Rising Sun - Japan Historybook KR DH 1.01/02 AAR

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The Rising Sun,
The Japanese Empire on the World Stage.
From 1936 to 1940.
By Generalleutnant Georg Heintz
Published by Hamburger-Verlag
Copyright- 1986
Copyright English Translation - 1987

Author's Note.
The sheer amount of material to be covered means that whilst a comprehensive account can be attempted, it will inevitably be slightly fractured in it's approach, due to the simple inability of the written word to be able to sufficiently convey all that has occurred without devolving into a tangled mess of disparate sentences that leave the reader both mystified and none the wiser.

All names in this book are given in the Japanese style - that is surname first

OOC:

Contents/blahblahblah.

AAR will end at the beginning of 1940, due to me updating to 1.02b and it making the game go crazy. Sorry. That said though I'd basically achieved all my wargoals. (without going into the realm of crazy fantasy invasions of India and the US etcetc)

 

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Prelude, Overview from 1914 to 1936.

Japan's loss in the first Weltkrieg was it's first defeat in a war since the modernisation of the Meiji Restoration had begun, and the national pride took a severe blow at the defeat of their remarkably successful forces – the Asian theatre saw Japanese troops overwhelming most German colonial possessions near bloodlessly, only to have to return them at the wars end.

While the 'Peace with Honour' guaranteed Japanese rule of their existing overseas territories, most importantly Korea, Formosa and Iwo Jima, the political and social situation in Japan was at a critical stage before the end of the Weltkrieg, after a precipitous rise in the price of rice sparked the Rice Riots from July through to September of 1918, bringing about the collapse of the Terauchi Masatake administration. The Japanese economy was annihilated an inflationary post-war spiral of rising costs that also affected the prices of consumer goods and rents. To alleviate the issue, colonial production of rice in Korea and Taiwan was intensified. Meanwhile the social unrest of the nation was fuelled by the collapse of France and the widening gap between rich and poor in the Home Islands, which was further exacerbated by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which conservative estimates give at killing 100,000 people. It was this setting which provided the stage for the anarchist rebellion as the nation was rocked with economic crises and the disastrous deathtoll in Tokyo and Yokohama.

After a failed attempt on Regent Hirohito's life by a lone anarchist against the backdrop of rioting anarchists marching through Tokyo, Sendai, Yokohama and Chiba, martial law was declared for the first time in Japanese history. General Tanaka Giichi (1864-1928) formed a cabinet with support from the Genro and Seiyuhonto splinter groups of the Seiyukai political party. This lead to the introduction of the Peace Preservation Law which symbolized the Draconian rule of Tanaka as he legislated to allow for widespread arrests of leftists, syndicalist and suspected syndicalist sympathisers, with over 500 individuals prosecuted and put on open trial, which exposed the innerworkings of the illegal Japan Syndicalist Party, and allowed the dissolution of the few remaining legal socialist parties in Japan. However, with collapse and fracturing of the British Empire and the economic downturn in America, Japan's export-led economy slipped into even steeper free fall with seemingly no end in sight. The first quarter of 1926 saw a series of massive bank closures after the Government attempted to redeem the Earthquake bonds it had issued to over extended businesses after the Great Kanto Earthquake and the Admiral Tirpitz's military intervention in China as well as the restoration of the Qing Empire. As Tanaka was incapable of protecting Japanese interests in China or stabilising the financial system, the weakness of his rule was exposed.

By April, the two main opposition parties, Seiyukai and Kenseikai, had swallowed their differences and formed a coalition and and started so-called 'the 2nd Movement to Protect the Constitution'. With popular support for the opposition and Prince Regent Hirohito's indirect intervention, the ailing Tanaka was forced to resign. The coalition cabinet was formed, marking the beginning of democratic governance, universal suffrage and party-based cabinet. The coalition however, collapsed over the issue of intervention in support of the Fengtian clique in Manchuria as the Qing Empire began to gather it's forces at Peking in order to launch their 'Northern Expedition' to consolidate the Manchu Emperor's position.

The Prime minister, Inukai Tsuyoshi and his Seiyukai cabinet, determined to support Zhang Zuelin, the Warlord of Manchuria in an attempt to alleviate or resolve a number of strategic economic difficulties, and to prevent the complete German domination of China as well as the threat of a resurgent Qing on the border with Korea. Therefore, on June 4 1926 Japanese troops crossed the Manchurian border at Korea, the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liandong Peninsula and from Port Arthur proper and quickly occupied all of Manchuria, mostly through the use of the South Manchuria Railway and the Chinese Eastern Railway. Further advances toward Peking were halted however due to diplomatic pressure emanating from Berlin.

However, the Manchurian intervention also paved the way to support the regime of Admiral Alexander Kolchak whose “Russian Republic” in Siberia had been slowly eroded by the forces of the Moscow government until it was merely holding a line along the Amur river after his attempted Coup d'etat in 1925 had failed. Both campaigns were resolved by the winter of 1926, with Japanese troops garrisoning Vladivostok until 1928.

The dual success of the campaigns in Manchuria and in the Russian Maritime Provinces helped to solidify the strong position of the military both politically and in society, most of whom felt the way forwards was to seek further conquests elsewhere. The chaotic year of 1926 ended with the death of Emperor Taisho on December 25 of a heart attack early in the morning. His son Hirohito assumed the throne and became Emperor Showa. The next nine years saw mild economic recovery and peaceful political developments.

However, since the beginning of the Meiji period, the military had existed in an intimate and privileged relationship with the imperial institution. Top-ranking military leaders such as those of the Imperial General Headquarters were given direct access to the emperor and (crucially) the authority to transmit his pronouncements directly to the troops. The sympathetic relationship between conscripts and officers, particularly junior officers who were drawn mostly from the peasantry, tended to draw the military closer to the people. In time, most people came to look more for guidance in national matters to military commanders than to political leaders – the consequences of which cannot be underestimated.

 

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Prelude, The Kwantung Army 1926 to 1936.

The ten years between 1926 and 1936 saw the ascent of the Kwantung Army in Japanese politics. The force that essentially controlled the nascent 'Fengtien Republic' in Manchuria was a hotbed of political radicalism that was on a constant boil, with officers and soldiers posted in the area for periods before returning to the Home Islands as ardent supporters of Imperialist ambitions for their nation. Many both in the Home Islands and as part of the Kwantung Army felt that Manchuria was the area where Japanese power was to be consolidated before their next move.

Whilst the occupation of the puppet state was conducted by the Army and the Army Air Force, the General Staff of the Kwantung Army also controlled the access to the region, which meant that people such as Intelligence Officer Doihara Kenji both had the ability to essentially decide which Zaibatsu were allowed to proceed into the country to exploit it economically, and also to pursue their own lines of 'business'.

Indeed during Doihara's tenure in the Fengtien Republic he essentially turned the nation into a vast criminal enterprise where sadism, assault and murder were institutionalised means of terrorizing and controlling Manchuria's Chinese and Russian population, where many of the latter fled and relocated to the Transamur, where Kolchak managed to effectively block attempts to run such corruption through the economic ties that had developed between Russia and the former Maritime Provinces.

In the Fengtien Republic robbery by soldiers and gendarmes, arbitrary confiscation of property and unabashed extortion became commonplace. Underground brothels, opium dens, gambling houses and narcotics shops run by Japanese gendarmes competed with the state monopoly syndicate of opium, eroding the powerbase of Zhang Zuolin and contributing to the collapse of the Manchurian economy in 1928. Many conscientious Japanese officers protested these conditions, but Tokyo ignored them and consequently they were silenced. The ritual suicide of the presiding commander of the Kwantung Army, Field Marshal Nobuyoshi Muto in 1934 was allegedly in an attempt to plead for mercy for the people of the puppet state.

Doihara's activities soon spread into the rest of China through the Legation Cities and the porous border with Manchuria. With funds from the Imperial Treasury he created and funded hundreds of criminal groups, using them for every kind of social disturbance, turnover, assassinations and sabotage inside China. Through these organizations he soon managed to control a big part of the opium traffic in China, using the money earned to fund his covert operations to keep the country destabilised.
After 1930, at the behest of Doihara with support from the Japanese authorities, the Mitsui zaibatsu began to produce special cigarettes bearing the popular "Golden Bat" logo. Their circulation was expressly forbidden in Japan, as they were intended only for export to China, where Doihara's men distributed them through the country. In the mouthpiece of each cigarette a small dose of opium or heroin was concealed, and by this subterfuge millions of unsuspecting consumers were added to the ever-growing crowds of drug addicts in the crippled countries, simultaneously creating huge profits. Estimates put the revenue from the narcotisation policy in China as twenty to thirty million yen per year.

Despite the riches that were gained through the insidious addiction of thousands of Chinese, attempts by the Qing and AoG government to crackdown on the opium and heroin trade and the risks of a war with the German Empire whilst Japan was not deemed prepared, combined with increasing awareness of the effects of the program against them and then the ritual suicide of Nobuyoshi Muto had Doihara's opium activities curtailed at the end of 1934, though some cross border smuggling by independents still saw a flow of illicit Opium into and out of the Legation Cities and the efforts of Doihara's men to keep the China's destabilised by other means continued.

Aside from such criminal masterminds as Doihara, as were mentioned there were plenty of conscientious officers such as Nobuyoshi Muto which meant that the population of the Fengtien Republic soon learnt to distrust the representatives of the law, not knowing whether they would be meeting a soldier who would help them or rob them blind – which adversely affected the morale of the Japanese troops there and poisoned the general relations between the populations. After awhile even the most conscientious new recruit turned a blind eye to the actions of his contemporaries or felt moved to do something as drastic as his commanding officer.

This contributed to the overriding political radicalisation that troops experienced on the mainland, as they dealt with a mostly blank-faced and occasionally hostile population over a period of years – there were cases of gendarmes working with individuals for extended periods, then suddenly being greeted with a pistol or a rifle shot without any seeming provocation.

This lead to a rather vociferous embitterment of both front-line troops and the leadership, with Zhang Zuolin's persistent resistance to being a complete servant to this Japanese masters silently inspiring attacks on isolated locations, both civilian and military in the whole region, which dis-encouraged investment in the area when it was vitally needed for the strategic economic reserves in order to consolidate Japanese control over the area.

With the wind-down of the Japanese interference in the Opium trade however, the Manchurian economy gradually began to improve, as a number of companies along the Manchurian Southern Railway were spun off by the Zaibatsu, such as the Showa Steel Works, all of which needed plenty of unskilled, unaddicted labour. After almost 8 years of chaos, the Fengtien Republic began to stabilise around the nucleus of Japanese industry, shackling the country to it's colonial masters.

 

[RiseOrDie]

add images bro

 

[St. Just]

Interesting so far, is all that Kaiserreich cannon, or did you write it yourself?

 

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add images bro

It's an experiment, mostly in attentionspan.

Interesting so far, is all that Kaiserreich cannon, or did you write it yourself?

This is all self written though it might make it in, it's fuller than the existing work.

Update.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

 

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Prelude: The Japan Syndicalist Party and the Tokko 1922-1936

Since it's founding in 1922 the Japan Syndicalist Party (JSP) had been an illegal organisation that had been outlawed and forced underground by the Peace Preservation Law of the Tanaka government. This law also gave widely sweeping powers to the Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu – usually known as the Tokko. As the civilian counterpart to the military police organisations that existed, it was regarded as the Thought Police by those active in the leftist political scene in Japan.

The Tokko were particularly obsessed with the destruction of the Japan Syndicalist Party, and through the 20's and 30's they maintained a sustained campaign against it, with several mass arrests and prosecutions of members. Of particular note were the efforts of the 'Thought Section of the Criminal Affairs Bureau' which dealt with the study and suppression of 'Subversive Ideologies'. Through the use of a large network of both uniformed and non-uniformed officers as well as many informants, the presence of the Tokko was ubiquitous – they even had presences in the Japanese consulates at Shanghai and Berlin.

The strategy of the outlawed movement was to vociferously support the legal movements for socialist and syndicalist inspired goals in Japan, such as the Council of Labour Unions of Japan (CLUJ) and the Labour-Farmer Party (LFP) before melting away to avoid prosecution at the hands at the Tokko. Between these two organisations and the JSP the proletariat movement in Japan had over 125,000 members by 1926, when many of them marched in the support of the Anarchist uprising that took place in Tokyo that year.

This lead to the largest wave of mass arrests in the history of the Tokko as well as the fall of the Tanaka government. Despite the loss of almost 500 members to jail terms (usually for no more than 2 to 5 years) and the exposure of how it had infiltrated and controlled the CLUJ and LFP, the movement actually continued it's momentum, with several prominent, though isolated anarchist attacks against Government institutions and facilities throughout the Home Islands. Regular mass arrests brought little success, the Tokko was largely unable to prosecute the majority of those it took in, but rather it inconvenienced them – no-one knew at what point they might be snatched up.

The period between 1926 and 1936 was a time of slowly building tension between the government and the left of society as the Tokko raided the homes of academics and well known figures, those who had no connections to the left but were rather merely suspected of such and either they or their families were often radicalised by their encounters with the heavy handed political police. This was aided by the rise radicalisation of the army, as many soldiers returned home to their families and spread some of the the ideological indoctrination that they had received into their immediate kin – many Tokko informants who were not involved in the infiltration of left-wing groups were young teenagers.

By 1936, the small successes with the economy were overshadowed by the constant social strife in the nation, the gap between rich and poor that had widened so dramatically in the 20's having barely been addressed by successive governments through the decade or so that had followed them. Thus regular outbreaks of violence continued through the 30's though toward the midpoint of the decade things seemed to be calming...

 

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Chapter One: The Storm Breaks, Rebellion at Home and in the Colonies.

The Niigata Riots of May 1936 were triggered by a minor labour dispute between the miners and the management of the Kinzen Gold mine on Sado Island in the prefecture over the working conditions of the miners and the lack of payrises in the last 3 years. The Japan Syndicalist Party along with the Council of Labour Unions of Japan stirred up wildcat strikes throughout the prefecture in solidarity with the striking workers of the Kinzen mine. The disruption of transport through the region, which produced the most rice in Japan apart from Hokkaido was devastating, as Rice prices rose through the Home Islands and Taiwanese and Korean farms struggled to meet demands for more Rice than they had predicted.

The government response to this action was to send in the 3. Hoheishidan to break up the strikes. The army, guided by the local division of the Tokko were able to arrest the strike leadership and initially managed to suppress the strikes, breaking up most of the striking groups with baton charges and cavalry. However the striking masses congregated in Niigata and rioted in defiance of the government curfew. The riots were broken up by the co-ordination of the Tokko, Civilian and Military Police, however a cordon sanitaire was not put in place over the region. After the mass arrests and subsequent releases, the Japan Syndicalist Party sent those who had been involved in Niigata through the country in order to spread further chaos in the hopes of launching the syndicalist revolution that had failed in the 20's.

As the Rioting turned into a national issue, the government of Inukai Tsuyoshi invoked Martial Law and the Peace Preservation Law of 1925, at the request of the Military. The East and Central Japan armies arrested over 20,000 leftist agitators whilst the national telegram network was reserved for military use only. The army was supported by large groups of vigilantes as well as the civilian police, though persistent outbreaks of rioting through the summer kept the army busy until the early autumnal typhoon season set in and tempers cooled across the Home islands.

On August the 16th, three assassins split off from a larger group rioters from the Japan Syndicalist Party outside the and managed managed to penetrate the Prime Ministerial compound in Tokyo, that had been ordered to be constructed during the strife the the twenties by Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi. Once inside the Kantei they managed to avoid detection by the security guards within the facility and navigated their way to the Prime Ministerial bedchamber, where they assassinated Inukai Tsuyoshi with a military service pistol that had been taken from a soldier.

Conspiracy theories linger to this day that Inukai's assassins were actually members of the Kodoha group in the Military, since when the body was discovered and the assassins apprehended the next morning, the Diet was dissolved by Imperial Order and a Military Privy Council stepped in to run the country. These conspiracy theories about the provenance of the assassination squad hinge on the convenience of his death at this time, the state of the country, the weapon used, the well known animosity between Inukai and Araki Sadao, the head of the Kodoha and the fact that they managed to evade the Military Police who had been guarding the house since the outbreak of national violence, even after discharging a firearm several times.

After the resignation of the cabinet and the dissolution of the diet, the military privy council took control of the country. Due to the emergency nature of the grouping it was made up of a mixture of members of the Kodoha and Toseiha groups, including the prominent general Hayashi Senjuro, who headed the Toseiha clique as the new Prime Minister. Whilst both sides had their commonalities and managed to work together in order to suppress the rioting populace the news of fermenting rebellion in the colonies after the extreme measures involved in accelerating colonial rice production came through managed to keep the two groups on the same side for the time being.

The first rumblings of a problem in Korea came in the November of 1936, just as cracks were beginning to show in the Military Privy Council. Seizing upon the information that an attempt was being made by the former Joseon dynasty to rise up against the Japanese, the alertness of the Seoul Garrison was doubled. However, due to provocation at the Russian border over the Amur, the Korean Army had been temporarily relocated to stiffen the border guards in Nikolayevsk. This proved to be of benefit when it was discovered a month later that the Koreans were attempting to solicit help from the Kolchak government. A crackdown was ordered by Hayashi Senjuro and carried out by his protege Tojo Hideki.

The action through the Russian Maritime Provinces lasted until the early spring, with Japanese Gendarmes under the command of Lt. General Tojo systematically hunting through the provinces with the aid of the Kolchak government and it's troops, until they had reached the Korean border and proclaimed the region free of Joseon influence.

It was at this point that the Kodoha leadership had apparently intended to launch a coup with the division guarding Tokyo in the aftermath of the rioting in the city, the 2. Hoheishian whilst the Toseiha clique were, it was assumed, celebrating the acclaim that Tojo was receiving for the successful action in the Transamur. Instead the evening of the 13th of December saw the changing of officers in several divisions and the clearing of desks at Imperial General Headquarters as the Kodoha faction resigned in disgrace after Hajime Sugiyama released documents that had been taken from a group of young officers in 2. Hoheishian detailing orders with a list of targets on, including himself, Prime Minister Hayashi Senjuro and several other ministers of the Toseiha clique who were in the cabinet. The order for the resignation of those in the Kodoha group came directly from the Chrysanthemum Throne – one of the few times the Emperor has personally intervened in the political affairs of Japan. Again, this point in Japanese history is surrounded by conspiracy theories, and the Japanese government continues to refuse access to the pertinent sections of Imperial Archives, which fuels the suspicion that Hajime manufactured at least some of the evidence against Araki Sadao's clique.

Despite the crackdown in Transamur, those involved in the planning of the Korean rebellion refused to be slowed and fighting broke out in the spring of 1937. Bomber squadrons were rebased from Okinawa and Iwo Jima to the Home Islands proper and then scrambled from southern Honshu and Kyushu to pummel the ragtag bands of troops that had risen up to protest the brutal lengths gone to in order to ensure that the Home Islands received rice through the Niigata troubles, the extent of which was such that several areas had reported famines because the Japanese Army had taken the entire crop.

The response to the Korean rebels, aside from the bombing campaign against the impromptu army that occupied Seoul and the surrounding countryside was the sending of the elite Rikusentai of the Imperial Japanese Navy to defend Gwangju, whilst the Kwantung Army and the Mongol Army both sent large contingents to mass north of Heijo (more commonly known now as Pyongyang). The Joseon forces moved along the Western Coast roads under bombardment from both carrier based and land based aircraft, before the Rikusentai advanced and repelled the southern contingent at Daejeon. After two weeks on the Chinese Eastern Railway, the northern armies were temporarily amalgamated under the command of General Ando marched from Sinijiu to Heijo and then against rebel troops at Sariwon. The attack succeeded against the outnumbered and outgunned Joseon forces which fell back to Seoul only to find themselves besieged from the air, the sea and both the North and the South. Crack teams of the Sasebo Rikusentai managed to infiltrate the grounds of the Joseon government compound in Seoul in the closing days of the Rebellion and assassinated the Korean king, crushing the movement and ending it there and then.

At roughly the same time as the Korean rebellion flared up, a Japanese crackdown also occurred against many prominent figures in Taiwan, with local tong leadership being arrested and held whilst the Korean Uprising was played out as well as an additional increase of over 48,000 men to the island's garrison. Whether the increased presence of so many troops and the crackdown itself caused the rebellion or whether it was simply an attempt to take advantage of the chaos in Korea is unknown, but just as Sariwon fell, Taiwanese forces rose up and managed to eject troops from both ports of the island, having to fall back to the mountainous interior of Hualien.

Once the Koreans were defeated, the Rikusentai were sent to make a landing in Taipei, which with a co-ordinated assault from the troops in Hualien was successful in routing Formosan rebel forces from the 'Capital'. The resistance was quickly suppressed, with a naval blockade of the Island enforced by an IJN carrier flotilla. Within weeks of the fall of Seoul, a 125,000 strong infantry task force boarded transports from Korea to land in Taipei and then moved south in order to liberate Gaohsiung, the last point of rebel resistance. With the fall of Gaohsiung, the Japanese Empire was able to focus on reducing what dissent remained at home as the political situation stabilised whilst dissident forces were without focus or leadership both at home and in the colonies.

 

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Chapter Two: East Wind Rain, The Invasion of the Philippines

Even as the Empire was rocked by the death of Prime Minister Inukai, the Military Privy Council had already began work on the planning for further expansion of the Japanese Colonial empire. The decision was formalised four days after Hayashi Senjuro had removed his opponents the Kodoha from the ruling clique – in the 'Let the Sun Rise' memorandum. This message was circulated through the military and outlined a long term strategy for the creation of a colonial pacific empire whilst avoiding further entanglements in the German dominated playground of China, until Japan was in a position to remove the German supply lines to their colonies in one move.

With the eruption of the American Civil War and the loss of the presence of the United States Fleet in the Pacific, the initial plan was rewritten in order to include seizure of Guam (a bloodless action achieved within days of the declaration of independence by the Pacific States) and the invasion of the Philippines which became the primary focus of the first campaign that was launched in the Summer of 1937 after the suppression of the revolts in Korea and Formosa. Certain groups even within the Toseiha advocated a cautious approach and proposed that an Alliance be formed with the small country in order to tie them into Japanese interests over an extended period, but the hardliners insisted that they must be 'brought into the Japanese fold' immediately in order to solidify the defensive perimeter of operations around China. Following this, the deployment of two Carrier Task groups into the Sibuyan Sea and the Surigao Strait occured, essentially splitting the Philippines into three distinct segments by exerting pressure on the traffic there, with Japanese shipping obstructing and threatening commercial and military shipping of the island nation.

The Philippine government under Maneul Quezon requested help from the former ally of Japan in the Entente, Canada. However the lack of a Canadian Pacific fleet, and the outnumbered and outclassed Australasian fleet did not deter the Toseiha Government who were eager to improve their standing at home with a further successful colonial war. The deployment of three large transport fleets as well as the elite landing craft of the Rikusentai meant that the August of 1937 saw simultaenous landings of Rikusentai divisions on Mindoro whilst Infantry landed at Baguio on Luzon, Samar, Panay and Zamboanga Southern Mindanao to no resistance. Long range bomber wings flew sorties to pound the militia that were garrisoning Manila, whilst a Filipino infantry division was destroyed by an combined land and amphibious assault on Davao City.

The various key locations in the archipelago had been analysed and assessed before the invasion, and the only unexpected occurrence was the German invasion of the tiny island of Peleliu which denied an important staging point for further penetration of the Pacific proper, as opposed to operations in the China Seas. The final battle of the Philippine Campaign was the Battle for Leyte against a scratch division of demoralised Filipino infantry who were overwhelmed by a dual pronged assault from Samar and Cagayan de Oro. This battle also concluded with the capture of the Quezon government and the direct annexation of the Philippines as a component of the Japanese Empire.