This is a true history of the early days of Japan's invasion of China, and it is also a true portrayal of the low-level people in Japan.
Illustration
First, the emergence of "villages without girls"
In 1931, in Yamagata Prefecture in the tohoku region of Japan, the rural grain harvest was in arrears, the peasants could not make ends meet, their lives were extremely miserable, they could not survive, and there was a matter of selling their own children.
Reports such as "Records of Extreme Poverty", "Poverty Betrays Daughters", "Unemployment Experience", and "Hell for Girls in The Northeast" continue to appear in newspapers.
The Japan Agricultural Annual Report said: "In 1931, there were 4,000 to 5,000 farmers selling their daughters in Yamagata Prefecture. ”
The same account appears in the Fifty Years of Showa History by Okukawa Daikichi:
"In the village of Nishi kokuni in Yamagata Prefecture, the highest district, as a victim of the famine year, the total population of the village is 4,714 people, and 2,332 women, of which 250 are young girls aged 15.6 to 24.5 years old, all of whom are sold to other places as prostitutes, so that 'villages without girls' have emerged."
Coincidentally, Masao Kumagai also said in his January 1942 "Women's Anthology" that the corn in Yuri County, Akita Prefecture, the two villages in the countryside, and the village of Akinogu in Kumakatsu Prefecture also became "villages without girls." ”
The whole village sold their own daughter, which is also a great spectacle in Japanese history.
This doesn't just make people wonder:
What kind of existential crisis occurred at that time, so that the peasants, like the plague, could collectively sell their own flesh and bones for money?
Today we will review the real details of Japanese society.
Second, the economic background of Japan after World War I
War is deadly, but some people use it to get rich.
In the First World War, Japan sat on the benefits of the fishermen, and not only stepped up its aggression against China when the European powers had no time to look east, but also made a fortune in the war, and there was a rare foreign trade boom in history.
"Trade exports have surged, shipping has boomed, and the entire manufacturing industry has grown more than 30 times." World War I sent Japan to war.
A number of "war upstarts" have made a lot of war money, and the country's industrial structure has changed from an agrarian country to an industrial country.
However, the "good times" did not last long, and with the end of the war and the overall Great Depression of the world economy, the Japanese economy soon stagnated, regressed, and entered a period of depression.
At this time, Japan also ushered in the 7.9 magnitude Kanto Earthquake (1923).
The Great Kanto Earthquake
The earthquake lasted a long time and had far-reaching impacts. The hardest hit were the peasants.
Rice, for example, was priced at 26.91 yen per quintal at the beginning of 1930 and dropped to 17.7 yen at the end of the year.
According to historical records, the price of silkworm cocoons in the spring of 1929 was 7.57 yen per guan (3.75 kg), fell to 4 yen in 1930, and fell to 3.08 yen in 1931.
The sharp price decline brought about by the economic crisis has harmed the old peasants who are unable to cope with them, and the local banks in the silkworm area have been shut down, causing them to "harvest more and more hungry", and the more rice they have, the more they cannot eat.
In his History of Social Phenomena, written by Yanagida and others, he said, "It is obvious that people who grow rice rarely eat rice. The days of eating rice are only forty or fifty days a year.
"Especially in villages in deep ravines, only the elderly, children and the sick can eat rice. In ordinary villages, it can be said that they eat millet, weeds and sweet potatoes to fill their hunger. ”
Ordinary people can't get enough to eat when they cultivate their own land, so they try to find a way to eat.
In Japan on that day, the place where the children of the peasant family could eat for free and the children of the peasant families could still go was the army.
Segawa Daikichi said that after many peasant children arrived in the army, they were "touched by being able to eat white rice."
Therefore, for the peasants in the northeast who have failed to harvest, it is a way of life for men to be sent to the army and for women to marry early to other places.
Even if you can't find a partner in the field, it is better to sell it than to stay at home hungry.
This is how the "village without girls" in Yamagata Prefecture came about.
It was also tragic that the young women who were sold at that time were also very low in price, "the average value per person is only 50-100 yen, and in the Aomori area, it is only worth 9 yen." ”
Third, the officials can see that japan's invasion of China has not gone out on the battlefield and has been defeated
Behind the "no girl village" is a portrayal of the Japanese economy falling into an unprecedented crisis, and the real state of the miserable life of Japanese farmers at the bottom.
It was against this social background that the new chaebols, who had made a fortune in the first world war, under the impetus of the militarists, were in a state of convergence between the economy and the military industry, clamoring for expansion, and hurriedly transferring the economic crisis and the political crisis brought about by the economic crisis to China through the expansion of aggression against China.
The "Manchurian lifeline" freak and the "Manchurian Incident" freak were born in this context.
From the historical magnifying glass of "no girl's village," we can see that Japan launched the war of aggression against China not because its national strength was strong enough and large enough, but because militarism developed strong enough.
In fact, Japan's economy is stronger than China's, but if it comes to foreign wars, it is not a little bit or two.
World War II Japan trained women to strengthen their bodies
The causes of the 1936 226 Mutiny were complex, but one of the important aspects was that the economy was not good, the people's lives were miserable, and the low-level officers could not bear it, so they carried out a mutiny, the purpose of which was to kill the corrupt authorities and realize the Showa Restoration.
After the all-out invasion of China in 1937, Japan immediately implemented economic control, and had to gather the strength of the whole people, save money in an all-round way, reduce clothing and food around the military orders, and enter a "more difficult life."
This has to be said to be a kind of stretching.
226 Mutiny
While tightening the belt of his pants and issuing a "luxury prohibition order", while shouting "Yamato Soul Spirit", he deceived himself into strengthening his spiritual strength and fooling soldiers into using their spiritual will to defeat Steel Britain and the United States, which was Japan in World War II.
Because of its lack of strength, Japan had to choose a strategy of quick battle and quick decision, but unfortunately, it was recognized by the Chinese.
Therefore, from the day he sent his troops out, he was fighting a war with no chance of winning.
As a U.S. investigative mission report put it:
"The Japanese economy, which is poor at coping with people's livelihood, has no capacity to cope with emergencies ... Japan's fate of defeat was doomed. ”
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Bibliographic reference:
Segawa Daikichi, "Fifty Years of Showa History" (Harbin Heilongjiang People's Publishing House, 1982)
Zhang Jingwei, "Re-understanding the Japanese Economic Crisis in the Early 1930s" (Historical Theory Studies, No. 2, 2009)
Yasuo Wakatori, Japan's War Responsibilities (Social Sciences Academic Press, 1999)