- 206 - Special General Kanji Ishiwara part 2: How to build a puppet state

The last time we spoke, Ishiwara had been spending considerable amounts of time with the Kwantung Army staff trying to figure out a way to push the envelope on seizing Manchuria. Ishiwara and his like minded colleagues had tried everything to persuade the Imperial Japanese army high command to initiate a course of action, but everytime the message was the same “wait, wait until next year, we can’t do this at this time”. In 1931 Ishiwara and Itagaki organized the last major expedition into Northern Manchuria to get the newest recruited Kwantung officers up to speed and ready for plans they had been cooking up. Captain Nakamura Shintaro disappeared on the way back to Port Arthur. The Kwantung officers took the initiative, one could call it “Gekokujo / ruling from below” because without approval, in fact basically against the orders of high command they mobilized their forces outside their designated railway zone and headed for Mukden to quote “get the Chinese military to help investigate the Nakamura disappearance”. When Tokyo HQ got a whiff of this they dispatched a telegram immediately demanding the Kwantung officers get their men back and not use the Nakamura incident as a way of “solving the Manchurian problem” For Ishiwara this was the last straw. He doubled down and pushed for a plot to provoke military conflict outside of Mukden. As he wrote in almost a messianic Nichiren conviction ‘I will be the pillar of Japan; I will be the eyes of Japan; I will be the great vessel of Japan” . During the last hectic weeks, General Honjo Shigeru arrived to take command of the Kwantung Army and there is no solid evidence Ishiwara and his radical group had disclosed their plans to him. However when everything began to move into motion, Honjo agreed to Ishiwara’s military solution for the Manchurian problem. On september 18th of 1931, a bomb was planted by the Kwantung army upon the south manchurian railway tracks at Liutiaokou. There was an explosion and the Kwantung army immediately claimed it to be a Chinese plot and moved with skill and precision to overrun the Peitaying Barracks. General Honjo’s first reaction was hesitation, but then he committed additional units to aid the radicals and upon seeing the chaos unfold, ordered the seizure of all of Mukden in the process. Investigators would find the actions of Honjo over the course of the next few days to be quite indecisive. At first he seemed to be attempting to localize the incident, but then, likely as a result of Ishiwara and Itagaki pressuring him, relented to ordering a general assault on all Chinese positions in the area. Thus what was a isolated incident, transformed into a major offensive, and that major offensive was largely directed by two of Honjo’s subordinates, as you may guess Ishiwara and Itagaki. Now after the bomb explosion, the next 10 days saw southern and central Manchuria suddenly under the control of the Kwantung army. Itagaki as a senior staff officer and full colonel, was technically Ishiwara’s superior, but for the next 4 months it appears Ishiwara was the main driver behind the military actions. Itagaki was quote to say to a friend during the offensive “Never mind Honjo, it’s Ishiwara’s War”. And indeed, being so far from Tokyo HQ’s control, it really was Ishiwara’s war. Tokyo dispatched official orders on September the 19th opposing the offensive, despite a lot of sympathy for the cause amongst the high commanders. Ishiwara and Inagaki had been planning this for months, they were willing to risk it all, so they disobeyed and carried on. Ishiwara began by first coercing Honjo for reinforcements and freedom to take initiative, as he was quoted asking ‘to pursue actively the security and order of all of Manchuria”. Now obviously Ishiwara and Itagaki wanted to expand the offensive through the officials means firstmost, but they definitely went around the officials channels as well. One devious method they employed was to create chaos for civilians in Manchurian cities, thus increasing the need for better security for Japanese residents. This would allow the Kwantung army troops to deploy past their set perimeters. Immediately after what is now called “the Mukden incident”, military agents were dispatched to Kirin to create some chaos within the city. Reports of incidents from Kirin began to poor into the Kwantung Army HQ alongside Ishiwara demanding Honjo dispatch forces to Kirin to protect Japanese residents there. He also advocated for demanding reinforcements from the Korea Army, but Honjo was unwilling to go that far. It seems Ishiwara feared missing a golden opportunity and chose another course of action. On the night of the 20th, he gathered together a bunch of younger Kwantung officers such as Itagaki’s assistant, Captain Katakura Tadashi and told them “I can’t do anything more to budge the commander and so i’m giving up my responsibilities for the direction of...