Chapter 39 empire of japan

Before invading its neighbors and dominating the world, Japan was originally a semicircular island country consisting of more than 500 islands.The total area of ​​these islands is about the same as England, Scotland and Manhattan combined, and 60 million people live on 518 islands.According to the latest statistics, including 20 million Koreans and some Polynesian residents, the total population of Japan has exceeded 90 million.These Polynesian islands have been a Japanese possession since World War II. In fact, it is more than enough to know the names of the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu.The main island in central Japan is Honshu.Hokkaido is the second largest island after Honshu, located in northern Japan.In the southern part of Honshu, the two major islands of Shikoku and Kyushu are next to each other.Tokyo, the capital of Japan with a population of 2 million, sits on the fertile plains of central Honshu.Yokohama is the port of Tokyo.

Located in southern Honshu, Osaka is a larger city and an important center for the textile industry in Japan.Kyoto, the former capital of the Japanese Empire, is located north of Osaka.The names of some other cities can occasionally be seen in newspapers, such as Kobe, the port of Osaka; and Nagasaki (located on the southern island of Kyushu), the most convenient port for European ships. Edo, you may often see this name in history books, it is the old name of Tokyo during the shogunate era. In 1866, the shogunate lost power, and the emperor moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo.Since then, Tokyo has entered an era of particularly rapid development, and eventually developed into the largest city in the modern world.

However, these cities are under the threat of total destruction at any time.This is due to the fact that the Japanese archipelago is located on the edge of the Great Asian Mountains (the Sea of ​​Japan, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea were not formed long ago, like the North Sea that made Britain an island), exactly from Sakhalin to the Dutch East Indies ( What is now the Malay Archipelago, part of a volcanic belt that used to be a name used by Western countries——Translator's Note) Java Island.This volcanic belt is almost always active.Seismograph observation data show that from 1885 to 1903, a total of 27,485 earthquakes occurred in Japan, with an average of 1,447 earthquakes per year and 4 earthquakes per day.Of course, most earthquakes are not too severe.The teacup shook slightly, the chair slammed against the wall, that was all.But if you know that Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, has experienced 1,318 earthquakes in the past 1,000 years, you will understand the danger this island country is in.Of the 1318 earthquakes, 34 were purely "devastating" earthquakes and 194 were "strong earthquakes".Among them, in the September 1923 earthquake, Tokyo was almost flattened, and more than 150,000 people died. There were several small islands, only a few feet above the water, and the rest sank into the sea.Since the earthquake happened not so long ago, people can still vividly remember it.

People often associate earthquakes with volcanic disturbances.Volcanic eruptions undoubtedly caused some earthquakes, but the sudden collapse of the rock layer beneath the topsoil layer in which humans live is responsible for most earthquakes.If the displacement of these rock layers is no more than two or three feet, the result is only a few trees or a few bushes being knocked down, but if it happens in a densely populated place, it can create a catastrophe, as in Lisbon in 1775. In the earthquake, 60,000 people were killed, or as many as 200,000 people died in the Guangdong earthquake in China in 1920.The most conservative estimate by one of the most authoritative earthquake experts is that at least 13 million people have been killed by earthquakes in the so-called "all time" era, that is, in the past 4,000 years.

Of course, earthquakes can happen anywhere.A year ago, a strong earthquake occurred on the bottom of the North Sea, which spread to the mud flats on the islands at the mouth of the Rhine and Scheldt rivers, causing clam diggers on the mud flats to panic, but the surface of the North Sea is still calm.There is another reason for Japan's frequent earthquakes.The Japanese archipelago sits on top of a ridge that extends down to the east and into the deepest trench that can be measured so far.The famous Tuscarola Trench is 28,000 feet deep, and the deepest trench, the Mariana Trench, is only 6,000 feet deeper than it.It is no accident that more than 50 percent of Japan's catastrophic earthquakes have occurred on the eastern seaboard, where the coast has a vertical drop of about 6 miles.

However, like most people living in the earthquake zone, the Japanese do not lose sleep over the existence of this permanent security threat.They ate three meals a day, plowed and sowed as usual, played with their children, and laughed at Charlie Chaplin's performance.From years of lessons and practice, they have worked out an experience: build a house with thin cardboard.Although drafts may occur in winter, the danger to the occupants is minimized when the house suddenly collapses.Of course, the Japanese also imitated the West, such as building skyscrapers in Tokyo. If there is a major earthquake, the losses will be immeasurable.But on the whole, Japan has done a little better than any other country to adapt to and overcome this inevitable geographical deficit, as they have managed to arrange their lives more coherently and more adventurously than most Western countries .I'm not talking about pretty postcards with geishas drinking tea under cherry blossom trees, or those beautiful puppet toys of Madame Butterfly, I'm just repeating what the tourists told us.What they saw was Japan in the old days, when the Japanese still inherited traditional customs and ways of life (the way of life was particularly elegant), before the germination of the island nation into Chicago and Wilkes-Barre (U.S. A suburb of a city in northeastern Pennsylvania --- Translator's Note).The transformation of Japan from the old to the new is an incredible one, one that has certainly had a huge impact on the security and well-being of the United States and will continue by leaps and bounds.Therefore, we Americans should at least know something about the Japanese. Whether we like the Japanese or not, as long as the Pacific Ocean does not dry up, the Japanese will be our neighbors.

Compared with China's history, Japan's history is not long.Chinese chronicles date back to 2637 BC (around the time the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built), while the oldest Japanese chronicles date from 400 AD.At that time, what is now called the Japanese Yamato nation appeared.In fact, strictly speaking, there is no "Yamato nation". The Japanese, like the British, are also a mixed nation.The Ainu were the earliest inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago. Due to the three consecutive invasions of people from southern China and the Malay Peninsula, central China, Manchuria and Korea, the Ainu were gradually driven to the relatively remote northern islands.Therefore, the original Japanese civilization is actually the continuation of Chinese civilization, and the Japanese have learned everything from the Chinese.

Later, Japan imitated China and allowed the spread of Buddhism. At this time, the relationship between the two countries became closer.When an old teaching is replaced by a new one, it is inevitable, at least to some extent, that the new teaching will be influenced by the old.For all missionaries, no matter what they preach is Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, they should understand this inner law. In the 6th century AD, the first Chinese Buddhist monk entered Japan.He found that Japan had an indigenous religious system, and it could be said that it was a religious system that was well suited to the needs of the Japanese.This native religion is called "Shinto," derived from the word Shinto, which is equivalent to what Americans call the "sacred way."Compared with the popular ghost worship in Asia, Shintoism is a relatively elegant religion.It sees the world as an indestructible force and teaches man to take responsibility for what he does to the world because it is eternal, however small the outcome.Modern Japanese religion is a mixture of Buddhism and Shintoism.First, Shinto strongly emphasizes the responsibility and obligation of the individual to the society as a whole.The Japanese (not necessarily aloof) have a belief, a very sincere and deep-rooted belief that each person has a very definite responsibility to his country.Shintoism also emphasizes honoring ancestors.But this kind of respect of the Japanese has not developed to the point of absurdity like that of the Chinese.The huge China has been turned into a huge tomb—the dead rule over the living, and the cemetery occupies a large amount of land, which was originally used to grow crops and feed the living.

However, there was no huge difference between Japanese civilization and China's Huaming. Until the late 16th century, the princes in Japan supported their own self-respect and ruled separately, and their attitude towards the emperor was not as respectful as the knights of the Holy Roman Empire.After a period of endless quarrels and wars between the various factions, the government was finally controlled by a strong man. In far away Europe, 800 years ago, the chief steward of the ancient Frankish king pushed his master into the temple, and exercised the right to rule the country by himself.Since these stewards were better at governing than their masters, no one objected.The Japanese people have had enough of nearly four hundred years of civil war, and they don't care who will be the ruler as long as there is peace.Thus, when the head of the empire, the wealthy and influential Tokugawa family, became the supreme ruler of the empire, the Japanese did not object or stand up for the orthodox emperor.The Japanese Grand Chancellor claims that the Emperor is some kind of god on earth, the spiritual father of all Japanese, but the Emperor is so remote, so mysterious, so perfect, like a Tibetan lama, that his true face can never be revealed. revealed to his subjects.

This ruling structure lasted for almost 200 years.The rulers of the country are the shoguns (that is, the title of those known to the rulers, the American equivalent of "commander-in-chief or supreme commander-in-chief") who live in Tokyo, and the emperor lives in the deep palace of Kyoto, in the luxurious screen Later, kill the time and kill your own days.During the era of the Shogunate, Japan established a strict feudal system, and it took a long time for Japan to perfect the details of this new system.This system has had a very profound impact on shaping the character of the Japanese people. Even today, Japan has carried out nearly eighty years of industrialization, but in essence, the Japanese are still feudalists.From the angle of consideration, they are completely different from European and American competitors.

After 1600, the Japanese rulers clearly divided the society into three social groups. The highest level is the "Daimyo", which is composed of members of the feudal aristocracy, and they are big landlords; Knights of the medieval era in Europe; the rest belonged to the third class, the commoners. It's a less than ideal system, but the history is compelling.The general public has never had a strong interest in any theory of government.This is the fact that history convinces us.Can this government do it? Can it give me tranquility and peace? Can it ensure that the fruits of my labor belong to me and will not be legally taken away by others? These are the most concerned issues of ordinary people. For more than two hundred years, this system has worked very well.The political head of Japan is the shogun, and the emperor is regarded as the spiritual leader of the country and worshiped. "A person in a high position should live up to expectations" was a very strict belief that daimyo and samurai had to uphold.If one acts in violation of the sworn oath, one must commit seppuku in the most solemn ritual of seppuku. That's when Japan started to get a bit overcrowded, and people were just barely making ends meet.In terms of interests and hobbies, they generally do not have too many extravagant expectations, but are very restrained and frugal.Nature also seems to be a loyal friend. The Kuroshio Current (a tributary of the Gulf Stream, namely the Japanese Warm Current) originates from the North Equatorial region of the Dutch East Indies, flows through the Philippines and Japan, and then crosses the Pacific Ocean, blessing the west coast of the United States, Japan The climate is mild and moderate because of this warm current.At the same time, another narrow band of cold water (that is, the Arctic Ocean Cold Current——Translator's Note) just flows not far from the east coast of Japan, causing Japan's climate to be less warm and humid than California.However, even so, Japan's climate is much stronger than that of mainland China. Having lost his way, the Portuguese navigator Mendence Pinto landed on the Japanese archipelago, and after that, everything seemed to run its course.The original course of Japanese history was changed by the arrival of the Portuguese navigator Mendence Pinto.For the Portuguese not only visited and traded with distant countries, but also brought their religion to them. Portuguese Christianity is headquartered in Goa, India and Macau, China.At first, the Portuguese missionaries were well received in Japan, and the shogunate authorities provided them with every convenience and opportunity to preach the superiority of Christianity over the long-standing supremacy of the Japanese religion.Portuguese missionaries preached everywhere, and many Japanese converted.Later, some missions from the Philippine Islands belonging to Spain also entered Japan and were also welcomed.However, the people who accompanied these missionaries were not too holy, and they all wore armor and held strangely shaped iron rods, which could shoot heavy lead bullets and penetrate three ordinary Japanese soldiers at the same time.When the shogun discovered this, they were disturbed by the presence of these foreign missionaries. It is only in the last half century that Americans have begun to understand the Japanese perspective on the painful events of the time.The Japanese have acquired a reputation for ruthlessness from these events, quite different from what the Americans have been given by other sources.At the time, the shogun decided to ban Christian missionaries from further activity in Japan out of fear, rather than a sudden distaste for Westerners.They feared that religious strife would tear the country apart, and that those who were both captains and merchants would rob the Japanese of their wealth.The captain delivered the Messenger of Peace and Blessings to the coast of Japan, and departed with a penny unpaid Japanese cargo. The place where Jesus had the greatest influence in Japan was Kyushu, which was the closest to the Portuguese colony in China.At first, the godfathers humbly preached about Jesus Christ in Kyushu, but once they gained the upper hand, they started to tear down the original temples and idols of the Japanese. They accepted the cross at gunpoint. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the strongman of the day, learned of all this, he realized that there were inevitable consequences.Therefore, he stated: "Christian pastors came to Japan to promote virtue, but in fact, their virtue is a tool, a tool to cover up their sinister intentions for our Japanese empire." On July 25, 1587, five years after the first Japanese envoy visited the pope and the kings of Spain and Portugal, Japan expelled all Christian missionaries.Merchants can still do business in Japan, but they must be placed under the supervision of the Japanese government.As soon as the Portuguese missionaries left, Spanish Franciscan and Dominican monks and nuns from the Philippines quickly filled their vacancies.They played a trick, pretending to be the special envoy who came to Japan to meet Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but the trick was seen through immediately.However, apart from being warned not to preach, they received no other censure.But they did not abide by this prohibition. Instead, they built a church in Edo and baptized people from all over the world.Then in Osaka, they built a church.Then they seized a Jesuit church in Nagasaki.Afterwards, they began to publicly oppose the Jesuits as a competitor, and accused the Jesuits of using methods that had been too flattering to the Japanese when evangelizing the Japanese people.In short, the Japanese made a complete miscalculation and discovered warehouses dedicated to hiding professional missionaries.According to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's order, they were all deported at last, but they went fast and returned fast.After years of futile warnings, the Japanese had shown great patience and tolerance towards unwelcome Spaniards, and finally understood that nothing could be done except by extreme measures. In the past 400 years, the civil war brought great disasters to Japan. Now, they have learned their lessons and no longer repeat the same mistakes. Instead, they spontaneously work together to fight against all foreign invaders and declare that they will ignore all foreign invaders. Prohibition of Christian missionaries punished by death. For the next nearly fifty years, Japan willingly isolated itself from the rest of the world, arguably almost but not completely.Because there is still a small window open to the outside world, and through this small window, a large amount of Japanese gold flowed out to the West; rare advanced Western science and technology sneaked into this strange Japan.In Japan, the Dutch East India Company had been a commercial rival to the Portuguese, but the Dutch were purely business-minded and cared little for the soul of the Japanese.The same goes for the British.However, who will dominate the Japanese market in the UK and the Netherlands?For a long period of time, this was a difficult choice, but the British eventually lost the Japanese market due to poor management. Japan put to death the last member of a string of diplomatic missions sent by Portugal (which was, in effect, well-documented official murder), and then revoked many of the privileges previously enjoyed by the Dutch.However, as long as the average annual rate of return of Dutch companies in Japan can approach 80%, the Dutch will never give up the Japanese market.They were forced to live on a stone island 300 yards long by 80 yards wide, so small that there was hardly room to walk their dogs, called Dejima, in the port of Nagasaki, and they were not allowed to bring their wives with them. Do not set foot on land. For any one of the hundreds of regulations formulated by the Japanese authorities, as long as the Dutch violated a little, revenge would come immediately. Only this time, the Dutch must have cultivated an angelic patience (not necessarily a national character).One day, the East India Company built a new warehouse. Following the custom at that time, the building date was engraved on the front of the warehouse, and the letter "AD" was added before the date according to the custom, which means "AD".Since this symbol directly refers to the Christian God, the Japanese treated it in the same way that we Americans treated the Bolshevik agitators from Moscow, and the consequences are self-evident.The shogun ordered that not only the offending letters be removed, but that entire warehouses be destroyed and razed to the ground.In order for the Dutch to remember the ending of the Portuguese being deported, the Japanese also released such words: So long as the sun shines on the earth, Christianity will never be allowed to set foot on the Japanese peninsula so boldly.We want everyone to understand that no matter who violates this law, even King Philip, even the Christian God, must use his head to pay for the crime. The Dutch continued to live on Dejima for 217 years, a lesson that seems to have been taken to heart by VOC officials.However, the Dutch are thorough cash traders. No matter what the Japanese order from abroad, they must pay for the goods. Therefore, in the past 217 years, the gold and silver of the Japanese have been flowing out continuously. Also through this channel, from the mouths of these hermits in the Pacific, the Europeans learned some news about the Japanese sporadically.All these reports lead to one consensus: conditions in Imperial Japan are far from satisfactory.Japan quickly served as a counter-example to the idea that no country can hope to be completely self-sufficient.Moreover, it has become increasingly difficult to control young Japanese.They vaguely heard that Western Europe has some extraordinary scientific knowledge, and began to use the small window of Dejima to get in touch with scientific and medical knowledge.After a lot of effort, they finally figured out the meaning of those strange Dutch characters, and knew that except for Japan, which was still stagnant, the whole world was advancing at an astonishing speed. In order to warn the Japanese not to continue this stupid behavior of self-defense, in 1847, the King of the Netherlands sent a box full of scientific books as a gift to the Japanese Imperial Palace in Edo, and attached a map of the world.Sometimes, a cargo ship sailed from San Francisco to Guangdong, China, and accidentally wrecked off the coast of Japan. Since there was no consular or diplomatic protection, the situation of the crew members can be imagined. In 1849, the captains of two American warships threatened to blow up Nagasaki unless the Japanese handed over 18 American sailors immediately.Still pursuing this isolation policy for their Japanese colleagues, the King of the Netherlands once again issued a warning, warning the Japanese not to take any more risks, otherwise, the Japanese will only gain disaster in the future.These letters from The Hague only show what the world has known long ago.Sooner or later, the Japanese will definitely open their doors to the Western business community. If they reject their request for a peaceful opening, then what awaits them is an opening by force. Russia has been advancing step by step towards the coast of Alaska, and its control over the Western Pacific is slowly strengthening in a planned way.Only the United States is the only country that can act, and it will not be suspected of territorial ambitions. In 1853, under the command of Commodore Perry, four American warships and 560 crews sailed into Uraga Bay.The first visit of the U.S. Navy caused unprecedented panic in Japan, and the emperor publicly prayed for God's blessing.As soon as Perry left (he only stayed in Japan for 10 days and delivered a letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan), the Japanese asked the Dutch for help, armed a warship, deployed military personnel in various fortresses, and The previous Portuguese muskets are ready, and everything is ready for the revisit of those warships on the other side of the ocean. Should it continue to be isolated from the world at all costs, or should it pursue a policy of opening to the outside world?In this regard, the Japanese were divided into two factions.Most are in favor of continued isolation, however, others are in favor of opening up.The shogun was basically out of power because he advocated opening to the outside world, and he was denounced as collaborating with foreigners.The emperor, however, was the one who benefited most from Commodore Perry's famous visit. As the undisputed head of government of the feudal government, the shogun went through a golden age of prosperity and began to decline very early.The fate of the daimyo and the samurai is similar.They still wear swords and make it their honorable mission to suppress the civil war, as if they were living not in 1853 but in 1653.The time for comprehensive reform has come. It was purely a coincidence that the Emperor at the time, the titular head of state, was a very knowledgeable and intelligent young man.The shogun followed his persuasion and resigned voluntarily, so that the country's ruling power returned to the hands of the emperor.The emperor accepted the advice, admitting that if he continued to close himself in this way, the country would be tantamount to slow suicide.He welcomed foreigners to Japan with the same determination as when he deported them.This is the Meiji era in Japanese history, or the era of civilization created by Emperor Meiji, which transformed Japan from a small feudal agricultural country in the 16th century into a modern industrial powerhouse. Is such a large-scale, complete emotional change a good thing to be happy about?If someone asks this question, then this question is superfluous.Maybe factories, huge armies and navies, coal mines and steel foundries will benefit people, maybe not.I don't know the result.For some the answer is yes, for others the answer is no.This question depends a lot on what perspective one looks at it from. Ten years ago, Russians loved their saints and upheld their spirits.Today, their souls are content to sit in the exhaust pipes of their engines, while the saints are burned in the kitchen hearth. Such things are completely unavoidable, this is my personal opinion.In themselves, they are neither absolutely wrong nor absolutely right, but necessary, a necessary step by which we can free ourselves from the worries and fears of hunger and economic vagaries Get out.In this transformation, the machine has played the role of father and mother, and in the same way, many good and pleasant things have been destroyed by it.No one dares to deny this.Compared with Japan, which is full of gasoline and gas plants, the Japan described by Hokusai and Utamaro is of course much more interesting (Hokusai, Japanese painter, wood engraver, 1760-1849. Utamaro, full name Kitagawa Utamaro, 1753-1806 , a Japanese ukiyo-e painter. Because he painted woodblock prints of the ruler's wives and concubines, he offended the shogunate, was persecuted and died of illness———Translator's Note).However, Hokusai and Utamaro have long been turned into mud, and housewives in Tokyo prefer to cook with gas rather than slow cooking with charcoal fire, and this is the answer. Snow-capped Mount Fuji, an ancient and long-standing volcano.It has been silent since 1707.Where once it overlooked the place where children laid flowers at a roadside Shinto temple, it is now full of cigarette billboards.The sacred deer in the temple had its legs smashed by careless tourists throwing cans. However, Mt. Fuji knows that everything will end one day.