“...... From rubble everywhere, people's livelihood to economic take-off, the country is rich and the people are strong, the Yamato nation, with its own diligence and wisdom, in just one generation, Japan has risen from the ruins to become a world economic power, such examples may be difficult to find..."
——Shigeru Yoshida, "A Century of Turbulence"
This is a passage from the 1967 book "A Century of Agitation," a best-selling book in which the Japanese nation was blown to the sky by former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida. However, it is undeniable that at that time, Japan had leapt to become a world economic power, and three years ago it hosted the Powerful Tokyo Olympics, which was indeed "just a generation" from the end of World War II.
The road to rise
Turning to japan's modern and contemporary history, in the entire hundred years from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the publication of the book in 1967, Shigeru Yoshida's use of the word "agitation" is no exaggeration. After the Americans opened the door to "trade" in 1853, the Japanese tried their best to take revenge on the snow and shame, and began a century of ups and downs.
Since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, it has also been "just a generation", and Japan, which is rich and strong, has developed into a well-deserved Asian brother. In 1894, the mighty Qing Dynasty was defeated by a shocking Sino-Japanese War, and ten years later, in 1904, through a jaw-dropping Russo-Japanese War, the more powerful Imperial Russia was defeated.
Through two small and large wars, Japan played a prominent role in Asia and emerged in the world. From 1894 to 1911, it took only 10 years for Japan to abrogate all unequal treaties with the Western powers, while China, in a similar situation, had a long road to abrogate the treaties for more than 30 years.
By the time of World War I, Japan's ambitions, which had already become a great power, began to swell, and when Europe was in a mess, the Western powers had no time to look east, and Japan, which had long coveted China, declared war on Germany, sent troops to Qingdao to fight off the Germans and seized Germany's islands in the Pacific.
In 1919, after the war, as one of the "five strong" and a victorious country, the Japanese rushed to Paris to participate in the peace conference.
Repeatedly "bullied" by the great powers
In Paris, the Japanese did not go well in meetings, seeing that the rights and interests of Shandong were stirred up by Chinese diplomats, and the racial equality bill proposed by Japan "on behalf" of the Asian people was rejected by the big three. The Japanese wanted to withdraw from the peace conference in a fit of rage, and the United States and Britain quickly came forward to appease and "recognize Japan's rights to island territories and island territories in the Pacific region."
It now appears that Japan's seizure of the German Pacific islands north of the equator is a double-edged sword, and the Marshall Islands, Caroling Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands are thousands of kilometers from the Japanese mainland, and having these "enclaves" has made the Ambitions of the Japanese even more inflated, and they have the capital to compete with the United States in the Pacific.
The Washington Conference of 1921-1922 was seen by the Japanese as another empirical evidence of being "bullied" by western powers.
As a continuation of the Paris Peace Conference, the purpose of the Washington Conference was to resolve the "unfinished business" of the Treaty of Versailles. Among them, The Shandong issue of China, the dispute over islands in the Pacific region, and the limitation of naval armaments are three important issues.
After nearly three months of verbal remarks, the conference signed three treaties on these three topics. In the Nine-Power Pact, under pressure from the United States, Japan reluctantly returned Shandong to China.
Although the Treaty of Four Nations recognized Japan's rights and interests in the Pacific, it successfully buried the Anglo-Japanese alliance that lasted for twenty years, and the Japanese people deeply regretted it. In the Five-Power Pact, which limited naval armaments, the Japanese were indignant that naval power was "subordinated" to the United States and Britain.
Crazy again
Since then, Japan, which considers itself to be full of wings, has become increasingly cold in relations with Europe and the United States, and although the United States and Britain do not say that they do not take Japan in their eyes, they do not think that it can set off much waves. I have to say that the fate of the Japanese is really good, originally the United States was ready to step up its containment of Japan in the Far East, and a Soviet Union that straddles the Eurasian continent quietly rose after World War I.
By shouldering the "heavy responsibility" of containing the Soviet Union in the Far East, Japan extended the tentacles of aggression to northeast China. After September 18, 1931, the United States only condemned a few words without pain, and continued to "transfuse blood" to Japan, oil, steel and other strategic resources were enough to manage, and hundreds of millions of dollars of "credit" were spent.
At that time, the British and French-controlled League of Nations also sent the "Lytton Investigation Mission" to the northeast to mediate, but Japan, which held the support of the United States, did not care at all. On February 24, 1933, Matsuoka Yoshitoshi, who was regarded by the Japanese as a "national hero", delivered a speech at the League of Nations Congress, and with the last sentence of The Command, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations and did not play with you.
In 1934, Japan announced the abrogation of the Naval Arms Treaty, and in January 1936, it withdrew from the London Conference on Disarmament, and the "Washington system" dominated by the United States and Europe was seriously impacted. After the Japanese "226" Mutiny in 1936, the fascist forces led by the military department gradually developed and grew, and the Americans at this time also realized that it was not so easy to control the Japanese wild horse.
In 1937, Japan invaded China in an all-round way, and the United States and the Soviet Union launched a behind-the-scenes contest with China as the battlefield. In the more than three years since the signing of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty in April 1941, the United States has provided a lot of aid to Japan, and the Soviet Union has provided a lot of aid to China, and the agents of the two sides have fought happily.
In addition, the Japanese know that American money is not given for free. During the invasion of China in 1938 and 1939, Japan provoked wars in Zhang Gufeng and Nomenkan one after another, and after some comparisons, the Japanese finally knew that the Soviets were not easy to provoke, and the momentum of "northward expansion" was hit hard.
Break with beauty
In 1940, the three-country axis of Germany, Italy, and Japan was formed, and the Japanese people felt itching to watch the German chariots rampage through Western Europe. In September of that year, with the acquiescence of the pro-Nazi French Vichy regime, Japan sent troops to northern Vietnam to "take over French Indochina", and the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, a channel for Receiving Foreign Aid in the Chinese War of Resistance, was forcibly closed.
The United States and Britain panicked, and the two countries began to jointly impose economic sanctions on Japan, which was "the first time since Japan's aggression and expansion in 1931 that the two countries have taken coordinated action against Japan." Even so, the United States and Britain were reluctant to overstimulate Japan and did not impose an oil embargo, and a year later, before the embargo was imposed in September 1941, the United States sent another 7 million barrels of oil to Japan.
From March to December 1941, the United States and Japan held marathon negotiations for nine months. During this period, Japan made two-handed preparations, while grinding hard bubbles with the Americans, while stepping up preparations for war. In July of that year, Japan sent troops to occupy southern Indochina, and the "southward march" was about to emerge from the United States, the Philippines, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies.
By this time, the Americans knew that the Japanese were reluctant to lay down their butcher knives. In September, the United States and Britain froze Japan's capital in both countries and completely stopped all trade with Japan before the United States officially began to implement an oil embargo on Japan. The "oppressed" Japanese also knew that a war with the United States and Britain was inevitable.
In October 1941, the Japanese Konoe Cabinet was replaced by the Hideki Tojo Cabinet, and at the November 5 Imperial Council, whether or not Emperor Hirohito recited his grandfather's two poems, "Brothers in all corners of the world, why are the wind and rain in the world?", Japan finally decided to go to war against the United States and Britain.
Needless to say, the Japanese "ten for one" and the Americans tore each other for more than three years, and finally were beaten back to their original form and fell to the bottom of the "turbulent century-old history". On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito read the "Edict of the End of the War," and Japan was deemed to accept the Potsdam Proclamation for "unconditional surrender."
"Three Great Gifts from God"
Defeated Japan was not only devastated and on the brink of extinction, but also faced unforgiving punishment from its allies. At that time, I am afraid that no one would believe that it could still turn over the salted fish. However, it is not known whether history is too "agitated" or whether the god of luck is particularly favored by the Japanese, and in just a few years after the surrender, the Japanese people have received "three gifts from God" in succession.
1. "Emperor Taishang" MacArthur
At the end of August 1945, the Five-Star American General MacArthur flew to Tokyo and began his six-year career as "Emperor Taishang" of Japan. The Japanese at that time did not know that the American who had fought with the Japanese for more than three years had become "a great gift from God to the Japanese."
During his "reign," MacArthur was extremely benevolent to the Japanese, not only turning a blind eye to the emperor and many war criminals who bore full responsibility for the war, but also trying to win incomparable food aid from the United States for the Japanese.
Then Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida also stood up to praise Emperor Taishang: "General MacArthur's contribution to the interests of our country is a miracle in history, it is he who saved our country from the chaos and decay after the surrender, and led us to the road of recovery and reconstruction, and he firmly rooted the spirit of democracy in all aspects of our society." ”
2. The Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out with the rumbling of artillery on the peninsula across the Tsushima Strait. Neighboring countries were surprised and disturbed by this sudden war. However, shigeru Yoshida, who was still the Prime Minister of Japan, exclaimed in surprise: This is a gift from God! ”
Indeed, with MacArthur's help, it was not easy for Japan, devastated by the war, to achieve economic revival. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Japan became a springboard and logistics base for U.S. troops to advance to the Korean Peninsula overnight. As a result, orders for various weapons and equipment wafted like snowflakes, factories on the verge of closure in various parts of Japan reopened at full power, and there was a scene of red-hot large-scale production everywhere.
In this way, Japan seized this life-saving straw and stood up from the ruins, and the economy was quickly revived. Not only that, as a "bridgehead" for the United States to confront the Soviet camp in the Far East, Japan's important position has become increasingly prominent.
When Japan was defeated a few years ago, the Americans set the standard that "Japan's future standard of living shall not exceed that of other Asian countries it has invaded," which is now replaced by "it is in the interest of the United States to maintain an economically strong Japan."
3. San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan
With the recovery and development of the economy, Japan began to seek political independence. On September 8, 1951, under the leadership of the United States, the 48 victorious powers of World War II gathered in San Francisco, usa, and signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty with the defeated country of Japan.
Through this "peace with Japan," Japan not only returned to the international community as a sovereign country, but also gained the right to "choose" the parties to the treaty. In sharp contrast, China, which was one of the "five permanents" of the United Nations at that time, was excluded from the San Francisco Peace Conference when it was the earliest to participate in the war against fascism, and the greatest sacrifice in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Shigeru Yoshida, then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, a diplomat-turned-politician, was keenly aware that this was a major diplomatic achievement and a major political victory for Japan after World War II.
In his book "A Turbulent Century", Shigeru Yoshida said proudly: "With the "outstanding wisdom" of the Yamato nation, Japan skillfully grasped its own direction in the vagaries of international politics after World War II, and achieved revival in the shortest possible time. ”
It seems that the "luck" of the Japanese people is given by the Americans, and the two countries are getting closer and closer to each other, and now they are as close as father and son. The Japanese should know this, and it is no wonder that it is said to be a "gift from God" rather than the god Amaterasu.