The country is based on the people, and the people take food as the sky. Grain is an important topic that accompanies human development in the long river of history for thousands of years, and the splendid civilizations in the vast historical starry sky have taken the people's sufficiency as a symbol of development. In the entire East Asian region, rice is the most important food crop. Since B.C., the people of Asia have begun to cultivate rice and eat rice, and it can be said that rice has fed the entire Asian civilization. After entering the modern era, due to the rapid development of science and technology, the demand for food in human society has been rising. Grain has also played an important role in the country's political field, and a bowl of white rice has become a needle in the sea to maintain national stability. In modern Japan, the status of rice has become more prominent. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the turmoil directly caused by grain has had a direct impact on the direction of Japanese politics. From the Meiji Restoration to the rice riots, from the outbreak of the Pacific War to the surrender of Japan, rice has appeared at key points in history and pushed history forward. What is the specific situation, and wait for the next slow way.
Rice has always played an important role in history
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > rice and modern Japanese history</h1>
Japan is a traditional ocean-type country with a long history of rice cultivation. Due to the influence of climate and terrain, wheat, barley, and buckwheat are not the protagonists of the Japanese table, and rice has long dominated the staple food world of the Japanese people. In 1830, there was a major earthquake in Japan, followed by three consecutive years of flooding. This has led to a massive reduction in agricultural production, a sharp increase in the price of rice, and an imminent famine. Japan was under the rule of the shogunate at the time, with local daimyōs fighting their own battles, and the military and financial power of each domain was uneven. Disaster relief had to be based on macroscopic coherence and a unified pace, but it was obviously impossible for Japan at that time. However, the unscrupulous businessmen in various places hoarded and hoarded a large amount of grain at a high price, which further deepened the suffering of the grass-roots people. In view of this, the Japanese hero Daishida Shiohei Hachiro initiated a righteous act and rebelled against the collusion of local officials and businessmen. In the posted text, Ohshimi Heihachirō claimed:
"The people's grievances are soaring, and every year there are earthquakes, fires, landslides, water breaks, and so on; the grain is not climbed, and hunger is formed." It is the reason why all the heavens are deeply admonished to us. However, many of the people above still do not notice, and the villains and evildoers continue to take charge of political affairs, and day by day they only use the plot of squeezing gold and rice to annoy the world. Although I and other Kusano Hanshi, in view of the suffering of the common people, are sad and depressed, but they have no soup and no martial power, Kong and Meng Zhide, but only live in vain. However, the price of rice rose again and again, and the osaka prefectural officials, disregarding the benevolence of the unity of swords and things, acted arbitrarily and pushed the rice grain to Edo, while Kyoto, where the emperor was located, did not cooperate. Even the people who bought five liters of rice or one bucket were arrested for using gongmi. ”
At that time, there were already cases of changing seeds and eating in Japan, and some angry poor people rushed into rice shops to grab rice. The revolt of Oshiohira Hachirō directly promoted the rebellion against shogunate rule in various places, and directly promoted the Fall of the Curtain Movement and the Meiji Restoration thirty years later. Ōshio Heihachirō is also known as the "founder of civil rights" in Japan.
Oh shioshi heihachiro
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan began to enter the modern state system. Food security has become the cornerstone of national policy and, to some extent, the authority of governments. During world war I, Japan relied on its geographical advantages to send only a small number of combat troops to share the fruits of victory, and at the same time, it could also make a lot of war gains. Japan's rapid industrial development during this period relied on the wartime chain of production and trade. However, there are also hidden killers in development, and due to the time lag in Japan's production transformation after the end of the war, this has led to the closure of a large number of factories. In 1918, the Government of Masato Terauchi decided to send troops to Siberia to fight, the largest Japanese military operation since the Russo-Japanese War. The military's demand for rice has soared, and Japanese profiteers have taken advantage of this opportunity and hoarded rice, directly driving up domestic food prices. According to Shigetoshi Nakahara's "Great East Asian Supply War":
In August 1918, the rice riot initiated by the housewife of the fishing village of Toyama Prefecture's Waterkawa Town soon expanded to 500 cities, towns, and villages across the country. The original price of 1 day liter of rice (1.5 kg) was 12 days, and suddenly rose 4 times to reach 50 days.
It was at this time (August 3, 1918) that the Cabinet of Masaki Terauchi decided to join Britain and the United States in sending troops to Siberia. When profiteers saw the military needs of rice, they snapped up and hoarded it, so the price of general agricultural products plummeted, the market was depressed, and only the price of rice soared. The housewife asked for the sale of rice cheaply, and there was a disturbance, which was the rice riot. To suppress the unrest, the Government mobilized the army in the most serious areas and issued martial law. ”
As a result, the crisis in Japan was completely ignited by rice, and this time the rice riot soon spread to the whole country. In order to calm the storm, the government of Masaki Terauchi resigned, and Japanese Prime Minister Hara Kei took office to form a cabinet. This was the first time that Japan's government collapsed due to a domestic food crisis after the Meiji Restoration.
Statue of Shoki Terauchi
In 1941, Japanese militarists formed a fascist Axis bloc with Germany and Italy. The focus of this policy is also japan's coveting of the food resources and strategic territory of britain and the United States in Southeast Asia. As we all know, Southeast Asia is a famous rice producing area and has long been an important sphere of influence of Britain, the United States and France. In its strategic planning before the war, Japan mentioned:
"About the rice issue. If the amount of rice expected from Thailand and French Southeast Asia decreases due to the war in the south, it is possible to consider using soybeans, grains, sweet potatoes, etc. as substitute foods, and it is estimated that some adjustments will need to be made to the annual plan for showa 17 grain (from October 16 to September 17). That is, if the amount of food obtained from Thailand and French South-East Asia is expected to be reduced by 50%, the annual food plan will become 93%, and if it is reduced to 75%, the annual food plan will become 91%. However, if the ships available after the end of the war were used to increase imports from Thailand and French Southeast Asia, the estimated decline rate could be mitigated to some extent.
(The approximate plan for the supply of grain and rice: In addition to about 3.1 million stones from Taiwan, about 6.28 million stones from North Korea, and 59.13 million stones produced domestically, it is planned to import about 3 million stones from Thailand and about 7 million stones from French Southeast Asia.) )。 ”
After the success of Japan's plan to invade Southeast Asia, some of the resources of the Southeast Asian region (rice, rubber, tin) successfully entered the Japanese war machine. However, U.S. attacks on incoming ships frustrated Japan's plan to completely annex Southeast Asia, with about 70 percent of the pre-estimated supplies lost entirely at sea. It is precisely because of this relationship that Japan's combat process in the Pacific War will gradually become difficult. So that in the later stages of the island scramble, the Japanese Army was already in a state of half-starvation and half-fullness and bloody battles with the Allies. Domestic food supply also became increasingly difficult, and eventually Japanese food became the last straw that crushed the Japanese army. In his book, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Shigemitsu Aoi, said: "(After Japan's surrender) the people were still searching for the food of the day on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were looking forward to the return of their husbands or sons from the battlefield. It can be seen that Japan's food supply has completely collapsed, and the cruelty of the war is unmistakable.
Shigemitsu Aoi signs a treaty of surrender
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >Why is rice capable of causing so much turmoil in Japan? </h1>
First of all, rice is the common memory of all ethnic groups in the entire East Asian region and has left a deep imprint on the history of the whole asia. Whether it is China, which is rich in land or Japan, which has a narrow land, rice is the most important food in tradition. China's history has also experienced large-scale food crises, often resulting in countless hungry people, displacement, small shares as thieves, and large shares into thieves. If the state is mishandled, it will also cause a large-scale crisis, and even threaten the rule of the imperial power. Japan is a small country, and its grain output cannot be equal to that of China, but in modern times it wants to compete with the United States, China, Russia, and Britain for hegemony. This is tantamount to gambling on the fate and future of the country. Even if Japan brazenly occupied the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, and the Penghu Archipelago after the Sino-Japanese War, the production capacity of these places could not guarantee huge war expenditures. After Japan occupied the three eastern provinces, it implemented a policy of grain and grain outflow, according to the data:
"By 1945, the peasants had to pay 51 percent of the total output, which meant that the grain that the peasants harvested in a year had very little left after handing over the 'grain out of the lotus.'" Many farmers do not even have rations or seeds. In cities with rationing, Chinese only a dozen catties of bean cake or sorghum rice per month. ”
The aim of such an economic policy was to completely squeeze the Northeast and serve the Japanese war. But even so, Japan faced a food shortage in the Battle of Guadalcanal in the later stages of the war. Hattori's Complete History of the Great East Asian War records that "wounded and sick men who could not walk in the defenders of the first-line positions took on the task of defending the position; those who could walk on crutches took on the task of carrying grain and cooking in the rear; the healthier or more advanced reconnaissance deep behind the enemy's rear to harass and sabotage, or to attack the enemy's defense at night." It was against this backdrop that the fighting spirit of Japan, built up in a frenzied bushido spirit, was constantly exhausted by hunger and eventually vanished.
The brutal Battle of Guadalcanal
Secondly, rice is the most important food that Japan can bring energy to people, but Japan has not been able to include rice in the unified purchase for a long time. In the Japanese diet, the share of wheat and buckwheat is small. Even in the year of famine, the Japanese mainly used small bean rice, soybean rice, and radish rice, which should be related to the local crop species in Japan. After Japan occupied the Korean Peninsula and northeast, it was not seen that Korean buckwheat and northeast sorghum entered Japanese military camps and tables. This shows that Japan's eating habit is to use rice as a staple food, and Japan has long been unable to include grain in the centralized purchase, which is the most direct cause of the rice riots in 1918. The inability of the state to control the circulation of rice by the people is equivalent to the inability to put national food security in control, and naturally there will be profiteers who will seize the loophole and raise the market price. The government that followed the riots was a party system, and the modern economic system he introduced soon took control of the country's economic situation. It shows that although the rice is small, it is enough to turn things upside down at key moments.
Third, rice is not only food, but also a symbol of stability and development. The old Chinese saying has a cloud "Cangmiao is realistic and knows the etiquette." "Japan has long had a sense of insecurity trapped on the island, which is a deep trace of the Japanese national character. And in the history of Japan, rice is also a symbol of development. In the early Meiji period of Japan, nagaoka domain was defeated in the Botatsu War and its economy collapsed. At this time, the Saneyama clan sent a hundred bags of rice as a condolence, but the counselor of the Nagaoka clan, Kobayashi Torsaburo, sold the hundred bags of rice. The money sold was used as the start-up capital of the National Han School and was used to cultivate talents for future development. As a result, the Nagaoka region really rose up decades later, and the mastermind of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto Isoroku, was born in the Nagaoka region. Therefore, the symbolism of rice is very important. And once Japan's rice imports and exports are affected, the sense of instability across the country will increase sharply. According to the Complete History of the Great East Asian War:
At that time, rice, rubber, tin, etc., which were absolutely indispensable in Japan, in French Southeast Asia and Thailand, were gradually becoming difficult to obtain. At that time, Japan's grain was already insufficient, and about 9 million stones had to be imported from French Southeast Asia and Thailand. However, on May 6, less than a month after the signing of the Japan-France Southeast Asia Economic Agreement, French Southeast Asia proposed to halve the 100,000 tons of export contracts to Japan in June to 50,000 tons. As soon as we agreed, we proposed to reduce the contract volume by half in July and August. Japan believes that this attitude of non-cooperation may be due to the instigation of the United States, Britain and France, the Charles de Gaulle faction, as well as the local overseas Chinese."
In this uneasy mood, the Japanese government finally decided to win the battle, thus plunging the entire Pacific region into endless suffering.
Japan has long coveted Southeast Asia's rice resources
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the impact of grain on Japan's future</h1>
With the strategic nuclear strike of the United States on the Japanese mainland, the Japanese emperor surrendered, and World War II officially ended. However, Japan is already in ruins, and the livelihood of the people is basically not guaranteed. So after the war, Japan turned its policy to the United States and enacted the Basic Law on Agriculture in the 1960s. It advocates injecting vitality into Japanese agriculture through state finances, including farmland infrastructure for farmers and the purchase of agricultural machinery. In the 1990s, Japan promulgated the New Grain Law and the Rice Circulation Law to further improve the food law. It can be seen that Japan has learned the lessons of the past and regarded food as an important resource. Although Japan's grain self-sufficiency rate is still relatively low, government procurement has become a reality. As Mr. Wang Yufeng's research in China shows:
"Japan's grain self-sufficiency rate is low, 42% of rice, 9% of corn, the lowest among developed countries, so successive Japanese governments have attached great importance to grain circulation, especially rice circulation." For more than half a century, Japan's rice circulation management system has undergone an evolutionary process from free trade to direct government control and then to indirect government control. ”
It is on this basis that Japan has ensured the operation of domestic grain and has not re-emerged the turmoil caused by rice.
The country is based on the people, and the people take food as the sky
In summary, rice is the most important food resource in East Asia. For a long time, Japan has not been able to control the flow of grain in the country well. In 1830, rice caused a popular uprising, and in 1918 there was a rice riot, and the government of the temple stepped down. In the Pacific War, Japan was militaristic and constantly transported food resources from the country and the occupied areas to the front. But it still can't meet the huge war costs, and the country's internal economy is under significant pressure. Finally, the front-line military was unable to ensure food, and the country was full of mourning. At the end of the war, the people could only search for the food of the day in the rubble, paying a terrible price for the war.