"Drunken beauty kneels, wake up and hold the power of the world", we just look at this sentence, it is very attractive to the eyes of men in the world. Indeed, power and beauty are the highest goals that all men pursue all their lives. There are very few people in history who can achieve these two goals, and they are nothing more than those who are not rich or noble. The protagonist we are going to talk about today is a pivotal figure in Japan's recent history, and he is Hirobumi Ito. His legendary life profoundly changed the national fortunes of Japan and China, and reshaped the geopolitical map of East Asia.
Hirobumi Ito
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" >01 Chilly angry youth</h1>
Let's first look at how big Ito Hirobumi's name is: one of the modern Japanese politicians, one of the nine elders of Meiji, and the 1st, 5th, 7th, and 10th prime ministers of Japan. He also served as Speaker of the Privy Council of Japan, President of the House of Nobles, the first Director of Korea, the founder of the Constitutional Friends Association, and known as the "Father of the Meiji Constitution". And such a well-known big person, the young age is an out-and-out angry youth.
Itō Hirobumi was born on October 16, 1841 in Choshu, Japan (present-day northwestern Yamaguchi Prefecture). His father was a farmer and later went out to work. Because ito's family had a very difficult life, he did not enter formal school when he was young, but only read some books while doing chores when he grew up. Perhaps this is a good thing, because he has not studied a profound Confucian education, Ito Hirobumi will not be restricted by rules and regulations after entering politics.
Although Ito Hirobumi's family is not well-off, he likes to play pranks very much, and the children in the village call him "Hungry Ghost General", which is obviously a derogatory term. But Mr. Yi Zhongtian once said that the more honest the child is when he is a child, the more he generally has no appearance when he grows up, which in turn, the naughty child will often be better when he grows up. This phrase might be more convincing to Hirofumi Ito.
In 1853, 13 years after the Opium War in China, the famous Black Ship Incident occurred in Japan, and the door of the country was forcibly opened. Japan and China are like brothers and sisters, constantly being bullied and becoming racetracks for Western powers. The signing of a series of unequal treaties led to the division of the Japanese feudal camp, and the elements who demanded reform among the middle and lower samurai formed an innovative force and called on the king to be honored.
At this time, Ito Hirobumi was young and vigorous, full of patriotic enthusiasm, and was an authentic "angry youth". Together with a few of his friends, he personally participated in the "Yiyi", that is, resisting foreigners.
On the night of December 12, 1862, Ito Hirobumi and a dozen volunteers infiltrated the British legation in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Ito Hirobumi opened the way in front, holding a wooden saw, sawing off the wooden fence around the embassy, and the others immediately rushed in and threw their own incendiary bombs. Subsequently, Ito Hirobumi and the others returned to their nearby residences, drank all night, and indulged in the frenzy of "Shogi".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >02 is just starting out</h1>
However, it was impossible for such a small fight as Ito Hirobumi to become a climate, and under the severe suppression of the shogunate army and the Western powers, it eventually failed. Hirobumi Ito was lucky, and a year later, he was sent to study in the United Kingdom and enter the prestigious University of London. In the United Kingdom, Ito Hirobumi only stayed for more than half a year, but what he saw and heard during his study abroad made Ito Hirobumi feel a whole new world. He felt how well he had been watching the sky before! In order to change the status quo in Japan and achieve a rich country and a strong army, it is not enough to rely only on the enthusiasm of the "emperor and the king", and it is necessary to overthrow the backward and ignorant shogunate rule.
The British act opened a window into ito's mind, and he was determined to become a pioneer and promoter of "pioneering and enterprising". After returning to China, Ito Hirobumi participated in the curtain fall movement. On November 8, 1867, the Emperor issued a secret edict to defeat the shogunate in the ensuing Battle of Toba and Fushimi. On December 9, Emperor Meiji issued a great edict on the "Retro Imperial Government", announcing the abolition of the shogunate system and the establishment of a new government, and the final victory of the Japanese bourgeois revolution.
Emperor Meiji
In the process of the Meiji Restoration, Ito Hirobumi also gave full play to his talents, and he was like a rising star in Japanese politics at the end of the 19th century.
At the beginning, Ito Hirobumi was in charge of foreign affairs, and actively advocated the transfer of the "enlightened atmosphere" of "the political system, customs, education, and production of European and American countries" to Japan, so that Japan would enter the ranks of "enlightened countries." Then he advocated the abolition of feudal feudal domains and the establishment of a prefectural system. With the help of the British, the construction of railways accelerated the modernization of Transportation in Japan. Then, a new unified monetary system was established.
Even though Ito Hirobumi has made a lot of achievements in politics and his power and prestige have risen in the Japanese political arena, he is still not satisfied and is determined to once again step abroad to the Western world to learn from the scriptures. In the fourth year of Meiji, in November 1871, Ito Hirobumi, as deputy envoy, joined a delegation led by the right minister Iwakura Kushi, to visit Europe and the United States to investigate the capitalist state system.
In the past two years, the delegation visited more than a dozen countries in Europe and the United States, visited and inspected financial and commercial institutions, military industry, heavy industry and light textile industry sectors, as well as cultural and educational facilities. During the visit, Ito Hirobumi felt even more deeply that it was necessary to use advanced western science and technology to promote Japanese capitalist industry. After returning to Japan, Ito Hirobumi led the Ministry of Works and vigorously "persuaded hundreds of workers", and the climax of the industrial revolution began to appear in Japan.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" >03 Peak of Power</h1>
With the deaths of Meiji San Jessigo Takamori, Takayoshi Kido, and Toshitsu Ōkubo, Ito Hirobumi gradually came to control Japanese politics. In 1885, Ito Hirobumi became prime minister for the first time and took power. In 1889, under the promotion of Ito Hirobumi and others, Japan's first Constitution was officially promulgated. This constitution is modeled on the Prussian Constitution of 1850 and explicitly adopts the constitutional monarchy as the state system.
In contrast, although the Qing dynasty's foreign affairs movement began earlier than the Meiji Restoration, it was far from the Meiji Restoration in breadth and depth. The Western affairs movement of the Qing Dynasty only learned Western technology, and did not think of learning from other people's systems at all, which was equivalent to discarding the most core things of other people's families, and the final effect could be imagined. Moreover, it was not until 1908, before its imminent demise, that the Qing government reluctantly promulgated the Outline of the Constitution under pressure from all sides. This means that in terms of reform and restoration, Japan has maintained a far leading position over China.
From 1885 to 1898, Ito Hirobumi formed a cabinet four times and became prime minister. In the past 13 years, Japan successfully implemented the Meiji Restoration, completed the Industrial Revolution, and become increasingly powerful, successively abolishing a series of unequal treaties signed with Western countries, becoming the only independent country in Asia, and rapidly growing into the first power in Asia and ranking among the world's great powers.
However, Japan's political system is modeled after pre-World War I Germany, retaining a strong feudal remnant, and vigorously promoting militarism with loyalty to the emperor as the core. Therefore, under the rule of Ito Hirobumi, the powerful Japan quickly moved towards the path of crazy aggression against the outside world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" >04 Who is the real Bismarck of the East? </h1>
As Japan modernized under the leadership of Ito Hirobumi, its great neighbor, the Heavenly Kingdom, which it had admired for thousands of years, was in pain. The Qing Empire is like a huge rusty ship, stopping and stopping all the way, repairing and repairing, and may sink in the rough waves at any time. At this time, the foreign affairs faction represented by Li Hongzhang stood up and prepared to turn the tide.
Li Hongzhang was known as the "Bismarck of the East", and in the Chinese bureaucratic class at that time, his vision was broader than others, and he belonged to the absolute leader. But what level of world did he put in at that time? Unfortunately, even in the eyes of the Russians, who are considered the most barbaric by Europeans, Li Hongzhang's quality is very low.
Liang Qichao once commented on Li Hongzhang: "I do not understand the principles of the people, do not understand the general trend of the world, and do not know the origin of politics." He built a tower on the sand, and he only knew how to repair a broken house but could not transform it. ”
What Liang Qichao means is that Li Hongzhang, as the "chief architect of reform," has carried out a movement of foreign affairs, which only learns technology and does not learn the system, and at best it is a half-pull project that is only "framed" to "broken houses," and is bound to be overwhelmed by the world tide of Haohao tangtang. Li Hongzhang was only a "framer", and his insight and boldness in reform were several grades worse than that of Ito Hirobumi.
The Foreign Affairs Movement eventually went bankrupt after the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, and Li Hongzhang, as a slave of "only Lafayette's horse is the leader", had to cross the Orient and beg face to face with his old opponent who cherished each other. Although Li Hongzhang was shot in the left side of the face by assassins in Japan, reducing the reparations from 300 million taels to 200 million taels, it was difficult to prevent the Japanese lions from opening their mouths on other issues.
When talking about the Taiwan issue, Ito Hirobumi demanded one month of delivery, and Li Hongzhang believed that "the january limit is too much", asked for a two-month grace period, and said, "Why should your country be in a hurry?" Taiwan is already in the mouth," Hirobumi Ito replied, "I haven't swallowed yet, I'm hungry."
Because Ito Hirobumi was 18 years younger than Li Hongzhang, and the Meiji Restoration was also a few years later than the Western Affairs Movement, he once regarded Li Hongzhang as his idol. Now he has stomped his idol to the ground. Although at the negotiating table, he also said to Li Hongzhang: "If you are me, you must do better than me in Japan; if I were you, I would not necessarily do better than you in China." But from the inside of the words, you can also hear Ito Hirobumi's ambition.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="20" >05 Love jiangshan more love beauty</h1>
As the saying goes: life must be full of joy. Ito Hirobumi is not only politically involved, but also in the love scene.
After the Meiji Restoration, Ito Hirobumi often entertained himself in Shinbashi, Tokyo. Later, in order to avoid people's eyes and ears, he let the pet asakura open a tea house in Yokohama, and the rich building became the secret place of the Meiji upstart. After Ito Hirobumi took power, the affair continued, and once pursued the geisha Elang Kayo.
After Ito Hirobumi stepped down as prime minister, he went to North Korea to serve as the governor of North Korea, becoming the "Emperor Taishang" of North Korea, and he did not forget to bring a 19-year-old geisha with him.
Ito often said to the servants around him, "I expect nothing from you. When I have a headache all day long worrying about state affairs, instead of asking you to pour me a glass of wine at dinner and serve me a change of clothes, it is probably better to relieve my heart than the jade hands of naïve and beautiful geisha. ”
Although Madame Plum was his only main room, there was no shortage of other women around him, so in his old age, he did not feel guilty about Madame in his heart. He once wrote to his eldest son, meaning that Mrs. Plum's love for him and the hard work he had put in mind was beyond words, asking his son to give 100,000 yuan from his inheritance to Plum after his death. However, after his death, when people sorted out his belongings, they found that the balance was less than 50,000 yuan, and later thanks to the Japanese emperor who gave him 100,000 yuan, he fulfilled this wish.
Yasushine Sakuri Ito Hirobumi
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" >06 conclusion</h1>
Ito Hirobumi spent all the prime minister's allowances for the sake of the wind and snow, but this did not prevent him from becoming an outstanding bourgeois politician. Later, because of the Japanese occupation of Korea, on October 26, 1909, Ito Hirobumi was assassinated in Harbin by the Korean patriot Ahn Jung-geun. Before his death, Ito Hirobumi was beautiful, perhaps lustful is the driving force of Ito Hirobumi's ambition, and his legendary life is really worthy of the phrase "drunken beauty kneeling, waking up to the power of the world".
Figure / from the network, if there is infringement, please contact to delete.
Text/Source 123, more wonderful content, stay tuned.