Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 48.

The Emperor's Own, Part 4.

Last week, we discussed how the Imperial Military began to diverge from the interests of the civilian government in the 1920s.

This week, we'll return to that story and discuss how the military was able to turn the tables on the civilian government and seize control of Japan before leading it down the path to war.

Recall, if you will, that the civilian government, broadly speaking, supported the American and British-backed post-war order of liberalism, with its emphasis on national sovereignty,

self-determination, and free trade. The military, again broadly speaking, was less sanguine about

the prospects for that kind of system, and believed it was only a matter of time before it broke

down into another major war, one for which Japan would have to be ready.

This line of thinking was reinforced by the fact that many in the military were also members of

radical rightist secret societies, such as the Kokurukai or Black Dragon Society, and the

Genyosha, or Black Ocean Society. These were essentially

political groups dedicated to advancing an anti-liberal vision of a pan-Asian Japanese empire,

and they enabled conspirators in the military to coordinate without much official support from

the government. It's hard to be sure exactly how they operated because, being secret societies, they didn't

exactly keep records, but we do know they existed, and had some pretty shady connections.

At least a couple, for example, were linked to the yakuza.

Anyway, the one area of policy in which the military exercised real autonomy was in China.

So it was there that the first rumbling is of a military reaction against the government began.

For years, the Guangdong Army, usually written in English, by the way as Kwantung Army, an artifact of the old Wade Giles system of romanizing Chinese,

the name comes from an old Chinese name for the region of Manchuria,

the military force responsible for securing economic concessions in China

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