Nowadays, people generally have such an impression of Japan, that is, the Japanese people are focused on doing things seriously, strive for excellence, and never steal and slip; the Japanese top level is clean and honest, strictly abides by the system, and there are very few corruption scandals. The contrast between the Japanese emperor who ate only one meal a day in order to develop the navy and empress dowager Cixi's embezzlement of naval funds for the repair of the Summer Palace was often publicized as a typical example of the Japanese spirit of self-denial and public service. So are the Japanese really always so honest and self-disciplined? As far as the Meiji Restoration is concerned, incidents of embezzlement of public funds and false public welfare have been common in all circles of the Japanese military and government, from the imperial family to ordinary soldiers, and the phenomenon of embezzlement and theft of public property has been widespread. The Siemens incident in 1913 was a major exposure to the dark curtain of corruption at the top of Japan.
After the Meiji Restoration, in order to expand outward, Japan frantically developed its navy, and in 1907 it proposed the concept of naval armament expansion of the "Eighty-Eight Fleet". However, although the Japanese military industrial system at that time had achieved great development, it still did not have the ability to independently design and build the main battleship, and could only take the road of "copying, improving, and innovating", through decomposition and mapping of foreign advanced warships, and gradually studied and mastered the core technology in the assembly process. In some important subsystems, such as the electrical control system technology of warships, Japan is even weaker and can only purchase from foreign countries, and Germany's Siemens is an important supplier to the Japanese Navy.
Japanese Naval Expansion Plan
In November 1913, Carl Richter, an employee of the Tokyo branch of the German Siemens Group, left his post. Richter was a lowly position in the company, only a typist, but he could contact the company's core secrets, and when he saw the company's huge shady deal with the Japanese military, he couldn't help but be moved, so he secretly copied several relevant confidential documents before leaving, ready to blackmail his old owner and extort a sum of money. So as soon as he returned home, he sent a letter to Siemens extorting 25,000 yen for the documents he had in his possession.
However, Siemens scoffed at the extortion of a small employee, the company boss and the German police said hello, Carl Richter was immediately arrested and put in jail, and the matter was put down.
Unexpectedly, however, a wave of unrest arose, and the Tokyo branch of Siemens Group received another extortion letter, extorting a huge amount of sealing fees for the same reason, and the person who sent this letter was Antrup Pre, a reporter from the British Reuters Agency.
At that time, Britain and Germany were Both Sides were Japan's arms supply countries, and Germany was Britain's main opponent in the world, so Germany's every move was under the close surveillance of the British, as a British media, Reuters naturally stared at Siemens, and the slightest disturbance could not escape their eyes. As a result, as soon as Karl Richter resigned, the smell-sensitive Antrup Pre came into contact with him and bought the secret documents in his possession for £250 before Richter was arrested. Pre, who had the ironclad evidence in his hand, offered Siemens the price tag for redeeming the documents.
This time, Siemens did not dare to be sloppy, they knew the consequences of these documents falling into the hands of the British, so they informed the Japanese Naval Ministry of the matter, the Japanese were also very nervous, had no choice, Siemens and the Japanese government could only bargain with Antru Pre, and finally sold for 50,000 yen. After Pre took the money, he destroyed the documents, but the matter was already known to Reuters officials, and they were willing to give up. On December 23, 1913, The London Reuters agency poked the matter out in the form of a special telegram, which immediately caused an uproar, and Siemens and the Japanese government were caught in a huge scandal.
So what shady scenes were revealed in the documents that Karl Richter stole?
It turned out that Japan had ordered a battlecruiser from the British Vickers Company in 1913, which was the King Kong that later contributed to the Japanese Navy in World War II. The department responsible for the purchase was the Naval Provincial Naval Headquarters, and in Carl Richter's document, there was a telegram promised by Siemens to major general Tatsuhito Iwasaki, the first director of the former Naval Administration Headquarters, and the telegram showed that the proportion of this rebate amount was as high as twenty-five percent.
King Kong
In the King Kong arms purchase case, Siemens was only responsible for providing the electrical control system of the warship, and the contract value was not too high, so the amount of this rebate was relatively limited, and in the subsequent investigation, it exposed a shocking case, and the current minister of the naval administration headquarters, Kogoro Fujii, and the former minister, Lieutenant General Matsumoto, were bribed. The British Vickers Company, which won the entire king kong ship, gave a frightening kickback, and Matsumoto and Lieutenant General Alone received 400,000 yen from the British. At that time, the yen was based on the gold standard, one yen was equivalent to 750 milligrams of gold, and the monthly salary of ordinary Japanese wage earners at that time was only 4 or 5 yen, and even the salary of a Japanese lieutenant general was only more than 400 yen, and 400,000 yen was undoubtedly a huge bribe.
At that time, there were also rumors that Siemens sent money to Prime Minister Yamamoto Kwonbei in a box, and the amount was unimaginably large.
The original guard
After the scandal of corruption in the military procurement at the top of the Japanese level broke out, the Japanese people were angry, and they gathered in Hibiya Park in Tokyo on February 10, 1914 to protest and demand the resignation of Yamamoto Kwonbei in the name of "Clearing the Navy", which was suppressed by the police, and the situation continued to escalate, and the enraged protesters broke through the military and police blockade line and rushed into the headquarters of the Political Friends Association and the Central News Agency. Yamamoto's Cabinet of Guards announced the fall.
If it is said that the bribery of the Japanese government and the navy in the arms purchase has been a big surprise, then the embezzlement and embezzlement of military funds by senior officials of the Japanese military and the Japanese imperial family are even more sensational.
In 1926, at the election meeting of the leader of the Political Friends Association, Yoshiichi Tanaka, an army general who had served as minister of land, declared: "Gentlemen, if I am elected to the post of president, I will immediately solicit 3 million yen for my party, and the election will be won. Yoshiichi Tanaka's words seemed to be full of enthusiasm, and everyone felt that if he could swear by cutting his abdomen, he must be victorious. Later, Yoshikazu Tanaka raised 3 million yen and won the election with the blessing of huge campaign funds to become prime minister.
Yoshiichi Tanaka
However, the opposition Constitutional Council accused Yoshiichi Tanaka of his 3 million yen funding for being improper and pulled out his embezzlement and embezzlement.
Originally, tanaka borrowed the 3 million yen from The loan shark Kanshinbei in Kobe, but Tanaka Yoshiichi's disclosed family assets were simply not enough to collateral this huge loan, so who provided the collateral? The opposition party pointed out that Tanaka was guaranteed by the Treasury Treasury Bond converted from the Time Deposits of the Army Province, and this public debt came from the balance of military expenses from the Siberian war!
After the outbreak of the October Revolution in Russia, the Western powers jointly intervened militarily, and the ambitious Japan also sent troops to Siberia, but under the stubborn struggle of the Bolsheviks and the blow of the cold climate of Siberia, the Japanese army, after spending a lot of military expenses, found nothing and returned home. Large military expenditures made it difficult for Japan's poor economy to support, resulting in a sharp rise in domestic rice prices, which triggered a "rice riot". However, while the people were suffering, the top brass of the army took the opportunity to embezzle military expenses and make a windfall.
In the year after the military operation in Siberia, the Army Province had a surplus of 8 million yen in military expenditure, and it was reasonable that the excess funds should not be handed over to the national treasury according to financial discipline, but Lu Xiang Tanaka Yoshiichi transferred this money to the treasury of the Army Provincial Government, and later exchanged it for public debt, and 3 million yen when Tanaka campaigned was guaranteed by this 8 million yen. The public debt purchased by the Army Province is the "Special Public Debt of the Siberian War", and as the leader of this war, the Army can completely manipulate the price of the public debt, and the profits thereof naturally fall into the private coffers of senior officials of the Army Province and the Army General Staff Headquarters. After this kind of blatant embezzlement and embezzlement of military funds was exposed, it immediately caused a fierce backlash in public opinion.
The House of Representatives of Japan passed a resolution on the matter and set up a commission of inquiry to formally investigate the incident. At that time, some members of parliament called for judicial intervention, but Tanaka Yoshiichi was a member of the House of Nobles, enjoyed judicial immunity, and with this magic weapon to protect himself, the judicial investigation against him could not be carried out at all.
After an initial investigation, the Commission of Inquiry not only quickly confirmed the matter, but also discovered the existence of a number of problematic accounts.
Just when Japanese society was expecting this malpractice case to be investigated, the investigation was lost.
It turned out that when the investigation committee was cleaning up the list of those who had taken money from the small treasury, it found a name that made them tremble with fear, this person was the emperor's uncle, the army general, and prince Zaijin of the Idle Courtyard Palace, and the amount of money he took in the small treasury was not small, there were tens of millions of dollars, so how did the investigation committee account to the people? Not only that, but all future speeches on the topic of "3 million yen" or "army secret fees" were banned by the Japanese government.
Prince Zaijin of the Temple
From the "Siemens Incident" and the "Siberian Special Military Expenditure Case," it can be seen that the japanese people's claim that they abide by the law and are united in their hearts is just a deception, an illusion created by the Japanese rulers with lies and violence.
If the royal family and generals are fishing for black gold, or there are big tigers with a surname, then the greed and theft of junior officers and soldiers are innumerable. Okamura was known for his harsh rule of the army, but he also lamented helplessly: "The shortcomings of the Japanese lack of public morality are even more serious on the battlefield." Many parcels and supplies were stolen, and every telephone pole set up by the communications unit was hung with a 'Japanese military' sign to prevent it from being stolen by other units. ”
During the japanese invasion of China, there were also incidents in which Lieutenant Kawamura, the captain of the guard stationed in Jiangyin, colluded with local Japanese and puppet personnel to loot, steal, and sell military materials to enrich themselves, extort Japanese tax personnel, and even privately "communism." This incident was later stabbed to Hideki Tojo. What is even more bizarre is that after the incident, the boss ordered the strict operation of the river village, but he got the news in advance and fled, and later did not know the end, which showed how deep the water was.
At that time, after investigating the Kawamura case, the Japanese army came up with the following criminal facts:
1. Falsely report the seizure of booty, and privately sell the so-called booty, and get 2500 yuan of stolen money
Second, under the pretext of sweeping in Zhouzhuang, robbed and purchased rice and bean cakes at low prices, and sold them privately, making thousands of yuan in profits.
Third, together with Inaba, Neijiang, Li Zimin and others, they handed over the looted materials to the cooperative's Narita to sell to the market, making a profit of more than 20,000 yuan.
Fourth, forcibly extorted 300 yuan from Suzhou tax collector Miyamoto Yukio.
V. After smuggling in the Communist New Fourth Army and collecting some cash from the Sixth Division of the New Fourth Army, two prisoners of the New Fourth Army were released and the Sixth Division of the New Fourth Army was traded with the Sixth Division of the New Fourth Army on many occasions, in huge quantities.
Judging from these "crimes" committed by Kawamura, the plots in anti-Japanese dramas such as "Soldier Station No. 51" and "Underground Traffic Station" are completely true, and the Japanese are not at all like their propaganda, they are loyal and patriotic, strictly abide by the rules and upright gentlemen, from the royal family, high-ranking officials, down to ordinary soldiers, and there are many corrupt and law-bending people!
The pictures are from online public channels, the copyright belongs to the original author, if there is any infringement, it will be deleted immediately