Chapter 59 The Secret Meeting of the Marquis Kido's House

On September 23, 1931, just five days after the "September 18th" Incident, at the home of Marquis Kido in Tokyo, members of the "Eleventh Club" were holding an emergency meeting. "Eleven Club" is a secret clique founded by Kido on November 11, 1922. Its members are a group of clan nobles and a few reliable diplomats and military officers.This club is Emperor Hirohito's most reliable "non-staff think tank" besides his close ministers.They meet on the evening of the 11th of each month to discuss the governance policies and implementation plans of the emperor and his close ministers.

This night lacked the relaxed atmosphere of the usual gatherings, and there were no singing and dancing geisha to accompany them. The "September 18th" Incident broke out five days ago, and the Japanese Kwantung Army launched a military operation to occupy the three northeastern provinces of China, which immediately aroused strong public opinion against Japan in China and the world, and the League of Nations also severely condemned Japan's actions.At the same time, Japan's domestic political parties, chaebols and capitalist power groups also expressed serious dissatisfaction.Once the League of Nations decides to impose economic sanctions on Japan, Japan's economy in a severe depression will suffer even more severe losses, which is not conducive to the interests of chaebols and capitalists.

In order to calm international public opinion and appease various domestic forces, the "Eleventh Club" urgently held this meeting, and must come up with countermeasures for the emperor as soon as possible.First of all, it is necessary to avoid any sanctions imposed by the League of Nations to boycott Japanese trade. The global economic recession has hit the Japanese economy hard, and any international sanctions are a nightmare for Japan.Second, something must be done to appease and control the "short-sighted" bankers and industrial capitalists who continue to finance the military development of the empire.

The meeting lasted until late at night, and three feasible proposals were determined. These were the three major events that affected the history of Japan and China in the following 8 months: the first major event, the financial experts in the club proposed the "dollar arbitrage trap" ".Two days ago, the United Kingdom suddenly announced that it would abandon the gold standard without any warning, causing the pound to depreciate by 20% overnight. The Bank of Japan's foreign exchange transactions were caught off guard and suffered serious losses.Fortunately, the British government seems to treat all people equally, and did not notify the country's bankers in advance, and they lost more.If this kind of thing happened in Japan, government officials would definitely disclose the news to related parties in advance, and bankers would definitely exchange yen for foreign exchange in the months before the abolition of the gold standard, and then exchange it back to Japanese currency after the yen depreciates sharply. Yuan, making a lot of money out of thin air.For Japanese bankers who are good at taking the government line, this is just a logical "industry practice", while the British approach is simply unbelievable and extremely stupid.At this time, the emperor held a trump card in his hand. If he agreed to let the yen depreciate by such a magnitude and disclosed it to the chaebols in advance, their profits could be as high as 100 million U.S. dollars!This figure is enough to bribe any Japanese zaibatsu, including the largest Mitsui zaibatsu, so that they can align with the emperor's thinking.

If the chaebols really bought a large number of dollars and shorted the yen based on the inside information that the yen was about to depreciate, they would be caught by the emperor. The major scandal of the chaebol capitalists, the emperor took advantage of their shortcoming, so he was not afraid that the chaebols would not cooperate.In this way, the emperor can get a greater say in national policy.If the zaibatsu backed the military's expansion plans, the emperor could support a zaibatsu-financed cabinet, plus an additional "bonus" for approval to abandon the gold standard. [1] The second major event was coercing Chiang Kai-shek to stage a "fake war" in Shanghai to divert international attention.Japan will create an opportunity for the Japanese army to be "forced" to be involved in a "self-defense" military conflict in Shanghai. The flames of war will directly threaten the safety of the personnel and billions of dollars of investment of Western powers in China.This is a clever strategy of using offense as defense, threatening the interests of the West in China with the Sino-Japanese war, and then at the request of the League of Nations, the Japanese army publicly made concessions and withdrew, making the Western countries owe Japan a favor, so the League of Nations would naturally feel embarrassed to deal with it again. What happened in Manchuria is relentless.At the same time, Japan supported a puppet "Manchukuo" in Manchuria with Puyi as its emperor. It was independent on the surface, but in fact it was a puppet of Japan and had to be recognized by Chiang Kai-shek.Under such circumstances, the League of Nations has no reason to intervene and condemn. [2] The third major event is to create a "fake coup" in which the military threatens the emperor.Let the Western countries see that the military is trying to get rid of the emperor's control.If Japan is put under pressure, it will lose the largest constitutional monarchy in Asia, thus pushing Japan into a fascist totalitarian state.Given that the fascists in Italy and Germany have caused enough trouble, the League of Nations does not want to create another fascist country in Asia, and only the emperor has the ability to control the military. In this way, the pressure on Japan will naturally be reduced a lot.

The emperor's think tank, who is familiar with it, designed a dazzling chain plan.The main idea is to put the chaebol in a trap first, and then see if the resolution of the League of Nations can satisfy Hirohito. If not, start the second plan of "fake war" and let Puyi establish "Manchukuo". Fees are borne by the plutocrats "already in the trap".If the plutocrats are unwilling to pay, they will throw out scandals about politicians and bankers making the country lose money, making them the object of public anger, and at the same time use the third plan of assassination and coup d'etat to deal with them and divert the attention of the League of Nations.

Isn't the emperor the supreme ruler of Japan?Why go to such lengths to deal with bankers and politicians?Wouldn't an edict solve the problem? The problem is that the emperor's edict is not necessarily easy to use!Imperial power may not be able to fight against gold power!