Friends who are familiar with Japanese history know that the reason why modern Japan has embarked on the fascist road and become the source of war in Asia has a lot to do with the Japanese military's monopoly of power and the promotion of militarism.
So, how did the Japanese military get so much power? You know, Japan belongs to a constitutional monarchy, even if the military ministry itself holds some power, there should be a cabinet and a parliament to check and balance, so where did the cabinet go?
It is no secret that the Cabinet has been frightened.
Where did this come from? To understand this period of Japanese history, we have to mention the key event of the "226 Incident".
At 5:00 a.m. on February 26, 1936, the Imperial Daoists gathered more than 1,400 young officers and soldiers and launched a surprise attack on the incumbent cabinet ministers. Lieutenant officers led by Kurihara and Tsushima led hundreds of people to besiege the Prime Minister's Mansion, while the lieutenant officers led by Nosuke quickly occupied the Metropolitan Police Department and took control of the entire city guard, while the Tibetan Minister Takahashi was killed, the Minister of the Interior Saito Shigeru was killed, and the attendant Nagasugi Kantaro was seriously injured... Overnight, Okada's cabinet nearly collapsed.
So, who was the prime minister in office at the time? It is Keisuke Okada that we are going to introduce today.
When the "226 Incident" broke out, Okada Keisuke was eating at home, and after hearing the noisy gunshots outside, he immediately went into the closet of the maid's room. Coincidentally, when the Imperial Daoist faction entered the Prime Minister's mansion, it was just in time for Okada Keisuke's brother-in-law, who was also his personal bodyguard Matsuo Tatsuzo, to lead the army to help, because the two looked a bit alike, Matsuo Shinzao was killed as Okada Keisuke. Keisuke Okada, who was hiding in the closet, was lucky enough to escape the disaster thanks to his brother-in-law, who was a substitute ghost.
Some people may ask: Why did Keisuke Okada break out the "226 Incident" when he was in office? On the one hand, this is due to the inevitability of the historical environment, and on the other hand, it has a lot to do with the military ideas of Keisuke Okada himself.
Keisuke Okada came from a samurai family, such as the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, can find his figure, and he personally commanded the sinking of Qing warships when he served under the famous admiral Higashigo Heihachirō, and by 1924 he was already a naval admiral and commander of the combined fleet, but he himself did not like war in his heart, but was an active disarmamentist. That's why militarists hate him.
At the Washington Conference on Disarmament in 1922, Okada, as Vice Admiral of the Navy, strongly supported the conclusion of disarmament treaties; at the London Conference on Disarmament in 1930, Okada once again signed the treaty on behalf of Japan; and after becoming Prime Minister of Japan in 1934, Okada Keisuke put disarmament on the agenda. This repeated disarmament action completely angered the Imperial Daoist faction that advocated military expansion, thus triggering the "226 Incident".
The day after the outbreak of the "226 Incident", the government issued a death obituary of Prime Minister Keisuke Okada, and it was not until a few days later that Okada Keisuke, who felt that the limelight had passed, sneaked out, and for a time, the news of Keisuke Okada's death and resurrection detonated Japanese society.
After that, although Okada continued to serve as prime minister for a few more days, he lost interest in politics and resigned on March 9, 1936.
The collapse of the Okada cabinet marked a complete defeat of the cabinet in the struggle against the military department. On the other hand, although the Imperial Daoist faction under the leadership of the military department annoyed Emperor Hirohito because of this incident and led to the killing of some young leaders of the imperial daoist faction, it created favorable conditions for the rise of the military department, and since then, Japan has never returned on the road of fascism.
Keisuke Okada, who retired from politics in the "226 Incident", did not die until 1952, just escaping the big mud pit of World War II, which is also very lucky.