Chapter 87 Why I wrote "The Dark Mist of Japan"

I am often asked about my intentions in writing. As a novelist's work, this book may strike readers as a bit odd.Everyone said in unison: "Did Matsumoto write it out of anti-American intentions?" Probably because everyone had the impression that these works blamed all the bizarre events that occurred during the US occupation of Japan on the occupation forces. conspiracy. In addition, some people accused me of saying that this kind of writing is "neither a literary work in the traditional sense, nor a simple report or comment, but an inexplicable thing between the two." Probably because I am a novelist , they raised this question.

I did not write this series of works with an anti-American point of view from the beginning, nor did I use the scale of "conspiracy of the occupation army" to measure all events from the beginning.I only came to such a conclusion after investigating the ins and outs of various events. First, let’s talk about my motivation for writing.Let's go back to the time when I first finished writing the novel "The Imperial Bank Incident".In the process of exploring this incident, I found out that its background was related to a certain department of the US General Command.I don't think the "Reichsbank affair" can be brought to light unless this point is clarified.

The verdict has not yet stated what kind of poison was used by Hirasawa Sadomichi, who is considered to be the real culprit of the "Imperial Bank Incident", and how he got it. The poison used by the murderer is generally considered to be "potassium cyanide", but in fact it is not such a simple thing.One need only read the initial investigative records to know that it was a cyanic acid compound; but the authorities did not explain chemically what kind of compound it was, and let it go. Also, Hirasawa's original "confession" about how he got his hands on the poison was not convincing enough that even the prosecution couldn't put it in the verdict, simply stating that it was "in the possession of the accused". .Therefore, there is really no basis for seeing this as a murder weapon.

Many said that the poison was produced systematically by the Army's Special Research Institute during the war, and they still hold that suspicion.However, due to the confidential nature of the Army Special Research Institute at that time, it was not possible to investigate the whereabouts of all the members of the Institute after the war.Lieutenant General Ishii, the supreme leader of the Institute, was also protected by the US General Command and became a consultant.He had conducted research on bacteria for strategic use in Northeast China. The Soviet Union demanded that he be prosecuted as a war criminal, but the United States has always sheltered him under its wing.

It is now a well-known fact that the Metropolitan Police Department pursued people from the old army system in the early stages of the investigation after the "Imperial Bank Incident".But for unknown reasons, the direction of the investigation was suddenly changed halfway, and all the crimes were placed on a street painter who was escorted from Hokkaido, and the case was "solved" in this way.I think the formidable obstacle that the Metropolitan Police Department encountered at the initial stage of the investigation was the overriding wall of the U.S. General Headquarters.

The U.S. General Command has an organization that specializes in investigating the old Japanese army. I think this wall was actually formed because the U.S. General Command took precautions to prevent this organization from being exposed under the Japanese investigation.No matter who the murderer is, anyway, the U.S. Army Command is unwilling to let the outside world know that there is such a strictly confidential organization by pursuing this case. The "Imperial Bank Incident" ended that way because of the U.S. General Command's reluctance to expose its secret organization, but I believe that the "Downhill Incident" was planned by the U.S. occupation forces with much larger intentions.

The Metropolitan Police Department has yet to make a conclusion as to whether Shimoyama, the first president of the state-owned railway company, committed suicide or was murdered.However, judging from the content of the published "White Paper on the Downhill Incident", it has been determined to be a suicide.Now that the investigation is over, it appears that the conclusion was also suicide. However, there are various contradictions in this case, and it is difficult to conclude that Xiashan really committed suicide.I have already talked about the details in that article, so I won't repeat them here.I think the people in charge of the Metropolitan Police Department at the time still believe that Xiashan did not commit suicide.

The Metropolitan Police Department initially believed that President Xiashan had been murdered, but as the investigation progressed, they inevitably encountered huge obstacles that they could not overcome.Just look at when the investigation work of the Metropolitan Police Department changed from the theory of murder to the theory of suicide, and how the department has collected materials to find evidence for the theory of suicide since then, and it cannot be said that my speculation is unfounded. that's it. Then why did Xiashan get killed?Generally, in a murder case, one of them must benefit by eliminating the other party.That is to say, we might as well assume that the US occupying forces (or, to be more precise, US General Command Intelligence) benefited in this case, and this view is largely in line with the facts.

As we all know, at that time, the National Railway Company had planned to lay off a large number of employees in accordance with the "Capacity Law", and this was carried out in accordance with the suggestion made by the US General Command to the Japanese government-in fact, an order in disguise. At that time, the National Railway Workers Union was the largest labor union in Japan.It can also be seen from the "February 1st Strike" incident that it is the core force of the trade union movement.The state-run railway union is preparing to launch another fierce struggle over the issue of firing 120,000 workers.But after the "Xiashan Incident", it was like dropping an atomic bomb into the vortex of a typhoon. The struggle fell into a low ebb and finally disappeared.

As Vice President Kagayama wrote: "President Shimoyama did not die in vain. Taking this incident as an opportunity, the state-owned railway company's large-scale layoffs were gradually carried out and ended without incident. The death of the president was a precious sacrifice. " Taizo Ishisaka, the manager of Tokyo Shibaura Company, also said: "The reason why I was able to rebuild Tokyo Shibaura Company is thanks to Shimoyama's death. Until now, I still think that his sacrifice played a great role in the chaotic and various labor disputes at that time." But those who say this are not the real beneficiaries.It is the U.S. General Command that has benefited the most.This year the US-Soviet Cold War gradually intensified. Thanks to this incident, the occupying forces pulled the Japanese democratic forces that they themselves had agitated back to the right.It is conceivable that during this period, the United States had predicted the Korean War a year later.

Regarding the "downhill incident", I have made quite bold speculations.It is not that no one has published some speculative articles on this incident before, but I think my article is probably the earliest to fully speculate on the process, location and method of President Xiashan's death, and to publicly put it forward.In order to investigate this incident, I also spent a lot of time myself. When I first published this work, I considered myself a novelist and originally planned to write it in the genre of "novel". But if it is written as a novel, it has to add some fictional elements.In that way, readers will not be able to distinguish which is real material and which is fictional; that is to say, due to the addition of fiction, objective facts will be confused and authenticity will be diluted.I think it's better to put out the researched materials as they are, and then put forward my opinions based on these materials, which will give readers a much more direct impression than the genre of the novel. As a result, such a special genre of "not just reports or comments" was formed.I had no intention of writing "literature in the traditional sense" at all.What I want to publish is an article written in a free style and according to my own heart, even if it violates the rules.The literary genre is immaterial as long as it conveys most effectively to the reader what the author has in mind.I wrote it down in this way. I would like to explain here that the materials for these works are all taken from events that actually happened in the US military, and things after that are not included for the time being.However, the long river of history keeps flowing. In this sense, it is not necessarily appropriate to limit the content to the period of the US occupation. However, I will stop here first. The principle of the material of the work should not exceed this scope. The "Shiratori Incident", "Rastworov Incident", "Imperial Bank Incident", and "Matsukawa Incident" that occurred in Hokkaido, etc., are so-called "events" with a relatively strong color, and these incidents occurred in very different periods. similar.Some incidents occurred successively or in a chain reaction within the same year, such as the "Shiyama Incident", "Matsukawa Incident", "Mitaka Incident" and "Shiratori Incident". In terms of consequences, these incidents played a role in suppressing the democratic forces, that is to say, these incidents all raised a "warning" to the "riotism" of the Japanese communist forces.I think this series of events shares a political strategy—or rather, a military strategy—with the background of the first "downhill incident." This is what I have come to after investigating the various incidents.I didn't use the same scale to measure from the beginning, so for each event, I tried to use materials objectively and organize them.I have also tried to use reliable sources. Needless to say, it is impossible to know the true face of the incident based on the data alone.Most of the information is neither continuous nor related; that is to say, there are no connected numbers.There is a huge void here.I followed the example of historians who rely on data to restore the true face of the times. Historians collect reliable sources—what they call "the most valuable sources," organize them into order, synthesize them, and organize them into history.Of course, it is difficult to achieve objective restoration only relying on scarce data, because there are more missing materials than remaining parts.Inferring the missing parts based on some of the remaining materials, this probably shows the "historical vision" of historians.In writing this series of essays, therefore, I consider myself to be following the historian's approach, and I write with this intent. Although the information is reliable, it is not always written correctly."Reliable" information here sometimes means that the author is well-known, or that the book or magazine that contains the article is published by a reliable publisher.It is reliable, after all, it is only used as a reference.But I did not adopt these materials in a nutshell.Their authors have their own standpoints, and their contents are also erroneous. In my own judgment, I think that I have also explained this as objectively as possible on this point.However, on many occasions, the "distorted" reports will convey the truth.In other words, by comparing it with other materials, sometimes it can be found that it can be considered as the real face. The last of these articles is about the Korean War, because that war was a series of bizarre events that took place in Japan during the American occupation. Of course, the U.S. General Command did not intend to launch the Korean War from the beginning.However, as the US-Soviet Cold War intensified, the United States began to realize that North Korea had unparalleled value to it.Thus, the American occupying forces in Japan began to "anticipate" war. Since the United States clearly realized that Japan was its defense against the Communist Party in the Far East, it began to correct Japan's overdone democracy (in fact, it was only limited to the scope of American policy). But it is not easy to change a major policy.A corresponding atmosphere must be created in advance.In order to create this atmosphere, it seems to me, a strange chain of events has taken place.The U.S. General Command began to "anticipate" the outbreak of the Korean War probably since 1948. The following year (that is, the year before the outbreak of the Korean War), the Far East Headquarters of the CIA in Manila moved to Japan, which can also be said to be a sign that the Korean War will break out. Railway accidents such as the "Shimoyama Incident", "Mitaka Incident", "Matsukawa Incident", and "Ashibetsu Incident" all occurred in 1949.Note that these events are all related to railways.War and railways have an inseparable relationship, and transportation is a link in combat. However, these plots are by no means planned in accordance with the intentions of the US government or the Pentagon.I think this is planned by the agency of the US General Command in Japan.This is quite similar to the situation of the Japanese Kwantung Army in the past.The Kwantung Army once "ignored" the intentions of the Japanese government and military, and carried out conspiracy activities in Northeast China and North China.Besides, the actual conspiracy is not necessarily the order of the senior officers of the U.S. General Headquarters. Sometimes, it may be the arbitrary work of the lower-level agencies operating on the "field", so that the higher-level agencies have to take great pains to clean up the mess.I think the "Xiashan Incident" and "Songchuan Incident" belong to this kind of nature. Due to the power exercised by the occupying forces, these incidents ended without the Japanese people knowing the truth.The United States has asked the Japanese authorities for assistance.This means that in Japan under the occupation of the US military, US military agencies can easily realize their plots.Therefore, once the Occupation situation is over (even if it is only on the surface), the strange events collected in it never happen again.We should bluntly acknowledge this fact. It may be objected that such events no longer occur because of a change in the social situation.However, with the "Shiratori incident" that occurred at the end of the occupation period as a boundary, such incidents have since disappeared like scissors.Isn't this strange! There have been times in the social situation since then when such plots were called for—for example, during the struggle against the revision of the Security Treaty.From the perspective of those in power, isn't this a "great opportunity" to create shocking events!In this way, public opinion can be incited to oppose the Communist Party and the struggle will be brought to a low ebb.But after all, the second "downhill incident" or "Songchuan incident" did not happen suddenly. That is because the omnipotent US military occupation situation has finally ended, so the US military has no way to create such incidents. This sequence of events has now been all but forgotten.People who read about them in the newspapers at that time also can't remember clearly, only a shadow remains.The teenagers at that time are now almost adults.I write about these events in part to introduce them to younger readers. Regarding this book, I have also heard such criticisms: "The ending is said to be based on the strategy of the US military, which is boring", or "cookies are the same".But these are not fictional stories, so they cannot be written as "interesting."There is no other way but to draw conclusions by induction throughout.This book just collects events of the same tendency, which is no different from compiling a collection of short stories of the same tendency.I didn't write in advance to "tell everything to be a conspiracy by the US military". Books such as the history of the occupation of Japan by the U.S. General Command have now been published sporadically. But most of them are similar to "orthodox" modern history, just sketching a rough outline, and very few of them are written with my point of view.If we do not record such events in some form as soon as possible, will the truth be obliterated in the future?This is also one of my personal reasons for writing this book. Whether the book is a success or not, that is for the reader to judge.As far as I am concerned, there are many deficiencies in the writing, the collection of materials is insufficient, and the investigation is incomplete.But as a piece of work I did in 1960, I don't think I have anything to regret.

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