"for great is your reward in heaven" - Emperor Nintoku

A Tokyo Railroad

Emperor Nintoku

The three greatest tombs in the world are: the pyramid of Khufu in Egypt, the Mausoleum of First Emperor of Qin, China, and Emperor Nintoku's tomb in Japan.

Emperor Nintoku's tomb in Japan has a total length of 486 meters (1500 feet) and a height of 35 meters (110 feet).  The longest width is about 300 meters.  The total outer circumference outside the moat is about 2,718 meters (1.7 miles).

http://www.city.sakai.lg.jp/hakubutu/ninhya.html

http://www.geocities.jp/bane2161/nintokutennou.html

However there are no written records about how and when it was built in an area presently called Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture.  It is estimated that this emperor's tomb was constructed from the early to the middle 5th century.

Originally it must have looked as below, though depicted in the present environment:

http://pub.ne.jp/seagate/?entry_id=486944

But who was Emperor Nintoku?

Emperor Nintoku (257? - 399?) was the 16th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. 

No firm dates can be assigned to this emperor's life or reign, but he is conventionally considered to have reigned from 313–399.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Nintoku

Emperor Nintoku, one day, watched the capital from an upper floor of his palace.  But he could not see many smokes rising from kitchen furnaces of people's households.  People did not look like cooking  gorgeously at all.  Weather condition did not look favorable, either.   So, the emperor thought, "As we have launched military campaigns in many times to the Korean Peninsula, people must be exhausted.  Since the economic situation around the palace is so bad, how terrible it is far from the capital."

So, Emperor Nintoku decided to stop imposing tax and compulsory labor for three years.  The emperor also ordered to make rituals and other activities in the imperial court simple and economical.  And finally a climate was improved and agriculture production returned to a previous high level.  People came to have reasonable lives and their morale got strengthened.

Accordingly, Emperor Nintoku said, "Now people have become affluent again." But his empress said, "Who is affluent?.  Look at our palace and our clothing, all worn out and in rags." Nintoku defended, saying, "If people have become rich, we will be also rich naturally."  Yet, Emperor Nintoku decided to found a special agency to take care of living of his son and another agency to take care of living of the empress.

In September of the year, his subjects reported to the emperor that local countries fully recovered from the attrition.  Officials wanted to collect tax again.  But, Emperor Nintoku stopped application of taxation.

Further three years passed.  Then as winter came, Emperor Nintoku decided to revamp his palace.  But before the emperor issued an order, people came to work spontaneously to the palace.  The imperial palace was in this way restored to have splendor again.  So, people started to call Ninton the holy emperor.

This is a story about Emperor Nintoku recorded in the oldest imperial history/myth book called the Chronicles of Japan.

http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~chusan55/mukashi3/37mukashi.htm

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Mat 5:12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you" - Unit 731 in Manchuria

View from a Tokyo New Transportation System

Unit 731 in Manchuria

After WWII there was a medical doctor in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, who was so kind that he did not even request consultation fees to his neighbors.  The doctor especially took care of children nearby.

Shiro Ishii was a controversial man as he led a special unit of the Imperial Army in Manchuria to study biological warfare.  Accordingly, ex-medical lieutenant general Ishii could have been executed by the occupation forces which set the Far East Military Tribunal in Tokyo to judge Japanese war criminals after WWII.  Ishii during the war had reportedly ordered to use living prisoners of war, namely arrested Chinese, Manchus, Koreans, and even Russians, for experiments and tests to study effects of decease-causing bacteria on the human body.  It is said that his unit, called Unit 731, sacrificed 3,000 prisoners of war for human experimentation during WWII.  

Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II.... 

Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China)....

Many of the scientists involved in Unit 731 went on to prominent careers in post-war politics, academia, business, and medicine. Some were arrested by Soviet forces and tried at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials; others surrendered to the American Forces. 

On 6 May 1947, Douglas MacArthur, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence." The deal was concluded in 1948.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

But how precious Ishii's study was for the American military?

But once the war ended and Japan was under U.S. control, the victor became the vanquished. 

To avoid prosecution as war criminals, Ishii and his cohorts offered to share their data with U.S. officials in exchange for protection.

Ft. Detrick scientists Edwin Hill and Joseph Victor agreed the Unit 731 scientists’ lips would loosen if an immunity deal was on the table.

Colonel Murray Saunders, a Ft. Detrick military officer tasked to uncover information about Japan’s biological warfare program concurred, recommending that General Macarthur offer Unit 731’s perpetrators immunity.

While only a limited number of U.S. documents mention Unit 731, a documented link can be made from Saunders and Macarthur all the way up to President Truman.

A 2006 document released by the National Archives entitled "Researching Japanese War Crimes: Introductory Essays" details a 1950 memo describing clemency issues related to the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

The memo revealed that the U.S., at the time, was seeking ways to dismiss any new evidence against Japan that the Soviets might produce.

According to the Virginia-based nonprofit World Future Fund, Ishii’s Unit 731 "research" was meant to give the Japanese military an upper hand on the battlefield, but wound up benefiting the U.S. military instead.

The U.S. was secretly delighted to gain such information derived from experiments that they themselves were forbidden to perform, and even happier that the Soviets wouldn’t have access to Ishii’s results.

http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2012/01/unit-731-a-u-s-cover-up-of-cruelty/

It is said that one US medical officer got delighted that he obtained information that could be only gained through human experiment from former Unit 731 officers while such human experiment was impossible in the US.  American investigators from the beginning had no intention to arrest and execute Ishii and other officers of the Imperial Army involved in development of biological weapons.  Those American experts were more eager to produce reports with excellent academic results than to carry out punishment for those Japanese war criminals.

From 1945, when the Empire of Japan collapsed, to 1948, former lieutenant general Ishii was hiding in Japan with help not only from former military elites of the Empire but also from the US military.  Ishii even held funeral rites for himself in his hometown around Tokyo.  Those ex-Imperial military elites were afraid that Ishii's past might, if revealed to the public, involve them in persecution by the allied forces as identified war criminals.  The US military did not want to share the medical data Ishii could provide with the Soviet Union.  They all helped Ishii hide somewhere in Japan or specifically around Tokyo.

But Ishii's whereabouts became unknown between 1948 and 1958, a period of time when the Korean War was fought by the US military against North Korea, China, and virtually the USSR.

So, some people think that Shiro Ishii, an ex-Imperial medical lieutenant general, was secretly recruited by Americans to take part in some military operation in the Korean Peninsula during the Korean War.  There is a possibility that Ishii helped conduct a biological attack on communists in cooperation with an American special unit.  Even there is a rumor that Ishii was invited to some medical facilities in America run by the US Government.

In fact, one of Ishii's subordinate officers in the Imperial Army so strongly cooperated with American investigators as to become a friend of one of those Americans.  Their friendship continued so long while the ex-Imperial officer launched a blood bank as the first in this field in Japan.  Decades later, a company founded as an extension of this blood bank, however, started a trouble of providing blood derivatives for hospitals which were made from contaminated blood imported from the US and other countries.

In 1958 Ishii made his appearance in an alumni meeting of ex-young soldiers of the 731 Unit held in Tokyo.  He said to his former subordinates, "I know you suffered enough after WWII as you worked in Unit 731.  But now I want you to be proud of your past work.  Sometime in future, at appropriate timing, I will make public the great results of our study in Manchuria to the world..."

Then one year after this meeting, Ishii died of larynx cancer quietly in a Tokyo hospital, at the age of 67.

However the existence of the special unit 731 indicates the darkest side of the Imperial military of Japan, since it is believed that soldiers from Unit 731 were actually engaged in biological warfare against China during the war between 1937 and 1945.  It is also against international conventions to use prisoners of war as human guinea pigs.  Therefore, when Tokyo decided to surrender to the US and other allied nations in August 1945, Ishii and other leaders of Unit 731 ordered soldiers to destroy all the evidence for their secret operation in Manchuria.  But the most important evidence, general Ishii and other officers were not demolished.

http://tamutamu2011.kuronowish.com/731.htm
Aerial View of Unit 731 Headquarters in Manchuria


(to be continued...)


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Mat 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

"for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" - America's Last Enemy, Shinto or Islam?

A Tokyo's Station Area...

America's Last Enemy, Shinto or Islam?

The true enemy in the Japan-US War, which was fought as part of WWII, was thought by General MacArthur and other US leaders to be the Japanese shinto religion.

Dec 15, 1945:
MacArthur orders end of Shinto as Japanese state religion

On this day, General Douglas MacArthur, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific, brings an end to Shintoism as Japan's established religion. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine.

On September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, MacArthur signed the instrument of Japanese surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies. Before the economic and political reforms the Allies devised for Japan's future could be enacted, however, the country had to be demilitarized. Step one in the plan to reform Japan entailed the demobilization of Japan's armed forces, and the return of all troops from abroad. Japan had had a long history of its foreign policy being dominated by the military, as evidenced by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye's failed attempts to reform his government and being virtually pushed out of power by career army officer Hideki Tojo.

Step two was the dismantling of Shintoism as the Japanese national religion. Allied powers believed that serious democratic reforms, and a constitutional form of government, could not be put into place as long as the Japanese people looked to an emperor as their ultimate authority. Hirohito was forced to renounce his divine status, and his powers were severely limited—he was reduced to little more than a figurehead. And not merely religion, but even compulsory courses on ethics—the power to influence the Japanese population's traditional religious and moral duties—were wrenched from state control as part of a larger decentralization of all power.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/macarthur-orders-end-of-shinto-as-japanese-state-religion  

So, when the US and allied forces occupied Japan after WWII, their supreme commander General MacArthur made very strong efforts to weaken power of the religion shintoism in the Japanese society.  However, to effectively carry out his occupation mission and policies, the General needed a kind of help from the Emperor of Japan.  As long as the most influential person in Japan, the Emperor, acted following advice, suggestions, and intentions of the General Headquarters of the allied forces in Tokyo, the Japanese people accepted peacefully the occupation by foreign troops.  But, the religion of the imperial house is one school of shinto.  Accordingly, General MacArthur could not fully demolish the shinto system and traditions deeply rooted in the living of the Japanese people.  And in this context the notable Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo could survive this difficult era after WWII, though the Shrine enshrined fallen soldiers of the Empire of Japan.

The point at issue is that the US tried after WWII or while occupying Japan militarily to lessen the power and the influence the Japanese inherent religion shinto had, since shinto was regraded as the great source of courage and allegiance of tough Japanese soldiers.  But, the US has not systematically lessened the power and the influence of Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan, though it blindly purged the Taliban regime based on a stern school of Islam.  This is a big difference between America's occupation of Japan after WWII and that of Iraq and Afghanistan in the War on Terror.

BBC: Do you think the war against terror is really a war against Islam? Are Muslims being targeted by the war on terror?
Your reaction :
...If America avenges the terrible attack on their own people by killing far more people from Muslim countries, which it has done in Afghanistan and shortly will in Iraq, then it will be seen as a war on Muslims, and that Muslim life is worth less than American life. It will also increase not reduce terrorism.
Paul, England

When the War on the Pacific, as fought as part of WWII, ended, the US found that its true enemy is not good-natured Japanese people but shinto, a religion that gave effective power to Japanese militarists to control sternly Japanese soldiers and civilians.

But will the US, when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ended, regard Islam as the true enemy of America?

On the other hand there are many Muslims in the US, though only very few shintoists in America.  America might come to draw a distinction between Islam in the US and Islam outside the US.

Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream
May 22, 2007

- A large majority of Muslim Americans believe that hard work pays off in this society. Fully 71% agree that most people who want to get ahead in the United States can make it if they are willing to work hard. 

- Based on data from this survey, along with available Census Bureau data on immigrants' nativity and nationality, the Pew Research Center estimates the total population of Muslims in the United States at 2.35 million.

- A majority of Muslim Americans (53%) say it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most also believe that the government "singles out" Muslims for increased surveillance and monitoring. 

- Relatively few Muslim Americans believe the U.S.-led war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism, and many doubt that Arabs were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Just 40% of Muslim Americans say groups of Arabs carried out those attacks.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/483/muslim-americans

From other point of a view, shinto is a religion for Japanese living in Japan.  If Japanese move to  America, they will become naturally less and less shinto.  But, Muslims are Muslims if they live in the US.  Or have they become an American version of Muslims?

One thing sure is that the US has not become safer from a military threat of Japan because it made strong efforts to decrease influence of shinto on the Japanese society after WWII.  The US has become safer as the Japanese people understood after WWII that America was based on American democracy and American Christianity the Japanese could understand and even respect.

Put simply, the War on Terror should be executed with intention to make American democracy and American Christianity fully respected by Muslims and poor Muslims in the world.

It means the key to American success in any war against a foreign country is more in its political system and religion than those in Islamic nations or even in China.

So, it also means the last enemy of America is something against its sound political system and religion that is inside the US.


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http://tokiy.jugem.jp/?eid=562
Emperor of Japan as Great Shinto Priest


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Mat 5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"they shall be called the children of God" - MacArthur vs. Ex-Prime Minister

A District of Tokyo Downtown

MacArthur vs. Ex-Prime Minister

There was one politician of the Empire of Japan who played a key role in the period of time leading to the Pearl Harbor Attack, since Konoe tried to avoid the war despite strong movement for the war in the imperial military.

Prince Fumimaro Konoe (1891 – 1945) was a politician in the Empire of Japan who served as the 34th, 38th and 39th Prime Minister of Japan and founder/leader of the Taisei Yokusankai....

While the Emperor received detailed reports from Sugiyama and Nagano about the operations in Southeast Asia and the attack of Pearl Harbor,[5] Prime Minister Konoe made one last desperate attempt to avoid war. That very evening, he arranged a secret dinner conference with American Ambassador Joseph Grew. He told Grew that he was prepared to travel to meet Roosevelt on a moment's notice. The ship had already been prepared. He was convinced that the United States and Japan could reach a true agreement, and when that happened, he would radio back to the palace, and the Emperor would issue a rescript ordering a complete halt to all aggressive activities.

Ambassador Grew was impressed with Konoe's sincerity. He cabled back, urging his superiors to advise Roosevelt to accept the summit proposal. The State Department continued to think that an open-ended summit was a waste of time. If Japan were serious, it would begin meaningful and detailed negotiations that would be affirmed at a summit. Konoe's last push for a diplomatic solution was taken in vain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumimaro_Konoe

One day when Konoe was prime minister of the Empire, a strange man came to meet him.  The man brought a big amount of paper money.  He said to Konoe, "I hope that you will use this money at your will."

So, Prime Minister Konoe got angry, forcing the strange man to leave immediately with his money.

However, at the time, Konoe worried about insufficient secret funds in the prime minister office, since he assumed the position in the middle of a fiscal year.  But later, the finance minister of his cabinet told Konoe that past prime ministers booked secret funds for the prime minister office as part of expenditures for the Imperial Army and Navy.  So, of course, Konoe started to follow suit.

Anyway Konoe was well known for his strict handling of money.

After the Empire of Japan surrendered, Konoe started to try to draft new Japanese Constitution.  Konoe met  General MacArthur, the supreme commander of the allied forces occupying Japan, to get consent and support for his effort.  But when General MacArthur knew that Konoe's draft or idea was to continue the imperial system as it had been before the end of WWII, General MacArthur changed his attitudes toward Konoe.  MacArthur ordered to arrest Konoe as a war criminal.  Then Fumimaro Konoe committed a suicide before being taken to a prison.

The new Japanese Constitution strongly reflects General MacArthur's idea that the emperor of Japan should be a symbol of unification of all the Japanese people but not a constitutional sovereign ruler like he had been in the Empire of Japan before the end of WWII.


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Mat 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

"thou unclean spirit" - Association with Dulles

A Water-Front Park in Tokyo

Association with Dulles

In the summer of 1945 or at the final phase of WWII, Japanese Imperial Navy officer Yoshiro Fujimura met secretly with Allen Dulles in Switzerland.

Fujimura believed the Empire of Japan could not change the tide.  As Germany surrendered, the Empire of Japan would be completely defeated.  So, he voluntarily started secret operation to negotiate with American Government agent Dulles aiming at finding a way to allow the Empire of Japan to surrender while saving its face and maintaining the imperial system.  He sent 35 telegram messages to Tokyo from Bern using a special cipher machine, to inform leaders of the Imperial Navy of contents of the meetings with Dulles and other American agents.

It was not only Fujimura that was engaged in secret operation to look for a way to put an end to the Japan-US war through communications with agent Dulles in the summer of 1945.  Imperial Army General Kiyotomi Okamoto was also separately working on Dulles in Switzerland in vain.

(However, Tokyo did not regard the secret operation in Switzerland as a hopeful channel.  The Imperial Government laid its hope in getting support from the Soviet Union in its effort to start negotiations with the US for termination of the war, without knowing that the USSR was determined to attack Japan soon.)

On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima, an industrial/military city of Japan, was attacked with an atomic bomb by the US air force.   On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union proclaimed war against the Empire of Japan; on the same day, Nagasaki, a major port city of Japan, was attacked with an atomic bomb by the US air force. On August 15, 1945, Emperor of Japan announced through radio broadcasting his decision to accept the Potsdam Declaration and thus surrender to the US (without conditions).

In Zurich, Swizterland, General Okamaoto committed a suicide, since he failed in his efforts to terminate the war without accepting the Potsdam Declaration that required unconditional surrender to the Empire.

Imperial Navy officer Fujimura also decided to commit a suicide.  After attending a funeral of General Okamaoto, Fujimura thought now it was his time to follow suit when he came back to Bern. Fujimura picked up a bag to put a handgun and two books in it: a work by Arnold Toynbee and Analects of Confucius.  He also had a capsule of potassium prussiate.  He took a train to Bernina; he got there in the evening and took a room.  He planned to jump into a crevasse of a glacier with the capsule in his mouth.

Next morning he met a herdboy who was leading cows to the foot of a mountain.  The boy said to Fujimura, "Will you come with me?"  So, Imperial officer Fujimura followed the boy to be amazed at the beautiful scenery.  Fujimura threw himself on the grass of a hill and started to read the book of Toynbee.  He was reading the book all day long.  Next morning again, he followed the boy to the mountain.  And on the fourth day, while reading the book, Fujimura thought that he owed many things to the world civilization so that he had to do something in return; he changed his mind and decided to live.  He threw the pistol and the capsule into a crevasse to go back to Bern and eventually to Japan. 

After WWII, ex-Imperial Navy officer Yoshiro Fujimura succeeded in business, trading equipment and so on.   In 1951 he wrote in a Japanese magazine his memories of the secret operation in Switzerland.  He even met with Allen Dulles in the US in 1953, who later became the Director of CIA.

However it is not known if Fujimura was involved in special activities in Japan to support Allen Dulles and CIA.  But, it is believed that introduction of nuclear technology from the US to Japan was promoted or supported by some Japanese associated with Allen Dulles and CIA.  

Allen Welsh Dulles (April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Welsh_Dulles

Today, it is thought that secret meetings of General Okamaoto and Lieutenant Colonel Fujimura with Dulles in Switzerland was not meaningless, since the US Government came to understand from reports sent by Dulles that the Japanese wanted maintenance of the imperial system as a condition for surrender above all.  In fact, the US Government neither requested abolition of the imperial system to Japan nor tried to question wartime responsibility of the Emperor.

http://www.ntv.co.jp/shitteru/next_oa/000528.html

Lieutenant Colonel Fujimura stationed in Germany had been ordered to return to Japan in 1944, getting on board a big submarine the Imperial Navy dispatched from Japan to a German base in France.  But the submarine I-52 was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean before it reached France from Japan.  Accordingly Fujimura moved to Bern, Switzerland, to help Japanese diplomats.  The submarine was found at the bottom of the sea, 5,240 meters below the surface, in 1998.



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Mar 5:8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
Mar 5:9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
Mar 5:10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
Mar 5:11 Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
Mar 5:12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
Mar 5:13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.

"and filled both the ships" - The Japanese Constitution

A Tokyo View

The Japanese Constitution

After the Empire of Japan fell through the war against the US, General MacArthur, the supreme commander of the allied forces occupying Japan, indicated his idea about new Japanese Constitution.

Three basic points stated by Supreme Commander to be "musts" in constitutional revision. 

COPY 

SECRET 

I
Emperor is at the head of the state.
His succession is dynastic.
His duties and powers will be exercised in accordance with the Constitution and responsive to the basic will of the people as provided therein. 

II
War as a sovereign right of the nation is abolished. Japan renounces it as an instrumentality for settling its disputes and even for preserving its own security. It relies upon the higher ideals which are now stirring the world for its defense and its protection.
No Japanese Army, Navy, or Air Force will ever be authorized and no rights of belligerency will ever be conferred upon any Japanese force. 

III
The feudal system of Japan will cease.
No rights of peerage except those of the Imperial family will extend beyond the lives of those now existent.
No patent of nobility will from this time forth embody within itself any National or Civic power of government.
Pattern budget after British system. 

Copyright©2003-2004 National Diet Library All Rights Reserved.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/shiryo/03/072/072tx.html

MacArthur's idea was conveyed through his subjects to Japanese politicians in charge of drafting new Constitution.  And, eventually a draft of new Japanese Constitution was prepared by those Japanese in line with MacArthur's idea, which was passed by the Japanese parliament in 1946.

Since then, Japan has not modified any part of the Constitution which has the following features:
(1) Emperor is the symbol of unification of the Japanese people with only nominal and formal functions in politics.

(2) Democracy and human rights are assured the Japanese people of to the maximum extent.

(3) The Japanese Government renounces a right to make war and prepare military forces for war.

Put simply, this Constitution is completely opposite to militarism and totalitarianism the Japanese people badly suffered during WWII.  And, since its publication in 1946, no amendment has been made to any articles of the Constitution. Yet, it has been a big concern among the conservative camp in the Japanese political communities.  Most of conservative people want to change the Constitution, since the present version is heavily influenced by MacArthur's idea.  They think it is a shame to have such Constitution that is highly influenced by American rulers who occupied Japan after WWII. 

Nonetheless about half of Japanese voters do not find necessity to amend the Constitution.  It is probably because they do not trust nationalists, rightists, and conservative politicians.  For example, if you criticize the imperial house today, you do not feel any danger of  being attacked by nationalists.  But, if nationalists ideas should be put into new constitution, such freedom and sense of security might be lost.  Japanese voters are afraid that amending the Constitution following initiatives of rightists might result in provisions to be specified which would limit freedom they are now enjoying.  And, it is mostly rightists that want to amend the Constitution now.

Anyway as the memory of the defeat (accompanied by atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) of the Empire of Japan in WWII is still so acute, most of Japanese voters do not want to give any chance to nationalists for their expansion.  Accordingly, most of the Japanese people are reluctant to effect constitutional change.  But, the conservative opposition party LDP is very willing to carry out amendment of the Constitution.  So, if a regime change should be achieved in the next general election, the LDP might propose a draft amendment to the parliament (called the Diet) sooner or later.

To make sure, the issue of amending the Constitution is closely linked to the Japan-U.S. Security Arrangements based on which the US has many military bases in Japan.  If Japan decides to defend Japan without relying on US military forces, including American nuclear capability, it must abolish Article 9 that restricts government functions to use military forces against enemy countries.  It means to regard the US as the same as other countries which can be an enemy or a threat to Japan in terms of national security.  Conversely, if Japan continues to view the US as a special friendly country that will join defense activities of Japan, there is no need to  repeal the present Constitution in terms of national security.

Other specifics of the current Japanese Constitution:

Prohibition of slavery: Guaranteed by Article 18. Involuntary servitude is only permitted as punishment for a crime.
Separation of Religion and State: The state is prohibited from granting privileges or political authority to a religion, or conducting religious education (Article 20).

Freedom of assembly, association, speech, and secrecy of communications: All guaranteed without qualification by Article 21, which forbids censorship.

Workers' rights: Work is declared both a right and obligation by Article 27 which also states that "standards for wages, hours, rest and other working conditions shall be fixed by law" and that children shall not be exploited. Workers have the right to participate in a trade union (Article 28).

Right to property: Guaranteed subject to the "public welfare". The state may take property for public use if it pays just compensation (Article 29). The state also has the right to levy taxes (Article 30).

Right to due process: Article 31 provides that no one may be punished "except according to procedure established by law". Article 32, which provides that "No person shall be denied the right of access to the courts," originally drafted to recognize criminal due process rights, is now understood as source of due process rights for civil and administrative law cases.[4]

Protection against unlawful detention: Article 33 provides that no one may be apprehended without an arrest warrant, save where caught in flagrante delicto. Article 34 guarantees habeas corpus, right to counsel, and right to be informed of charges. Article 40 enshrines the right to sue the state for wrongful detention.

Right to a fair trial: Article 37 guarantees the right to a public trial before an impartial tribunal with counsel for one's defence and compulsory access to witnesses.

Protection against self-incrimination: Article 38 provides that no one may be compelled to testify against themselves, that confessions obtained under duress are not admissible and that no one may be convicted solely on the basis of their own confession. Nevertheless, forced confessions still remain a common practice, according to some sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Japan

General MacArthur's Office in Tokyo (1945 - 1951)
http://blog.livedoor.jp/hikari2321/archives/51650141.html

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Luk 5:6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.
Luk 5:7 And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
Luk 5:8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

"which had an infirmity thirty and eight years" - How the Russo-Japanese War Started

Downtown Tokyo in the Rain

How the Russo-Japanese War Started

China has never fought Russians in a full-scale war.  Koreans never fought Russians in a full-scale war.  But Japanese did in 1904 and 1905.

On October 3 (of 1903), the Russian Minister to Japan, Roman Rosen, presented to the Japanese government the Russian counterproposal as the basis of negotiations, as follows:

• "1. Mutual engagement to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Korean Empire.

• 2. Recognition by Russia of Japan's preponderating interests in Korea and of the right of Japan to give advice and assistance to Korea tending to improve the civil administration of the Empire without infringing the stipulations of Article I.

• 3. Engagement on the part of Russia not to impede the commercial and industrial undertakings of Japan in Korea, nor to oppose any measures taken for the purpose of protecting them so long as such measures do not infringe the stipulations of Article I.

• 4. Recognition of the right of Japan to send for the same purpose troops to Korea, with the knowledge of Russia, but their number not to exceed that actually required, and with the engagement on the part of Japan to recall such troops as soon as their mission is accomplished.

• 5. Mutual engagement not to use any part of the territory of Korea for strategical purposes nor to undertake on the coasts of Korea any military works capable of menacing the freedom of navigation in the Straits of Korea.

• 6. Mutual engagement to consider that part of the territory of Korea lying to the north of the 39th parallel as a neutral zone into which neither of the Contracting Parties shall introduce troops.

• 7. Recognition by Japan of Manchuria and its littoral as in all respects outside her sphere of interest.

• 8. This agreement to supplant all previous Agreements between Russia and Japan respecting Korea"

Negotiations followed and, on 13 January 1904, Japan proposed a formula by which Manchuria would be outside the Japanese sphere of influence and, reciprocally, Korea outside Russia's. By 4 February 1904, no formal reply had been received and on 6 February Kurino Shinichiro, the Japanese Minister, called on the Russian Foreign Minister, Count Lambsdorff, to take his leave. Japan severed diplomatic relations with Russia on 6 February 1904.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War


This war became a prelude to WWI and WWII or a precedent of modern warfare.  The Russian Empire mobilized 500,000 troops for this war from its total two million troops, and the Empire of Japan used 300,000 troops from total one million troops.  The Russian Empire flung 15 battle ships and other naval ships from its total 510,000 tons of navy fleets while the Empire of Japan deployed six battleships and other ships of war from its total 260,000 tons of navy fleets.

It also led to the revolution in Russia, leading to establishment of the communist regime.  And the success of communists in Russia paved the way for the Chinese communist revolution.  But more than that, the victory of the Empire of Japan alarmed the US, leading to the Japan-US War in 1941.

From the Japanese point of view, it was not acceptable to see Russians occupy Manchuria, North China, and the Korean Peninsula.  But it is difficult to say at the time, namely at the beginning of the 20th century, which would have been better for Manchus, Chinese, and Koreans to be governed by Japanese or Russians.  Indeed, they might have wanted to be occupied by Americans rather than Japanese.

Comparison on Troops, War Costs, and Navy between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire
http://heiwa.yomitan.jp/4/3217.html


*** *** *** ***



Joh 5:5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
Joh 5:6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
Joh 5:7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
Joh 5:8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

"no man was found worthy to open and to read the book" - The Kurusus

Tokyo Shinkansen Express-Train

The Kurusus

The Pearl Harbor Attack by the Imperial Navy of Japan involved one unique Japanese family.

Saburō Kurusu (1886 - 1954) was a Japanese career diplomat. He is remembered now as an envoy who tried to negotiate peace and understanding with the United States while Japan was secretly preparing the attack on Pearl Harbor...

After peace talks between the United States and Japan bogged down in 1941, Kurusu was dispatched as the Imperial government's "special envoy". Arriving in Washington on November 15, Kurusu told newsmen "I am indeed glad to be here in your nation's capital. I extend greetings to all from the bottom of my heart."[7] Two days later, Secretary of State Cordell Hull brought Kurusu to the White House to meet with President Roosevelt...

Over the next three weeks, Kurusu and Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura continued to confer with Hull while awaiting Japan's reply. On the afternoon of December 7 Kurusu delivered Japan's reply, breaking relations and closing with the statement that "The immutable policy of Japan is to promote world peace." At that moment, the bombing of Pearl Harbor had commenced...

Following the Allied victory in Japan, the American military tribunal elected in February, 1946, not to prosecute either Kurusu or Nomura.[13] Kurusu was a visiting professor at Tokyo University and lived at a country estate in Karuizawa with his wife Alice. Like Nomura, Kurusu maintained for the rest of his life that he had been unaware of the plans for Pearl Harbor...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabur%C5%8D_Kurusu

Ambassador Kurusu and his American wife had one son who became an officer of the Imperial Army of Japan, though he died during the war against the US.

Ryo Kurusu (1919 - 1945), the son of Ambassador Saburo Kurusu, was drafted into the Imerial Army air force in January 1941 while he was an employee of an aircraft company.  He became a fighter pilot to fight against American fighters and bombers but a tragedy occurred.

The actual death of Ryo Kurusu, son of Saburo and Alice Kurusu, was quite different than Ken Kurushima's fictional death described in this book. Yasukuni Jinja (2003, 76) states that he fought single-handedly against eight American planes and shot down one on February 16, 1945. Watanabe (1999) gives the following account of Ryo Kurusu's tragic death after returning to base (translation by Mieko Morita):

Capt. Kurusu, born in January 1919, died due to an accident at Tama Army Airfield on February 16, 1945. When an air-raid siren sounded at the airfield, all pilots including Capt. Kurusu ran to their aircraft. As he was trying to pass in front of one plane, it moved forward two to three meters, and its propeller cut his neck. His severed head flew up two meters, and his headless body moved forward four or five more steps. This accident was unavoidable even though 1st Lieutenant Umekawa, the pilot of the plane that hit Capt. Kurusu, had fourteen and a half years of flying experience. If someone had given instructions to 1st Lieutenant Umekawa on the taxiway, this unfortunate accident could have been avoided. However, no one was giving directions to the aircraft. Capt. Kurusu was running in 1st Lieutenant Umekawa’s blind spot as everybody hurriedly ran to their planes to make sorties. 1st Lieutenant Umekawa honestly reported the accident to his commander, Maj. Yoshitsugu Aramaki.  Maj. Aramaki did not say anything to 1st Lieutenant Umekawa, whose face was pale. Later, the Imperial Army leaders overlooked the accident since it was unavoidable.

Saburo Kurusu's wife died as a Japanese citizen and also Catholic.  The Kurusus had also two daughters, namely Ryo's younger sisters, who reportedly married Americans after WWII.

Finally, it is commonsense today in Japan that Ambassador Kurusu was not informed of the Pearl Harbor Attack plan beforehand.

Though the plan was officially approved by top leaders of the Imperial Government on November 5, 1941, the final decision of launching the war against the US was finally decided when the so-called Hull note was delivered by then US Secretary of State Cordell Hull on Novermber 26, 1941 as the note proposed conditions for peace the Empire of Japan could not accept.


*** *** *** ***




Rev 5:4 And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.
Rev 5:5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

"But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart" - 84-Year Old Samurai Scholar

Tokyo Tramcar Trip...

84-Year Old Samurai Scholar

There was a samurai around 1700 who started to write various useful books when he became 70 years old till he died at the age of 84.

Kaibara Ekken (1630 - 1714) or Ekiken, also known as Atsunobu was a Japanese Neo-Confucianist philosopher and botanist...

Kaibara's science was confined to Botany and Materia medica and focused on the "natural law". Kaibara became as famous in Japan as people such as Charles Darwin when it came to science. He advanced the study of botany in Japan when he wrote Yamato honzō,　(Medicinal herbs of Japan) which was a seminal study of Japanese plants. The 19th century German Japanologist Philipp Franz von Siebold called him the "Aristotle of Japan."[1]

Kaibara was known for his manuals of behavior, such as changing his Confucian ethical system based on the teachings of Zhu Xi (also known as Chu Hsi) into an easy "self-help" manuals. As an educator and philosopher, it appears that Kaibara's main goal in life was to further the process of weaving Neo-Confucianism into Japanese culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaibara_Ekken

The samurai scholar Kaiabara Ekiken wrote about health.  In this book called Yojo-Kun (Instructions for Keeping Healthy), he pointed the following three types of enjoyment of life:

1) Enjoy practicing the way of righteous life and accumulating record of performing good conduct.

2) Enjoy healthy life without falling into illness.

3) Enjoy longevity.

In order to enjoy longevity, he recommended the following:

i) Suppress the desire to eat various delicious foods.

ii) Suppress lust

iii) Suppress the desire to sleep loosely.

iv) Suppress the desire to talk loosely.

It should be noted that Ekiken did not include enjoyment of wealth and higher status in the three types of enjoyment of life.

In addition, in the samurai era, Japanese scholars usually wrote a book in the Chinese style using only Kanji letters.  But Ekiken wrote his book in plain Japanese using also Kana letters which were easier for ordinary people, including farmers, to read and understand.

He forbade smoking and excessive eating.  Ekiken also stressed that as good and bad is a result of daily life, everyday suppression of various desires would result in easy promotion of health.

Kaibara Ekiken said, "If you eat to 80% of your satisfaction, you will later feel full, so that you should not eat  with a full belly."  He also wrote that stomach and intestines could be regulated well if you take meals in a normal way; you don't need special medicines.

Put simply the samurai scholar around 1700 meant that life is finite but desires are infinite so that if we do not control desires, desires would destroy our life.

Other interesting thing is that Ekiken claimed that a Japanese white radish was the king of vegetables.

Instructions for Keeping Healthy
http://fuku-chan.de-blog.jp/fukuyaku/2012/02/post_0cef.html

As for his study on Japanese plants, Kaiabara Ekiken applied his own unique method of classification to record 1,362 types or species of plants in Japan.  For this subject he wrote a book in 21 volumes which is called Yamato-Honzo (Japanese Plants) .

http://hikogorou.blog5.fc2.com/blog-entry-318.html



*** *** *** ***




Act 5:1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
Act 5:2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
Act 5:3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Act 5:4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
Act 5:5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.

"Who had his dwelling among the tombs" - Kant's Mentioning Japan

Tokyo Downtown Tramcar

Kant's Mentioning Japan

It is interesting to know that  German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) mentioned Japan of the samurai era as the samurai Japan closed the door of the nation so as not to be influenced by Western colonizing powers.

Immanuel Kant
Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch
1795
.....
THIRD DEFINITIVE ARTICLE FOR A PERPETUAL PEACE 

"The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality" 

Here, as in the preceding articles, it is not a question of philanthropy but of right. Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility. It is not the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand. A special beneficent agreement would be needed in order to give an outsider a right to become a fellow inhabitant for a certain length of time. It is only a right of temporary sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have. They have it by virtue of their common possession of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth. 

Uninhabitable parts of the earth--the sea and the deserts--divide this community of all men, but the ship and the camel (the desert ship) enable them to approach each other across these unruled regions and to establish communication by using the common right to the face of the earth, which belongs to human beings generally. The inhospitality of the inhabitants of coasts (for instance, of the Barbary Coast) in robbing ships in neighboring seas or enslaving stranded travelers, or the inhospitality of the inhabitants of the deserts (for instance, the Bedouin Arabs) who view contact with nomadic tribes as conferring the right to plunder them, is thus opposed to natural law, even though it extends the right of hospitality, i.e., the privilege of foreign arrivals, no further than to conditions of the possibility of seeking to communicate with the prior inhabitants. In this way distant parts of the world can come into peaceable relations with each other, and these are finally publicly established by law. Thus the human race can gradually be brought closer and closer to a constitution establishing world citizenship. 

But to this perfection compare the inhospitable actions of the civilized and especially of the commercial states of our part of the world. The injustice which they show to lands and peoples they visit (which is equivalent to conquering them) is carried by them to terrifying lengths. America, the lands inhabited by the Negro, the Spice Islands, the Cape, etc., were at the time of their discovery considered by these civilized intruders as lands without owners, for they counted the inhabitants as nothing. In East India (Hindustan), under the pretense of establishing economic undertakings, they brought in foreign soldiers and used them to oppress the natives, excited widespread wars among the various states, spread famine, rebellion, perfidy, and the whole litany of evils which afflict mankind.  

China and Japan (Nippon), who have had experience with such guests, have wisely refused them entry, the former permitting their approach to their shores but not their entry, while the latter permit this approach to only one European people, the Dutch, but treat them like prisoners, not allowing them any communication with the inhabitants. The worst of this (or, to speak with the moralist, the best) is that all these outrages profit them nothing, since all these commercial ventures stand on the verge of collapse, and the Sugar Islands, that place of the most refined and cruel slavery, produces no real revenue except indirectly, only serving a not very praiseworthy purpose of furnishing sailors for war fleets and thus for the conduct of war in Europe. This service is rendered to powers which make a great show of their piety, and, while they drink injustice like water, they regard themselves as the elect in point of orthodoxy. 

Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a law of world citizenship is no high-flown or exaggerated notion. It is a supplement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, indispensable for the maintenance of the public human rights and hence also of perpetual peace. One cannot flatter oneself into believing one can approach this peace except under the condition outlined here.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm


Kant is very Christian in that he accused colonization by Spain, Portugal, the UK, etc.  It is said that what Kan saw is misery of colonized nations, regions, and tribes but not misery of indigenous African, Asian, and American communities.

The other modern plans for a perpetual peace descend from Immanuel Kant's 1795 essay, "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" (Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf.). In this essay the German philosopher Immanuel Kant described his proposed peace program. Perpetual peace is arguably seen as the starting point of contemporary liberal thought. Perpetual Peace is structured in two parts. The "Preliminary Articles" described the steps that should be taken immediately, or with all deliberate speed: 

"No secret treaty of peace shall be held valid in which there is tacitly reserved matter for a future war" 

"No independent states, large or small, shall come under the dominion of another state by inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation" 

"Standing armies shall in time be totally abolished" 

"National debts shall not be contracted with a view to the external friction of states" 

"No state shall by force interfere with the constitution or government of another state" 

"No state shall, during war, permit such acts of hostility which would make mutual confidence in the subsequent peace impossible: such are the employment of assassins (percussores), poisoners (venefici), breach of capitulation, and incitement to treason (perduellio) in the opposing state"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_peace

It is also interesting to know that it was not the Vatican but a philosopher of a country from which Hitler was to emerge a century after the death of the philosopher who specified how to achieve reasonable and solid peace in the world.


*** *** *** ***




Mar 5:2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
Mar 5:3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
Mar 5:4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
Mar 5:5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
Mar 5:6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
Mar 5:7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
Mar 5:8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.

" seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain" - Iwasaki of Mitsubishi

Part of Tokyo

 Iwasaki of Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi is still a big name in the Japanese industrial sector.

There are the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mitsubishi Motors, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation, Mitsubishi Corporation, etc.

But who is the founder of the Mitsubishi industrial conglomerate?

Iwasaki Yataro (1835 – 1885) was a Japanese financier and shipping industrialist, and the founder of Mitsubishi... 

Iwasaki was born in a provincial farming family in Aki, Tosa province (now Kōchi Prefecture), the great-grandson of a man who had sold his family's samurai status in obligation of debts. Iwasaki began his career as an employee of the Tosa clan... 

He was promoted to the top position at the Tosa clan's trading office in Nagasaki, responsible for trading camphor oil and paper to buy ships, weapons, and ammunition. 

Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which forced the disbandment of the shogunate's business interests, Iwasaki travelled to Osaka and leased the trading rights for the Tosa clan's Tsukumo Trading Company. The company changed its name to Mitsubishi in 1873.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwasaki_Yatar%C5%8D 

The key to Iwasaki's success is his association with Sakamoto Ryoma in Nagasak, a major port city in west Japan.  Sakamoto is still the most popular samurai even today.  He contributed to realization of the Meiji Restoration (of the Imperial Authority) in 1868 when the last samurai regime of Japan collapsed, paving the way for Japan toward modernization and Westernization.  Sakamoto is also known for his initiative to launch marine transportation business through his tie with a Scottish merchant who sold firearms to samurai lords.  Iwasaki learnt modern business when he worked for Sakamoto in Nagasaki.  However Sakamoto Ryoma was assassinated in Kyoto before the Meiji Restoration, though Iwasaki survived this dangerous days when a civil war was going on between the Tokugawa shogun government and the anti-Tokugawa/pro-imperial samurai clans.

In those days, most of samurai lords issued paper money which could be only circulated in their territories.  Though the Tokugawa clan governed all the samurai clans in Japan, economy of each clan's territory was exclusively and independently managed by each local samurai government.  So, in the turmoil days those samurai lords issued paper money in a large quantity, though the money system of Japan was based on gold and silver in addition to copper coins.  Accordingly, when a new central government was established after the civil war that demolished the feudalistic samurai regime governed by the Tokugawa shogun, central control of the money system became a great agenda as 200 local samurai clans were being disbanded.  

The Meiji imperial government decided to disband the samurai clan system to reorganize their territories into modern local municipalities called prefectures whose heads, namely governors, would be appointed by the central government in Tokyo.  In this process, the leaders in Tokyo had to put an end to circulation of money paper issued by local samurai lords.  So, they decided to buy up all the bills issued by local samurai lords at current market prices.  For this purpose, the central government issued its own paper money based on gold it has.

Iwasaki got this information beforehand from one of key politicians in the central government who was from the local territory Tosa as Iwasaki was also from the Tosa clan.  Iwasaki purchased local old paper money as much as possible at discounted prices, since their issuers, namely local samurai clans, lost their power and status as the central government was abolishing local samurai governments.   This transactions gave great fortunes to Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of the great Mitsubishi group.    

Put simply, the big insider information made Yataro Iwasaki the future founder of Mitsubishi.  So, Mitsubishi is rooted in the turmoil days of the Meiji Restoration (of the Imperial Authority) and the fall of the last samurai regime of Japan in 1860s (when Sakamoto Ryuma with progressive spirit became a samurai hero).

*** *** *** ***



Mat 5:1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
Mat 5:2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Mat 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Mat 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Mat 5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Mat 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Mat 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Mat 5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

"Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God" - Father of Japanese Capitalism

Tokyo Downtown...

Father of Japanese Capitalism

A son of a rich farmer became a samurai to eventually grow up as the main player in the modern Japanese industry.

Eiichi Shibusawa in his early 20s tried to join the anti-shogun/pro-imperial camp, though he was not a samurai as he was a son of a farmer in a village 80 km north of Tokyo then called Edo, though Shibusawa's family was rich.  (At the time even most of ordinary farmers could read and write in Japan.  A very successful farmer or merchant had a chance to become a quasi-samurai.)  Being influenced by the social atmosphere at the time, Shibusawa wanted to fight against the Tokugawa regime, while the Tokugawa government decided to put an end to its 200-year-long closed-door policy and open the country to the world despite opposition from some samurai clans close to the imperial court in Kyoto.  Shibusawa planned to attack a castle of a samurai lord, a subject of the Tokugawa family which held power to govern Japan.  But his relatives succeeded in persuading Eiichi to give up the revolutionary idea.

Nonetheless, Eiichi Shibusawa went up to Kyoto, the imperial capital of Japan 500km west of Edo which was the samurai administrative capital of Japan governed by the Tokugawa shogun (shogun is the title meaning the head of all the samurai clans).  However at the time, the pro-imperial samurai camp in Kyoto was well suppressed by Tokugawa shogun forces.  Shibusawa became at a loss.

But, Shibusawa had a samurai friend as he had learnt swordplay in Edo before going to Kyoto. Through this samurai friend, young Shibusawa got a chance to be employed by a samurai lord who was a relative to the Tokugawa Shogun.  Eiichi Shibusawa became a samurai.  And subsequently, the Shogun died of illness, paving the way for Shibusawa's lord toward shogunship.  So, in 1864, samurai Shibusawa Eiichi became a subject of the new king of Japan, namely the 15th Shogun from the Tokugawa Family, Yoshinobu.  So, Shibusawa, originally a son of a farmer, got a big chance to be something, though the Tokugawa samurai regime came to fall through a civil war against the anti-Tokugawa/pro-imperial samurai camp, which put an end to the samurai era of Japan.  This big regime change is called Meiji Restoration (of the Imperial Authority).

Shibusawa Eiichi, 1st Viscount Shibusawa (1840 - 1931) was a Japanese industrialist widely known today as the "father of Japanese capitalism". He spearheaded the introduction of Western capitalism to Japan after the Meiji Restoration. He introduced many economic reforms including use of double entry accounting, joint stock corporations and modern note-issuing banks.[1]  

He founded the first modern bank based on joint stock ownership in Japan...

Another notable aspect of Shibusawa's career is that, despite being the founder of hundreds of corporations, he refused to maintain a controlling stake in these corporations, effectively preventing himself from forming a zaibatsu....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibusawa_Eiichi

Eiichi Shibusawa was unique in that he avoided becoming a Rockefeller or a Rothschild, though the Shibusawas enjoyed a very rich life.

Shibusawa said, "I think it is evil to become a rich man, though I myself is a member of Japanese industrialists.  A rich man wants to be richer.  His desire to accumulate wealth is limitless.  But what if a super-rich man gets all the wealth in a country?  It is not good for anybody.  As we were born as human beings, we have to live a more meaningful life.  While being business men, we should not devote our life to just making money without end but we should pursue our ideal using our knowledge."

So, Eiichi Shibusawa was unique in that he avoided becoming a Rockefeller or a Rothschild, since he knew there was something more important than simply making money.

http://www.shibusawa.or.jp/eiichi/eiichi.html


*** *** *** ***




Mar 4:30 And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?
Mar 4:31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:
Mar 4:32 But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.