A Main Gun of Battle Ship Mutsu...
Of Imperial Navy in WWII...
Chinese Icons and Japanese (Icônes chinois et japonais)
Before WWII, the Empire of Japan had nine Imperial Universities.
They were situated in Tokyo, Kyoto, Sendai, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Seoul, Taipei, Osaka, and Nagoya. They were founded in this order between 1886 and 1931.
To our surprise, the Imperial university in Seoul, Korea, and the one in Taipei, Taiwan, were built earlier than those in Osaka and Nagoya in Japan proper or mainland Japan.
Japanese leaders before WWII tried to modernize and industrialize Korea and Taiwan, then part of the Empire, so much by investing huge resources into each region. In this context, the Empire of Japan gave more than it took from Korea and Taiwan unlike Western colonization in Africa and Asia.
Taipei University of the Empire of Japan:
SECTION I: Sun, Chiang, Chou, Mao, and Japanese
Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) was greatly helped by some Japanese.
Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) was trained in Japan.
Chou En-lai (1898-1976) learnt in Japan.
Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) greatly respected some Japanese.
And, as you know, Sun Yat-sen carried out the Chinese revolution to crush the Qing Dynasty. Chiang Kai-shek, after having learnt in military schools of the Empire of Japan between 1907 and 1911, was promoted by Sun to be a top leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party. Chou En-lai and Mao Tse-tung, having joined the Whampoa Military Academy Sun had established in China, tied up with Chiang to fight against the Imperial Army and Navy during WWII, and then Chou and Mao leading the Communist Party entered a great civil war with Chiang after WWII. And, as you know, Chiang moved to Taiwan while Mao and Chou built the People's Republic of China setting its capital in Beijing.
In other word, without great help from some Japanese, China today could not be established.
One of those Japanese who especially supported Sun Yat-sen, the political and military founder of modern China, was Umeya Shokichi (1868-1934).
In this year, the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai revolution and the Republic of China, the story of these Japanese supporters shows another face of their country. If their advice had been followed, the history of the 20th century would have been different.It is estimated that Umeya provided financial support worth currently $10 billion for Sun, believe or not.
"The Japanese who fought for China's revolution were inspired by the fervor of Dr Sun," wrote Kayano in his memoirs. "When I talked with him, I realized he would fight until the end. So I decided to join his struggle, to live and die with him."
Kayano and his compatriots were inspired by Sun's vision of a democratic and republican China that would end the country's decline and ally with Japan in opposing the western powers. They wanted China to follow the example of their own country -- to modernize, industrialize and earn its independence.
After the Qing government forced the Macau government to expel Sun from the city in 1894, he spent the next 17 years in exile, in Europe, the United States, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and mainly Japan, which he visited 10 times and where he spent nearly 10 years. He built up a support base of 300 Japanese.
One of them, Toten Miyazaki, believed that Sun could change China and introduced him to senior politicians who gave their approval for him to remain in Japan and set up his operational base there.
It was in Tokyo on August 20, 1905 that Sun formed the Tongmenhui, the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance (CRA), which seven years later became the Kuomintang. It was the foundation of the Xinhai revolution. Eight Japanese were members, including Kayano and Shokichi Umeya, who had met Sun earlier that year in Hong Kong, where he ran a photographic shop.
Umeya was also inspired by Sun's vision of a prosperous East Asia and freedom and equality for its citizens and threw himself wholeheartedly into the struggle.
Umeya rented an office for the CRA in the Yurakucho district of central Tokyo and borrowed money to finance its newspaper, the Voice of the People. Over the next 20 years, Umeya raised billions of yen to pay for Sun's travel and living expenses, weapons and ammunition for the uprisings and, in 1915, a flying school in Japan to train Chinese pilots.
After Sun's death, Umeya commissioned four large bronze statues, up to 2.5 meters high and each weighing a ton, and sent them to China. They remain today where he donated them – Sun's mausoleum in Nanjing, the Huangpu Military Academy and Zhongshan University in Guangzhou and the Sun Memorial Home in Macao.
Umeya also commissioned dozens of small busts but ran out of money. So he used funds set aside for his daughter's wedding. When she protested, he replied: "many Japanese respect Mr Zhong-shan. These busts will ensure that his thinking lives on for ever."
He even planned a temple in Sun's memory. After the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931, he publicly criticized the government and was interrogated by the military police; the newspapers called him a 'traitor'.
A sick man, he went to Tokyo to petition the Prime Minister in person but collapsed at the city's railway station and died on November 23, 1934, aged 66.
It is not only Sun that Umeya directly helped. When Chiang married a sister of Sun's wife, Umeya also took care of Chiang and his new wife (whose mother was then in Japan) as he had done when Sun married his wife in Japan, a daughter of a super-rich Chinese clan. Chiang wanted to celebrate his wedding in Japan as Sun had done, though it was held in Shanghai.
The Umeyas and Sun (most probably in Japan):
Sun and Chiang with Japanese supporters including Toten Miyazaki in Japan around 1910:
Chou and other Chinese students in Japan around 1918:
Sun and Mitsuru Toyama (right) in Kobe, Japan, in 1924:
Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong May-ling around 1927:
Chiang and Japanese supporters, including Mitsuru Toyama and Tsuyoshi Inugai (second from the right, soon to be prime minister of Japan), in Japan in 1929:
Chiang and Mao:
Incidentally, Mao Tse-tung respected Takamori Saigo, the greatest Japanese historic figure in the Meiji Restoration around 1870. Mao, when he was young, was also glad to hear that the Empire of Japan defeated the Russian Empire in 1905. Mao also invited Toten Miyazaki, a Japanese right-wing political activist, asking him to deliver lecture in a teacher's school of Hunan, China.
Chinese heads Chou and Mao with Kakuei Tanaka, Japanese prime minister, in Beijing in 1972:
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It is true that most of the Japanese people clearly understand their position, status, and leadership in Asia, especially in East Asia.
Though ancient civilization was brought to Japan from ancient China or through Korea, or in the case of Buddhism as far as from India, the Japanese people are confident that Japan has cultivated itself to build unique culture and civilization in these 2000 years, or especially in these 1000 years.
Since the late 19th century when Japan started modernization by opening the door of the nation to introduce European civilization in earnest despite an old problem concerning Christianity, Japan has been the leader in Asia, especially in East Asia. However, it bred arrogance, since the Empire of Japan became one the four most armed nations in the world before WWII. Though feeling of superiority over other Asians, including Chinese, has been kept among some Japanese, the defeat and collapse of the Empire of Japan in the war against the U.S., which was fought as the Pacific theater of WWII, made most of the Japanese people humble enough to adopt and maintain the Pacifist Constitution to date:
Constitution of Japan
ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
The Imperial Government surrendered to the Allies on August 15, 1945. Accordingly, a big and solemn ceremony is held in Japan on this day every year, which is dedicated to the spirits of the war dead. To attend the ceremony is one of the most important duties of their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan.
Luk 8:11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Luk 8:12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.