severe neglect of the civilian economy. The Japanese economy is on the verge of collapse; people are starving in cities and the Chūō-ha botched its promise to eliminate severe inequality. Impoverished working-class people have radicalised and began to organize in the dark, murmuring the legacy of the Hibiya Riot and the Rice Riot. Words of the all-saving buddha in the name of socialism and equality began to spread among the peasants. The officers cannot even stop the recent trend of soldiers and sailors joining underground “patriotic societies” inspired by the agitative speeches of the state-employed radical “Patriotic Vanguard”, led by the traitor Okawa Shumei. While Imperial Japan has grown powerful and mighty, internally it is both unmodernised and economically and socially unstable, creating a fragile house of cards of an empire that could collapse the moment something goes wrong. While the military has been enriched, the civilian population is plagued by severe economic inequality and an underfunctioning economy while outside the cities, the empire is an undeveloped rural backwater stricken by poverty, all teeming with growing leftist movements.[2]
The Empire of Japan is an empire on the edge; while it avoided the destruction and devastation of the Great War, that same destruction and devastation may yet catch up to them if things go wrong. Imperial Japan is struggling to hold itself together as the economic neglect of decades past comes to collect and its economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. The intended conquest of Northern China might be able to buy the nation enough breathing room to endure the looming economic crash and recover from it, but the promised three-month-campaign imposes a tight schedule for success and if that deadline is not met, the consequences could be catastrophic. If the war does not go as promised, and the population is not excited by a tremendous enough, the Emperor’s Eternal Reign will be in serious trouble and the fallout could be catastrophic. The war must be won within three months; time is a luxury here and the clock is ticking, so get to it! TENNO HEIKA BANZAI![3]