Ujie Mikito, “Historical records of crimes committed during the Edo period” (Kobunsho ni miru Edo hanzai kõ), Shõdensha, 2016. (All pages are in parenthesis after paragraphs)

Tonight we come to our final story.  And what more appropriate theme could there be (for a book on records of crimes of the Edo period) than executions? I would thus like to spend this evening discussing the executions that occurred at the magistrate’s residence (or rōyashiki) at Kodenma-chō. 

Of course, while I say executions, there were many ways in which punishments could be inflicted, from extremes such as crucifixion and being burned alive to more simple punishments such as zanzai and geshūnin (both of which still ended up with the condemned having their head cut off).  Incidentally, shizai (or ‘punishment by death’) was reserved for commoners, whereas zanzai (‘punishment by cutting or slicing’) was exclusively for samurai that had fallen foul of the law.  Geshūnin (literally ‘lesser person’, referring to those condemned to death) was the least ‘heavy’ of the various forms of capital punishment available, and so was also imposed on commoners. (284)

What were the differences between these three forms of capital punishment? The biggest difference, it could be argued, was how the corpse was handled after execution.  In the case of shizai, the torso of the condemned, whose head had already been removed, would be carried from the ‘execution ground’ (or shizaijo) to part of the magistrate’s residence known as the ‘exulted testing ground’ (or O-tameshiba). There the torso would be sliced up in order to test the cutting edges (or ‘quality’) of the various swords belonging to the Shōgunate.   The corpses of prisoners subjected to either zanzai or geshūnin would not be used to test swords, despite having already been decapitated. (285)

The expression ‘sliced up’ seems like an exaggeration, but it assuredly was not.  Starting with a technique to slice the centre of the torso in half (known as ichi no dō), there were a myriad of ways in which a torso could be carved up.  And not only the torso. The heads of the condemned were also subject to blade testing, and would be cut with swords or stabbed with spears.  The perpetrator of these punishments was Yamada Asaemon, a hereditary name given to whomever was hired to test sword blades on behalf of the Shōgunate, together with his apprentices.  ‘Asaemon’ was of rōnin (masterless samurai) status, but many of his apprentices were samurai from the regions of Japan or else their apprentices.  All travelled from across the nation to learn how to ‘test blades’ under the tutelage of Asaemon. (284)

The primary purpose of ‘tameshi-giri’ (blade testing) was to guarantee the quality of the Shōgunate’s weaponry.  This was why the space within the magistrate’s residence reserved for such practice was not simply referred to as the ‘testing ground’, but was the ‘exulted testing ground’ (O-tameshiba).  In reality it was not only the Shōgunate’s weapons that ended up being checked for quality.  Hasegawa Keiseki, born in what is now modern Tomigiwa-chō in Chuō-ku, Nihonbashi, in Tenpo 13 (1842), was the author of a visual guide to Edo in the last days of the Bakufu and the start of the Meiji era titled “Edo Tokyo Jikken Garoku” (A true pictorial record of Edo and Tokyo).  A picture within that work titled “Testing swords within the magistrate’s residence” has a description attached to it, which reads,

“Swords undergoing testing within the grounds of the magistrate’s residence.  These (swords) are gathered from many different places.  Corpses are then cut up using both new and old swords alike”.

Hence not only the swords of the Shōgunate were tested at the O-tameshiba. Many daimyō and members of the Shōgunate’s closest retainers (the hatamoto) sent their swords to Yamada Asaemon for testing on the corpses of executed criminals.  Keiseki, after his introduction on the various forms of cutting employed in testing swords, says “In truth, human bodies can’t be cut up as easily as one supposes”, thereby confirming that Keiseki himself had witnessed sword testing on corpses within the magistrate’s residence.   After the Shōgun’s personal swords had been tested, Asaemon’s apprentices would take the various swords that had arrived from across the country and proceed to test them on pre-severed torsos and heads.  (285-286)

Keiseki’s depiction of this scene is particularly striking.  Eight figures, quite possibly apprentices of Asaemon (with a blacksmith included among them) are engaged in what appears to be nonchalant conversation while they cut up dead bodies.  (288)

There were a number of detailed regulations outlining how sword testing was to take place.  For example, in addition to samurai, blade testing was not to be practiced on the bodies of women, priests or shrine officials.  However explaining all of the exceptions would take too long, so I’ll bring this short excerpt to an end here. (288)

Ujie Mikito, “Historical records of crimes committed during the Edo period” (Kobunsho ni miru Edo hanzai kõ), Shõdensha, 2016. (All pages are in parenthesis after paragraphs)
 
Chapter 12   The dramatic crimes of Nezumi Kozõ (continued)
 
Apocryphal tales and legends
 
While it isn’t particularly clever, there is a certain attraction in being generous and having no attachment to money.  The ‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’ spoke of Jirõkichi, who had spent half a year on pilgrimage to Kyoto to visit Konpira Shrine only to return to Edo in order to continue to pursue a life of gambling, in the following manner. 
 
“Regardless of whether he had lost or won at gambling, Jirõkichi would give money to anyone; from those who had lost every stitch of clothing to professional gamblers, and would do so without question.  Depending on the person, he might buy someone clothes or treat them to entertainment at Yoshiwara or at the Okabasho (red light districts).  The fact he would be so generous while lending money led to him being praised with comments like ‘That’s just like Jirõkichi’, and everyone from cats to ladles (a phrase basically meaning ‘all and sundry’) sang his praises, calling him ‘Taishõ, taishõ!’ (literally meaning ‘general’, but in this sense meaning ‘big man’ or ‘boss’). (242, 244) 
 
The extraordinarily generous Jirõkichi was obviously a vital acquaintance for the many poor residents of Edo.  This too was recorded in the ‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’:
 
“(Jirõkichi) would lend money to whomever needed it, from the poor, to those afflicted by serious illness and in need of treatment, to those heading out on a pilgrimage to Ise shrine.” (244)
 
While the money that Jirõkichi gave away might have come from somewhat illicit sources such as burglary and gambling, one can say that Jirõkichi himself had every qualification necessary to be recognised as a true gizoku.
 
For his part, Matsuura Seizan compiled a variety of sources related to Nezumi Kozõ. They are contained within the eighty-first scroll of the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ under the heading ‘Various Stories of Nezumi Kozõ’.  I’d like to introduce a few of those to the reader. (244)
 
When he was being questioned, Jirõkichi admitted that:
 
“I tried two or three times to break into the household of the lord of Hikone province, the Ii family.  (Because they were an illustrious samurai family) both the inner and outer walls (of their household) were high, and I knew it would not be easy to either get into or to steal anything from there.” 
 
He also had the following to say about the Ginza (a place to manufacture coinage, much like a treasury or a mint):
 
“Even in the dead of night, the security (for that place) was water-tight.  In the end I wasn’t able to steal a single thing.” (245)
 
Yet the Ii household and the Ginza were the exceptions to the rule. By and large the security for samurai households was lax, and someone of the talents of Jirõkichi could easily find a way to break into them.  The ‘Various Stories of Nezumi Kozõ’ also contained the following tale:
 
“When breaking into the house of an important daimyõ family, Jirõkichi would spend around two or three days hidden in the garden of the residence.   He would watch the interaction between the daimyõ and his wife, seeing how they offered one another drinking cups and the type of names they called one another.  This way he would remember every minor detail about the couple.  Apparently the officials listening to this confession later relayed its content to the guards from the residences described by Jirõkichi, and the guards were terribly embarrassed.” (245, 246)
 
Seizan also felt affinity for the type of attitude Jirõkichi displayed during his interrogation:
 
“When he was being questioned, Jirõkichi showed no signs of fear, saying “This is divine justice.  I scaled the high walls of many samurai household and managed to break in and easily take whatever I wanted. The fact that I am now bound by ropes and been reduced to this state is humiliating.  My time has definitely come.” (246)
 
As an afterward to this paragraph, Seizan added the following “While Nezumi Kozõ was brave, the world has no use for a thief’s bravery.” 
 
Seizan also wrote about how Nezumi Kozõ made efforts to ensure that his relationships with women would not cause them difficulties.  In one of these, he wrote:
 
“(Before he was arrested) Jirõkichi sent these women ‘declarations of separation’ (to prove they were not co-habiting). To those women reduced to living in a nagaya (a boarding house, usually occupied by the poor) after leaving him, he would unfailingly show concern down to the smallest detail for their well-being, often sending gifts to their landlords or ‘pimps’ (for their rent and food etc).  He was praised for being a man unparalleled in his combination of both intelligence and sense of honour.” (247)
 
A similar story was relayed in the ‘‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’:
 
“After being captured in the house of Matsudaira Kunaishõ-yû and realizing that he was likely to be executed straight away, Jirõkichi made a request “Don’t kill me here, but take me to the town magistrate and hand me over to him.  You can execute me after I’ve explained myself.” (247)
 
But why would he do this? Jirõkichi then gave his reason. “It seems someone has already committed seppuku (ritual suicide) in order to take the blame for a burglary for which I was responsible.  A lot of money was taken so there are probably a lot of suspects. If you take me to the official’s residence I will confess everything and ensure that more people are not punished (for a crime they did not commit).” (247)
 
So Jirõkichi was duly handed over to the town magistrate, where he confessed in full to both the houses he had broken into and the money he had stolen. Of course, he did not simply confess, but went back over all of the crimes he had committed over a decade. He explained in detail everything about his robberies, from the methods he used to enter houses to the amount of money taken. 
 
This process could not have been easy. In order to jog his memory a bit, Jirõkichi looked at a copy of the Bukan (a ledger which detailed all of the insignia of the various retainer households to the Tokugawa Bakufu, along with the posts they were responsible for administering) and tried to recall in as much detail as possible what he had done in each residence. (248)
 
Knowing that he would receive the ultimate punishment and that there was no use in trying to amend his ways, and by accepting punishment in order to absolve anyone else who might be under suspicion, Jirõkichi gave us a model of what a gizoku was mean to be. Even when he was being handed over to the authorities, the ‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’ tells us that he showed no signs of fear or anger, and from the saddle of the horse he was sitting in he began to intone the ‘Lotus Sutra’ (Namu Myõhõ Renge Kyo). (248)
 
‘I, Nezumi Kozõ, witnessed your performance of Nõ’…
 
An honourable thief who doesn’t kill, and a man of deep sensitivity. Optimistic, fond of women, fastidious and brave.  Nezumi Kozõ Jirõkichi was certainly a ‘rascal’ about whom there is no shortage of legends and apocryphal stories. Yet there is no more fitting tale of Nezumi Kozõ and why he became the archetype for theatrical depictions of criminals than that contained within the forty-ninth scroll of the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’, a story titled “Nezumi Kozõ watches a performance of Nõ theatre”. (249)
 
According to this story, the widow of the former lord of a subsidiary of Himeji in Harima province began talking to a young Buddhist nun one day, and that nun later went on to recall details of the conversation to Matsuura Seizan.  One of those details was as follows:
 
“A performance of Nõ theatre was to be held in the residence of a certain lord located next door to that of the lord of Himeji, Sakai Uta no Kami (obviously, because he had been the unfortunate victim of a burglary, the name of this other lord was not revealed). The owner of the theatre in which the performance was to be made(i.e., the other lord) noticed a man standing in the centre of the space used by the performers in-between acts.  The man looked to be around 18 or 19 years old, and his half-moon haircut (the haircut most common to men during the Edo period, whereby all of the hair on top of the head was shaved off, leaving just the hair around the sides and back. This apparently kept the head cooler when wearing a helmet) was long and straggly. He was wearing a somewhat audacious half-sleeve jacket, and had a short sword shoved into his waistband.  
 
The lord spoke to the retainers on either side of him, saying “An intruder! Quickly, catch him and throw him out!”.  Yet the retainers could see no sign of an intruder. The lord repeated his order, so his retainers made their way up onto the stage and searched about.  Yet again, they could find no trace of any intruder.  
 
Only the other lord had seen the man in question.  His retainers searched desperately in an attempt to find him, but to no avail.” (249, 250)
 
The forty-ninth scroll of the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ was written in Bunsei 7 (1824), when Jirõkichi was 28 years old.  The fact that the other lord said he had seen a youth of 18 or 19 suggests that Jirõkichi had a young appearance and was also somewhat short in stature.  The eighty-first scroll of the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ includes a depiction of Jirõkichi’s appearance after he had been executed and his head put on display.  “Apart from some light scarring caused by smallpox, his skin was pale, and he did not have the look of a criminal, but possessed the placid, gentle expression of an ordinary tradesman.”
 
So Jirõkichi did not look like a criminal.   But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t surprising to the other lord to see a man standing on a stage in a room within his own residence.  The fact that his retainers couldn’t also see the man probably had less to do with the man being a fabrication of the other lord’s imagination and more to do with the fact that Jirõkichi could make himself scarce very quickly.  (250)
 
The widow’s tale continued.
 
“The man may have fled into the residence next door (that belonging to the lord of Himeji). This was certainly the conclusion reached within the other lord’s household, and so word was sent to the Sakai household to be on the alert for an intruder and to catch him if they saw him.  Guards from the Sakai household were placed in the gap between both households, yet the intruder did not appear.”
 
The highlight of this tale comes next. According to the original source “Thereafter a piece of paper was discovered on the stage in the theatre. On it was written “I, Nezumi Kozõ, saw your Nõ performance”. The theatre people were unable to hide their excitement, exclaiming “Ah, that man was the famous Nezumi Kozõ!”.  It was like a scene from a period drama (in fact, this very scene may have been recreated in a movie). (251)
 
The widow who was relaying this story to the nun is believed to have been the wife of Sakai Tadasada (lord of Niita Himeji), who died in Bunka 13 (1816) at the age of 37. To what extent the above story is true we cannot tell, but the source of the story was an actual woman who lived during the time in question, and who was living in retirement in a separate abode belonging to the same household. (251)
 
So who was the other lord referred to in the story? At the time, the households that neighboured that of Sakai Uta no Kami was the castle (Edo castle) to the west, while to the north were the Hitotsubashi, one of the three main houses of the Tokugawa family. The head of that household at the time was Tokugawa Narinori. To the east lay the households of Ogasawara Daizen Daiyû Tadakata (lord of Kokura in Buzen province) and Mizuno Dewa no Kami Tadanari (lord of Numazu in Suruga province).  (252)
 
When we narrow down the candidates to the three remaining households (i.e., excluding Edo castle), we find that the reference within the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ that describes the household of this other lord uses the term ‘yagata’. It is my belief that the victim in question was none other than Tokugawa Narinori of the Hitotsubashi. 
 
As to why I think this, I can point to Jirõkichi’s own confession. The households of the other daimyõ are referred to in the confession using the term ‘yashiki’, whereas that for the three principle households of the Tokugawa family and their rulers is “O-yagata”. At the time of the incident, Tokugawa Narinori was 22 years old, whereas Ogasawara Tadakata was 55 years old and Mizuno Tadanari was 63 years old.  It seems most likely, given the manner in which Nezumi Kozõ was only seen within the blink of an eye, that the youth Narinori stood the best chance of having seen him. (252)
 
Short and handsome
 
So what did Jirõkichi look like?
 
The short-story author and playwright Hasegawa Shigure (1879 – 1941) was foremost in creating the image of Nezumi Kozõ as a man of short stature. According to Hasegawa, it was his grandmother who first described Nezumi Kozõ to him. In his ‘Old Tales of Nihonbashi’ (Kyûbun Nihonbashi), Hasegawa echoed his grandmother’s words, writing “He was short, with some slight pockmarks (on his face), quite a tiny man.” (253)
 
Hence one reason that Jirõkichi was referred to as ‘Kozõ’ (literally ‘little monk’, but also carrying the meaning of ‘shorty’ or ‘kid’) was because he was short. This becomes more obvious when one looks at the character of Heikichi, who appears in the human drama ‘Midori no Hayashi Kado no Matsutake’ (The Pine and Bamboo Gate of the Green Forest) by San’yûtei Enchõ. (253)
 
Heikichi is the boss of a gang of pickpockets, and 27 years old.  About himself, he says “While I am little, I certainly don’t starve.”  Another character who idolizes Heikichi, who goes by the name ‘Oseki’, voices his concerns about Heikichi when preparing to hand him 100 ryõ that Heikichi needs, saying “I’m worried that this (money) will make the short-statured Heikichi bigger (meaning more prominent)”. (253)
 
So Enchõ may have based his character Heikichi on the historical image of Nezumi Kozõ. But that’s not all.  At that point in time, the name ‘kozõ’ carried connotations of being either a small thief or pickpocket.  For example, the character ‘Benten Kozõ’, who first appeared in a performance at the Ichimura-za (Ichimura theatre) of Kawatake Mokuami’s ‘Aoto Zõshi Hana no Nishiki-e’ (A Portrait of Red Flowers and Blue-millstone Paper) in Bunkyû 2 (1862) is a short but handsome young man. (253)
 
The female guards attending the young princess in the story all remark on his appearance, saying that he is ‘a good looking man’ and swoon over him. For his part, the 17 year old Benten Kozõ says of himself “I have a small frame.”  (254)
 
*It also seems as though there was another person who went by the name of Nezumi Kozõ before the arrival of the historical figure best recognised for having that name.  He was neither a thief nor a pickpocket, and was in every way a ‘Nezumi’ (rodent).  He was small, sly, and wicked, and so was called that name out of spite. (254)
 
Jirõkichi – a performer right up to the very end
 
On the day of his execution, Jirõkichi appears to have discovered the ‘actor’ in him.  According to the ‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’, Jirõkichi was wearing the following clothes when he was handed over to the town magistrate:
 
“He had a dark blue, rough-hewn long shirt on, underneath which he wore a white, shorter sleeved shirt.  He had an eight-layer waistband around his middle, and wore both fingerless gloves and gaiters which had been dyed white.”  While this means little to those unfamiliar with the style of Japanese dress at the time (myself included), it was apparently typical wear for someone of a short stature. After being bound and placed on a horse, Jirõkichi proceeded to close his eyes and start solemnly reciting the ‘Lotus Sutra’, as explained earlier. (254)
 
It goes without saying that crowds thronged to the roadside to see Jirõkichi pass.  Of particular interest was the comment in the ‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’ which said that “People were openly weeping, and drying their eyes on their sleeves.” Jirõkichi, it must be remembered, had limited himself to breaking into the houses of wealthy samurai and hadn’t killed or injured anyone.  Any money that he took he used on gambling or entertainment, and so contributed to the economic well-being of the townspeople. So as far as they were concerned, his were victimless crimes. And so they wept as they watched him head off to his execution.  
 
Of course, they may also have been doing this because of Jirõkichi’s talents as a performer and his ability to make an audience cry.  
 
Nezumi Kozõ wasn’t the only figure from history recorded to have moved an audience to tears while facing his demise.  In the ‘Records of Interrogations by Edo Magistrates’ by Sakuma Masahiro, there lies the tale of one ‘Kawachi Mushuku Sadazõ’.   Sadazõ was a true villain, originally sentenced to exile on an island, but who escaped to continue a series of murders and armed robberies.  After being captured, he, and six of his accomplices, were sentenced to die at the Kozuka-tsubara execution ground by crucifixion.  (255)
 
On the way to the execution ground, the prisoners asked that they be provided with some food and drink.  Their overseer (the official tasked with witnessing the execution) decided to allow this to happen and paid for some refreshments using his own money. Yet Sadazõ refused to accept any of it, and rebuked his accomplices saying “It doesn’t matter how much you eat or drink, it’ll all come running out of you soon enough. It’s pathetic, so stop it.”  Sadazõ had two half coins hidden in his mouth which he then proceeded to spit at the beggars in the crowd of onlookers.  He then continued on his way to the execution ground. (256)
 
Sadazõ was tied to his crucifixion pole, and in front of him his executioners, both on the left and right, made their preparations to stab him with their spears.  I’ll let Sakuma Masahiro finish this tale in his own words:
 
“(Sadazõ) said to his executioners with a smile “make sure to stick me properly”. Even after being run through by one spear, he turned to his accomplices next to him, happily urging them to “take it like you mean it”.  In the end, all seven of them, with neither fear, nor pain, nor panic written on their faces, met their end, being stabbed a total of 12 or 13 times.” (256)
 
And so a gang of villains met a ‘befitting’ end, although this example was quite clearly a rare exception.  What Sakuma was trying to convey to the reader was that ordinarily, upon hearing their sentence of death, most prisoners would lose all of their stoicism and panic and rave. The more cowardly among them would turn a corpse-like pallid white, and would lose all the strength in their legs and collapse in a heap. (256, 257)

Ujie Mikito, “Historical records of crimes committed during the Edo period” (Kobunsho ni miru Edo hanzai kõ), Shõdensha, 2016. (All pages are in parenthesis after paragraphs)
 
Chapter 12   The dramatic crimes of Nezumi Kozõ
 
When considering the types of crimes committed during the Edo period by so-called “noble thieves” (in Japanese, gizoku, referring to thieves who, out of a sense of righteousness and obligation, gave the money they stole to people in need), the name of Nezumi Kozõ (literally ‘Rodent Boy’) immediately springs to mind. Yet in truth there were other gizoku making a name for themselves before the arrival of Nezumi Kozõ.  One of those is included in the twenty-second scroll of the “Kasshi Yawa” (Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle). (228)
 
At approximately 2pm on the 7th day of the 9th month of Bunsei 5 (1822), someone managed to sneak his way into the residence of the shõgunate retainer Yajima Genshirõ, a member of the retinue of Hikozaka Õmi no Kami and a member of one of the lesser band of principle retainers to the shõgunate known as the Kobushin.
 
This mysterious individual proceeded to help himself to some of the chests of drawers in which money, official documents and books were kept. He stole the lot – cabinet and all. (228)
 
Then at around 8pm on the 11th day, just four days later, someone heard the sound of an object hitting the house next door to Yajima’s.  When a house retainer went to investigate, he found a ball made of paper and closed with a seal into which had been placed the official documents and ledgers stolen on the 7th, as well as a letter bearing the name of the man who had presumably stolen the items in the first place - ‘Kurata Kichiemon’. The chests of drawers were also later found abandoned under the walkway leading to the “Settchin” (雪隠, an otherwise poetic name for an outhouse or WC). (228)
 
On the 15th day of the 9th month, Yajima himself took the letter that had been inside the ball in hand and went to submit an official complaint to Hikozaka Õmi no Kami. Hikozaka then took that complaint to the town magistrate where he made his own request for an investigation.  
 
So what had been stolen from Yajima’s house?
 
According to the complaint deposition, 37 ryõ (or taels) of gold were missing, along with two and a half ingots of pure silver and two of lesser grade silver, along with documents (namely debt certificates), one of which was worth 20 gold ryõ while four others were worth 15 gold ryõ.  Another document had been taken worth 10 gold ryõ, along with ledgers and other books (titles and identification papers). 
 
This thief, who went by the name of Kurata Kichiemon, had decided to take only the coinage since all of the other items were returned.  His reasons for doing this were presumably because he had either been unable to convert the other items into money, or else he was worried that if he did something foolish and was caught, then these documents would serve as evidence that he had committed the crime (or he may have simply been following a trend among thieves to return any non-monetary goods to their owners). (229)
 
The letter from Kichiemon
 
So why was Kichiemon regarded as a gizoku? Whether or not there was any truth behind such a claim is debatable, however it was referred to in Kichiemon’s own letter.  This itself was unusual - a thief writing a letter addressed to one of his victims.  
 
Moreover the letter itself is overflowing with wit. I would be overjoyed to introduce the letter to the reader in its entirety, however this would be overly arduous as the letter is quite long. So in order to expedite proceedings I have only quoted the most relevant parts, and made my own modern translation of their content.  
 
The letter is neither threatening nor insulting, and begins with an apology:
 
“I ventured to your residence upon learning that my lordship’s circumstances were indeed fortunate, and so sought to borrow some of your wealth.  However after gaining entry, I found that you were not quite as wealthy as I had first imagined, and so for this I do offer my most sincere apologies.” 
 
He then went on to explain his reasons for stealing the chests of drawers:
 
“I did not sneak into your residence for the purposes of personal gain.  I simply could no longer stand to see the long-standing suffering of so many people. And so while I myself am poor, I realized that I could alleviate this suffering by borrowing (i.e., stealing) the money kept on your estate.”  
 
Kichiemon himself confesses that his actions were for the benefit of other less fortunate people, thereby equating himself with a gizoku. Furthermore, he goes on to promise that he will eventually return the money that he had ‘borrowed’:
 
“I will return the money to you very soon, hence I ask that you be patient in the interim.” (231)
 
The above quotations cover the heart of the letter’s content, but the letter itself contains numerous long “post scripts”, where Kichiemon outlines his history as a gizoku and about his own personal circumstances:
 
“I have been taking the things of wealthy people in order to give to them to the poor for many years, but any money that I borrow (i.e., steal) is eventually returned.  I am already in my 50s, but have not given up on life yet, and continue to live without want.”  
 
In his post script, Kichiemon also offered some opinions about the locks and security of the Yajima residence (from an expert’s point of view):
 
“Your lordship’s house has excellent locks, but it seems that this has made your household complacent (i.e., they don’t seem to have noticed an intruder).” (233) 
 
Enter the Gizoku
​
The above quotes came from the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’, however we can find an alternative version of same events in the “Mikikigusa” (Tales Seen and Heard). 
 
The first deals with the intrusion of the bedchamber of Tajima and his wife.
 
The ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ simply states that Kichiemon “entered the couple’s sleeping quarters”.  However the ‘Tales Seen and Heard’ says that Kichiemon “intruded upon the bedroom of the couple, but found that they were fast asleep. They both looked content, and Kichiemon regarded them with some envy”. (233)
 
Be that as it may, what prompted Kichiemon to write his letter in the first place? Firstly, if you write a letter, you create an important piece of evidence with details of your handwriting. A letter also offers you a way to confess if you have carried out similar crimes over a long period of time.  It is, in a way, a form of self-advertising your crimes to draw attention to yourself. It also makes you a criminal with a flair for the dramatic, does it not? (234)
 
Speaking of dramatic crimes, one incident from the 1980s, the Glico-Morinaga extortion investigation, comes to mind.  In the case of that incident, a person calling themselves ‘The Monster with 21 Faces’ issued threats against companies and their employees. In the case of Kurata Kichiemon, he advertised his crimes under the banner of a gizoku.  (234) 
 
The complaint made by Yajima and a copy of Kichiemon’s letter eventually found their way into the hands of the town magistrate. Other copies were handed to Matsuura Seizan (described in an earlier chapter) and Miyazaki Seishin (both of whom were famous writers of their day), and it is entirely conceivable that more copies were distributed to other readers.  Each of those copies were then seen by unknown numbers of friends and family of the recipient, and so Kurata’s exploits as a gizoku began to be discussed and admired by a wider audience.  As word spread, the content of these letters became more and more interesting, and it seems that people had started adding their own details in order to liven the story up.  That may be the reason why details that were included in the ‘Tales Seen and Heard’ weren’t included in the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’. (235)
 
Kurata Kichiemon – the 50-something year old thief. As a result of his hurling a letter into the residence of Yajima Genjirõ, he drew attention to himself and ended up becoming the lead character in plays based on the exploits of gizoku. 
 
But what eventually became of Kichiemon himself? Sadly we have no idea.  Whether he was a true gizoku and eventually returned the money that he had ‘borrowed’ will forever remain a mystery. (235)
 
Introducing Nezumi Kozõ
 
Speaking of drama, Nezumi Kozõ Jirõkichi must be the very definition of a theatrical ‘noble thief’.  Before I explain why, I should provide some details about his life.  
 
My sources for this include both the ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ (scrolls 78 to 81), a collection of stories by the bookshop owner Yamashiro Yachûbei (titled Bunbõdõ Zassan, or ‘Miscellaneous Tales from Bunbõdõ’ (Bunbõdõ being the name of the shop).  There is also the ‘A True Record of the Rodent Thief’ (Sozoku Hakujõki).  As each record differs in content, I have decided to compile them together in the explanation that follows. (235)
 
Nezumi Kozõ Jirõkichi was put to death at the age of 36 in the 8th month of Tenpõ 3 (1832).  Assuming that the record of his age at the time of his death is accurate, this would put his year of birth in or around Kansei 9 (1797).  He was born in Shin Izumi-chõ, an area that is now part of Ningyõ-chõ, 3 chõme in central Tokyo.  His father was Sadajirõ, a dekata, or theatre usher working in a Kabuki theatre (and occasionally playing minor roles such as a youth, or Kido-gashira, of the type performed by the Nakamura-za (theatre) of Sakai-chõ). Sadajirõ was apparently blind in one eye, which led to him being called ‘one-eyed Sada’ (he was also called ‘squinty’ because of his supposed short-sightedness).  He died of illness in Bunsei 12 (1829), about ‘four years’ (actually three years) before Jirõkichi was executed. (236)
 
When he was 14 years old, Jirõkichi commenced work for a cabinet maker (who built other wooden objects as well) located in Kameda Konya-chõ (modern day Chiyõda-ku Kameda Konya-chõ in Tokyo).  However he engrossed himself in bouts of gambling to which he became addicted.  He quit working at Kameda and hired himself out as a temporary assistant to another cabinet maker located beneath a watch tower along the banks of the Hettsui-gashi river (now part of Nihonbashi, Ningyõ-chõ, 2 chõme).  Yet Jirõkichi’s passion for gambling remained unquenched, and when he was 16 he moved back in with his parents. (236)
 
It was while he was living with his parents that he was hired by another cabinet maker, in whose service he came to work on the residence of a falconer for a samurai household. This falconer saw talent in the boy and so hired him as an apprentice. Yet this is no way convinced Jirõkichi to go on the straight and narrow.  His desire for money to use on entertainment and gambling was too strong to resist, and so in Bunsei 6 (1823), at the age of 26, Jirõkichi decided that he would start robbing the houses belonging to samurai (and even daimyõ) families. (237)
 
But why on earth would he choose to rob samurai households? The reason, it seems, lay in the degree of concern that samurai displayed in relation to safeguarding their wealth. Townspeople (i.e., merchants) were normally quite afraid of burglars, and so would use every means possible to ensure that their money was secure from theft.  Samurai, on the other hand, while they might have used tight security on the outside, tended to have fairly lax security once you were able to traverse the moats surrounding the house and gain entry to their inner sanctum. (237)
 
Jirõkichi had been adept at walking in high places since he was a little boy, so much so that all he needed to do was grab hold of something in order to climb it, no matter how dangerous it might be.   Furthermore, many samurai households had quarters at their centre that were for the exclusive use of the women of the household, who also oversaw their own security for those rooms. Jirõkichi figured that since no male samurai could easily enter that part of the house, he stood a much better chance of being able to rob the house without exposing himself to too much danger if he started in the women’s quarters. (237)
 
And so, from the 2nd month of Bunsei 6 through to the 1st month of Bunsei 8, Jirõkichi proceeded to rob the households of daimyõ no less than 30 times.  
 
However, luck is a fleeting thing. On the 3rd day of the 2nd month of Bunsei 8, Jirõkichi was spotted while trying to break into the household of one Tsuchiya Sagami no Kami (lord of Tsuchiura in Hitatchi province), and was later captured by a posse belonging to the local magistrate, one Tsutsui Iga no Kami (Masanori) of Minami-chõ.  Jirõkichi would not admit to having robbed anyone, and so was taken to Moto Osaka-chõ (now Nihonbashi, Ningyõ-chõ 1 chõme) on the 14th, where he was imprisoned as ‘Jirõkichi of the Senkichi-ten’ (or shop). (238)
 
It was while he was under arrest that Jirõkichi was questioned about his motives, and so gave the following statement:
 
“Since the 8th month of last year, I have been involved in gambling bouts against peasants and merchants of between 100 to 200 bun (equivalent to around 32.5 yen) at various places including Senju (part of modern Adachi-ku in Tokyo).  At these places I have indulged in games like mawari-zutsu (‘spinning the pipe’), chohan(odds and evens), and chobo-ichi (snake eyes). When I went to visit a friend of mine called Yasugorõ on the 3rd day of the 2nd month at the (Tsuchiya) household, I wasn’t able to meet him. So my wicked nature took over and I decided to rob the place”. (238)
 
Despite not actually haven taken anything from the household, a complaint was filed against Jirõkichi, and so on the 2nd day of the 5th month, he was sentenced to first be tattooed (thus marking him as a criminal) and then to be banished from Edo to a ‘middle distance’ from the city (in the case of commoners, this meant that a person could not commit a crime or enter any territory in the four directions extending ten ri (between 32 to 40 kilometres) from Edo itself).  (238)
 
Another tale also exists regarding Jirõkichi’s attempted break-in at the Tsuchiya household. According to this story, when Jirõkichi entered the quarters of the former ruler of Tsuchiura (known as an Inkyõ. In samurai households, it was not unusual for former rulers to co-habit with the current ruler in order to serve as an advisor and mentor) he was seized by one of the former ruler’s guards.  When Jirõkichi was being handed over to the town magistrate, the Inkyõ had a change of heart, and so paid the 10 ryõ bail money to let Jirõkichi go free.  But why would he do this? 
 
Apparently Jirõkichi was quite adept at lying, and had told the old man that ‘I am taking care of my sick mother, and am living in the depths of poverty’. (238-239)
 
After being banished from Edo, Jirõkichi spent some time in the Kyoto area (one source says that he spent half the year on a pilgrimage to Konpira shrine). However he soon drifted back again, and so broke the law.  He changed his name to Jirõbei, and again took up living with his parents. His tattoo mark would obviously become a problem if discovered.  So after asking a certain Kanejirõ for assistance, one of his old acquaintances from his time as a falconer in the samurai household, he managed to have the tattoo modified by disguising it under depictions of clouds and dragons, thereby keeping his criminal past a secret. (239)
 
Jirõbei (as we will now call him) then changed his living address to Yujima 6 chõme, and took up an ostensible trade selling steamed vegetables. His real profession, however, remained gambling.  Before long Jirõbei again found himself short on funds, and so reverted to the one sure-fire way to redress this problem – stealing from samurai households.  From the time he managed to break into the residence of Matsudaira Daigaku no Gashira (lord of Moriyama in Mutsu province) sometime during 7th month of Bunsei 8, until his arrest on the 4th day of the 5th month of Tenpõ 3 (1832) after attempting to rob the residence of Matsudaira Kunaishõ-yû (lord of Obata in Kõzuke province), Jirõbei conducted over 80 burglaries on various samurai households. Following his arrest, he was eventually handed to city authorities on the 19th of the 8th month of Tenpõ 3 and imprisoned. 
 
It was believed that in all, Jirõbei had carried out over 100 burglaries, with a combined loot value of over 3,100 ryõ.  (239) 
 
A talent for lying
 
Having been born on the narrow streets of Edo, filled with its theatres and tea houses, Jirõbei was almost certainly influenced by these, if not also by his theatrical father. Nezumi Kõzõ Jirõkichi (back to that name once again) was the city equivalent of Inaka (or rural) Kõzõ (another famous robber of his day), and had just enough theatrical ability to make him a star in the role of a theatrical villain. Of course, when I say theatrical ability, what I mean is that he had a particular talent for telling fibs.  The truth is that Jirõkichi was not only talented at making his way across moats and scaling walls to enter daimyõ households, he also had a distinct knack for being able to lie his way out of trouble. (240)
 
Matsuura Seizan managed to get hold of a copy of the confession Jirõkichi made to another of Matsuura’s compatriot officials, one Ueda Bõ.  He then included this in his ‘Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle’ (in the eighty-first scroll containing edits), and it is from this that I will draw the following quotes.  I should also add that there are many records and tales in existence in regard to Nezumi Kozõ, and so it is particularly difficult to judge which are reliable and which are not.  Yet for all that, a deposition created by a city official based on a direct confession should probably be regarded as trustworthy. (240) 

• About ten years ago, as I was passing through the front gate of the residence belonging to Arima Genba no Kami (lord of Kurume in Chikugo province), I lied that I had some business with the falcon coop keeper, and so was allowed to enter the household grounds.  Later that night, I stole around 5 ryõ worth of gold from the room belonging to the chief retainer to the women’s quarters.  
• Around ten years ago, as I passed through the front gate of the residence of Lord Mito (one of the three great Tokugawa households), I told the guards on duty that I had business in the ‘Edo room’ and they let me in.  Later on, I stole around 70 ryõ in gold after sneaking into the room of the chief retainer of the women’s quarters.
• Four or five years ago, as I made my way through the entrance gate to the residence of Matsudaira Izumi no Kami (lord of Nishio in Mikawa province), I told the guards on duty that I was a demawari (a close retainer to the lord of the household) so they let me in. Afterwards I stole 25 ryõ in gold. 
• Seven or eight years ago, as I was making my way through the front gate of the residence of Hosokawa Etchû no Kami (lord of Kumamoto in Higo province), I told the guards on duty that I had business in the quarters of retainers to the absentee (or rusu, 留守) official (essentially a senior minister of the household and personal retainer to the household lord who acted in his lord’s stead when the lord was absent).  I was allowed to enter, and stole 2 ryõ’s worth of gold from the chief retainer to the women’s quarters. (240-242)

 
With Jirõkichi’s level of acting skills, getting past the guards out front was a piece of cake.  He approached each gate honestly and openly, saying ‘Look, I’ve got an appointment with such-and-such, so how about letting me through?’.  (242)
 
To be continued.

This translation comes by way of a compilation of various records of crimes committed during the Edo period (1615-1868), written by Ujie Mikito, a historian of early modern Japan.  Ujie’s purpose in writing the book was to introduce to a broader audience some of the more fascinating cases from Edo (Tokyo)’s history. He has done this by firstly translating most of the content of the historical records into modern Japanese, and then placing each case in his historical context, with a bit of amateur psychology thrown in for good measure.  Interestingly, Ujie has chosen to break each case down into individual chapters, which he then recommends that the reader absorb in one go before moving on to the next case/chapter. In this sense, each chapter resembles something of a bedtime story (indeed Ujie recommends reading each case at night, preferably with a drink at hand).  However as you will see, some of these cases are not for the faint at heart or weak of stomach.  As is the case with my previous translations, all page numbers are in parenthesis/brackets, just in case you want to read the original text.  I’ve also included some explanations in the text for words and concepts that some readers might not be familiar with, and which can come in useful when reading other material about this era.
 
Ujie Mikito, “Historical records of crimes committed during the Edo period” (Kobunsho ni miru Edo hanzai kõ), Shõdensha, 2016.
 
Chapter One.  The case of the ‘thousand cuts’ killer
 
When examining crimes committed during the Edo period, it is clear that the motives, methods, number of victims and scale of heinousness of those crimes greatly varied.  So where should we start our investigation? While I don’t have any particular preference for such incidents, I’ll start by looking at a crime committed by a ‘stone-cold killer’ (in Japanese, a tõrima - literally ‘a passing devil’. This term used to refer to an incident where a person armed with some form of sharp implement, such as a knife or a sword or indeed any sort of implement, suddenly and violently begins randomly stabbing and slashing people around him or her without provocation). 
 
This particular incident comes courtesy of Ishizuka Hõkaishi’s “Collection of records of street gossip” (Daidan Bunbun Shûyõ).  
 
From the end of the 1st month (January) to the 3rd month of the 3rd year of Bunka (1806), someone in the city of Edo had taken to stabbing poor and disabled people to death with a spear after the sun went down.  Why? It was clear from the victims that the motive for such crimes wasn’t money. 
 
Let’s explore this in greater detail. At around 8pm on the 1st day of the 3rd month, a 32 year old blind ‘vagrant’ was stabbed by a spear on the road just below Mizaka in the city of Edo and later died of his wounds.  Then on the 6th, at around 7pm in the evening, a 50 year old vagrant was stabbed on the road at Kõjimachi San-nõ-chõ and gravely wounded. 
 
There would be another two victims on the 6th.  At 9pm, on the road out the back of Kõjimachi Ichõme, a 45 year old blind masseuse had been stabbed and wounded. At around the same time, on the road at Asakusa Higashigachõ, a 25 year old apprentice to a local doctor was stabbed and killed. (14, 15)
 
It appeared that a serial killer was on the loose.  The killer may not have been acting alone, and we can’t rule out the possibility that some of these incidents might have been ‘copycat’ killings inspired by the original murder.  In all, 13 people were attacked with a spear between the 1st and 3rd months, and 6 died. 7 or 8 victims managed to flee from their attacker after being wounded. 
 
Luckily the culprit was finally apprehended in the 4th month, and on the 13th day of the same month was handed over to authorities for sentencing. He was executed at the prison grounds at Suzugamori on the same day and his head was put on display.  The culprit had previously served as a retainer within a samurai household, and his motive appeared to be a desire to test his spear training on a living human body. Unable to control himself, he had then repeated his crimes. (15)
 
The joy shared by the arrest of the culprit was short-lived, however.  On the very day that he was executed, another blind masseuse was stabbed at Asakusa, and four days after the retainer’s execution, on the 27th of the 4th month, 3 people were stabbed in the vicinity of Kagurazaka.  One of these was a lad aged 17.  On his way back from collecting some medicine from a local doctor to give to his mother who had suddenly fallen ill, the boy was stabbed through the chest, from the ribcage through to the spine, and died almost instantly.  The weapon this time was not a spear, but a newly forged carving knife which had been left in the body of the victim after the culprit fled. (15, 16)
 
A similar series of incidents later occurred throughout the 11th and 12th months of the same year.  Yet again, all of the victims were either itinerants or disabled.  Despite the implementation of stricter restrictions on movement by the various towns within the city of Edo, authorities were still unable to catch the culprit.  
 
As the perpetrator of the original crimes had been put to death in the 4th month, the continuation of such incidents was believed to be a result of copycat killings. (16)
 
Be that as it may, it doesn’t explain why such grotesque crimes were repeatedly happening to the infirm and those at the very bottom of society.
 
In Edo, the practice of samurai attacking passers-by in order to test the sharpness of their swords (known in Japanese as tsuji-giri) occurred from time to time. However the perpetrator of the serial crimes in the 3rd year of Bunka was no samurai.  Moreover the man executed earlier who belonged to the samurai household was believed to have been a simple town resident (or else a peasant). Hence whomever had committed the copycat crime with the carving knife was also not a member of the warrior class. (16)
 
It appeared as the the perpetrators of these incidents wanted to kill a living human being, be it with a spear or a knife.  They may have sought out the experience for the thrill and sensation that it gave them.  However such abominable motives led to miserable ends. (16, 17)
 
The work of a devil
 
The next record was written by Matsuura Seizan and titled “Kasshi Yawa” (Evening Tales of the First Lunar Cycle). Matsuura was a venerable elder (and former ruler) of Hirado district of Hizen province (modern Nagasaki and Saga prefectures, land that came with a stipend of 60,000 koku a year (a koku being a unit of measurement, with 1 koku being the amount of rice deemed necessary to feed one man for one year). His writing contains some important records of crimes. One of those concerned a series of murders that took place in the 5th month of the 9th year of Bunsei (1826). (17) 
 
At around 6pm on the 18th day of the 5th month of Bunsei 9, a man by the name of Kingorõ, an apprentice to a business located in Kohinata Myõgatani chõ (another part of Edo), was making his way home from the local bathhouse when he was set upon by a number of assailants. He was cut open from his left hip to his throat and quickly expired.  The culprits fled the scene, and their motive remained a mystery.  Kingorõ had been making his way to the bathhouse with barely any clothing on, hence the perpetrators cannot have been seeking to rob him of any money he might possess. It looked as though this was yet another tõrima incident. (17)   
 
At around 9pm on the same night, an official by the name of Kamekichi, working in front of the temple of Dentsûin at Ko-ishikawa, came across two men who appeared to be samurai on the path above the district of Tomisaka.  Kamekichi saw both men reach for the swords and move to strike him, whereupon Kamekichi quickly ran off and lived to tell the tale.  Then at 7pm on the 20th of the 5th month, a peasant by the name of Gonbei of Kazusa province was walking along the banks of a moat outside of the Hitotsubashi gate when somebody took a swing at him with a sword from above his straw (kasa) hat.   Gonbei chased after his assailants, all two of them, but lost sight of them in the dark.  It was after returning to his house that Gonbei first noticed that he had a 3cm gash in his forehead.  
 
The fact that Gonbei hadn’t noticed his injury because he was so surprised at having been randomly attacked in the first place bore a striking similarity to the tale of Tetsugorõ, a carpenter of the Tõkichi school at Fukugawa. At around 6pm on the 5th day of the 6th month of Bunsei 9, Tetsugorõ was set upon by an unknown number of assailants on his way back to Fukugawa from Morishita chõ. Despite being quite incapacitated by alcohol, somehow Tetsugorõ managed to get away.  He didn’t even notice that he had a cut running across his back until after he returned home and tried to have a bath.  The blood that ran from his back into the water told him all he needed to know about the attack on him. (18)
 
Were his attackers attempting to test their swords out on Tetsugorõ or was simple murder their motivation? Whatever the case may be, as far as Seizan was concerned these serial murders were ‘the work of a devil’. (18)
 
The madness of Magara Shingorõ
 
Up until now we have been dealing with the opening act, but now it is time to move on to the main event.  I should add that simply quoting from the source would be difficult for readers to understand, hence I would like to introduce the next case by offering my own interpretation of the original text. (19)
 
On the evening of the 24th day of the 8th month of Kanbun 3 (1663), in an area between a grass field and Koku-chõ - a part of the Nihonbashi district - a number of incidents occurred where people passing through that area were randomly attacked.  8 people in all were killed while another 10 were wounded.  Despite occurring in the dead of night, people were soon rushing to their local magistrates’ houses to demand something be done to put a stop to such madness. (19)
 
The identity of the culprit remained a mystery, however.  Then, at about 8 am the following day, a monk from the Kõya monastery by the name of Shinetsubõ made his way to the local magistrate’s residence at Koku-chõ and relayed the following information:
 
“Last night, a well-disposed rõnin (unemployed samurai) by the name of Magara Shingorõ came to visit me at my house. Upon arrival, he asked “I have been holed up at Atagoyama (part of Edo city) where I have been offering prayers.  However I am very tired. Might I rest here for a while?”.  He looked like a fairly stable, trustworthy sort of fellow so I let him in. Almost as soon as he had entered, he suddenly dropped down onto the floor and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
 
This morning, when I went to take breakfast to Magara in his room, where he was still asleep, I noticed that he had blood on various parts of his clothing.  Not only that, the sword that he had drawn from its scabbard and placed upright on the floor was covered in blood, right up to the hilt.  Being that he is a large man, and unsure what he might do after he wakes up, I’ve hidden both his main and short swords as a precaution”. 
 
The magistrate exclaimed “That’s him, that’s the culprit. Seize him”, and dispatched a posse of retainers off to Shinetsubõ’s house.  Upon entering the house, the posse found Magara sound asleep and easily overpowered him.  He was then taken back to the official’s residence, and gave the following response to questioning:
 
“Ordinarily I pray at Atago Shrine. Last night, while I was praying, I received a divine message which said “You should cut one thousand people starting tonight. If you do this, all of your wishes shall come true.” So I left Atagoyama and ran about cutting anybody I happened to come across, just cutting and running, cutting and running. I remember cutting around 20 or 30 people, but I have no idea whether they are still alive or dead”. 
 
Magara then made a final request, which was to “Please allow me to continue to cut a thousand people.  My wishes won’t come true if I don’t”.  So in addition to randomly attacking numerous passers-by and causing their deaths, not only was Magara barely aware of the gravity of his crimes, he had the audacity to ask the local magistrate to allow him to continue to perpetrate them. What is more, the expression on his face, with his wide-open eyes and gritted teeth, made him appear as if he was in the grips of madness. (20, 21)
 
The sword that Magara used to commit his crimes was around 3 shaku (approximately 90 cm) in length and 3.4 cm in width, forged by Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke. It appears that Magara had only to swing at each passer-by once for him to cut them down. Hence after the incident the sword was highly regarded for its cutting edge, and Kunisuke himself became renowned as a master swordsmith and a maker of superlative blades. (21)
 
‘To cut a thousand people’ 
 
The above incident (which I have taken to calling ‘the case of the thousand cuts killer’) has many things in common with modern incidents committed by tõrima. 
 
Magara prayed fervently in the hope that it would make his wishes come true.  His main wish was probably to secure a good job as an official somewhere (i.e., be re-hired). Here he was, a powerfully built individual, excelling in military arts and literate. So why was he still unemployed? His overconfidence in his own abilities and dissolution with a society that didn’t acknowledge his skills, combined with his anxiety over an uncertain future and current poverty, must have damaged his psyche. Hence his ‘auditory hallucination’ of receiving a message from the gods, which transformed him into a mass murderer. (22)
 
This conjecture might seem pretty forced, but it is entirely possible that these were the sort of thoughts going through Magara’s head before he committed his crimes. Obviously everyone’s past is different.  And it is not so easy to simply compare Magara Shingorõ with the perpetrators of modern tõrima incidents, but still…
 
Actually, there is one point where Magara’s case differs considerably to the modern day. Magara’s case occurred at a time when the smell of blood still tainted the air of the warrior class.  The fact that Magara’s sword, which would otherwise be regarded as a murder weapon, could instead be praised for its sharpness speaks volumes about the times in which the incident happened. I very much doubt in this day and age that a knife used to perpetrate a tõrima incident would later start flying off the shelves because of the maker’s claim that it ‘cuts really well’. (22, 23)
 
Nevertheless, no matter how much we put Magara’s behaviour down to his insanity, I have no words to express my horror at his request to ‘be allowed to keep on cutting a thousand people’.  It was as though he had shamelessly declared “As a warrior, I have been lenient. So please allow me kill another 900 or so people”.  No matter how heinous a crime might be committed today, I doubt the culprit would utter words so detached from reality. (23) 
 
But what exactly was this phenomenon Magara spoke of – this ritual of ‘cutting one thousand people’? (sennin-kiri, not to be confused with the modern use of this expression which refers to something ENTIRELY different) 
 
For the answer to this, I first must thank the naturalist, botanist, and cultural anthropologist Minagata Kumakuzu, a ‘giant of knowledge’.  I wonder if you are familiar with his work ‘About the cutting of a thousand people’ (Sennin-kiri no Hanashi) published in Meiji 45 (1912)? Minagata, who was in his late 50s when he wrote that essay, was a collector of the historical records and literature of this country, and not only offered up examples of the ritual of ‘one thousand cuts’, but followed the trail of clues all the way back to its origins in the Angulimala Sutra.  That tale can be summarised as follows: (23, 24)
 
“The teacher Baramon had a gifted young acolyte of whom he was jealous.  In order to try and get the young monk to ‘remove himself’ (i.e., commit suicide) he laid false accusations on him, saying ”You are an evil person”, and ordered the young monk “to kill one thousand people in order to wash away the stain of your sins”.  The young monk, with no other option, proceeded to start killing people.
 
After killing nine hundred and ninety-nine people, the young monk had one person left to fulfil his task. At that moment, his mother, worried about her son’s emaciated form, brought him a delicious meal to eat.  When the son was on the verge of killing his mother, Lord Shakyamuni (Gautama Buddha) appeared, and explained how wrong the actions of the young monk were to him. The young monk then became enlightened, and would go on to become a venerated holy man.”   
 
Whatever the origins of this story may be, the fact is that it led to a stupid belief that if you kill one thousand people your wishes will be granted.  When this was combined with the nonchalance of the warring states period (1465-1615), when killing peasants was considered no great sin, and whose ethos was carried over into the early Edo period by the warrior class, this led to the appearance of people who repeatedly committed acts of tsuji-giri. It was these individuals who then proceeded to ‘glorify’ such acts of random terror by linking sennin-kiri to the fulfilment of a religious vow. (24, 25)
 
In sum, the ‘case of the thousand cuts killer’ took place at a time when an atmosphere of naked blood lust had yet to fade into history. It was a tragic practice perpetrated by rõnin that emerged in the early Edo period following the dissolution of many daimyõ (warlord) households. (25)
 
Amok Syndrome
 
Was the above crime an anomaly caused by the mental state of the perpetrator, something that would be familiar to the modern age, or was it a crime steeped in the mores and manners of its time? The jury is out on the verdict, but when examining the origins of the crime, one further theory emerged which I find quite intriguing. It is a theory that links such acts to a phenomenon that would be familiar to inhabitants of the Malay peninsula – that of ‘Amok Syndrome’. (25)
 
In his study of sennin-kiri, Minagata Kumakuzu had the following to say about ‘Amok Syndrome’:
 
“Debts, separation from loved ones, and punishment. When a man feels that these have all piled up and that there is no fairness left in the world, he temporarily goes insane, aware neither of what led him into his current state nor what its consequences will be. Taking a knife in hand, he runs about attacking people indiscriminately, men, women, young and old, without rest.  Afterwards, despite the deaths of scores of people, the mob will seemingly praise him for his act.” (26)
 
A man whose dissatisfaction and indignation have piled up to the point that he loses control of himself is transformed into a mass murderer.  After the crimes are committed, there is a tendency for people to find worth in the grotesqueness of such acts. In this sense, such acts closely resemble that committed by Magara Shingorõ. (26)
 
Minagata also wrote the following based on notes made by Alfred Wallace in his “Record of the Malay Islands”:
 
“56 years ago (around 1856), a series of incidents took place in Makassar (located in the centre of Sulawesi Island in eastern Indonesia). These occurred at the rate of once or twice a month.  The worst of these would see 20 or so people killed or injured.” 
 
The origins of the word ‘amok’ were explained in Chapter Six of Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works”. According to Pinker:
 
“Amok is a Malay word for the homicidal sprees occasionally undertaken by lonely Indochinese men who have suffered a loss of love, a loss of money, or a loss of face.” 
 
Pinker also points out records of such acts being committed in Papua New Guinea. In terms of the relationship between ‘Amok Syndrome’ and indiscriminate acts of mass murder, Pinker made the following observation.  In 1986, 7 men admitted to a hospital in Papua New Guinea and suffering from ‘Amok Syndrome’ were interviewed and analysed, with the results comprising the basis for the ‘amok mindset’. These results were identical to the thoughts held by Thomas Hamilton, the perpetrator of the Dunblane Massacre. On the 13th of March 1996, Hamilton walked into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and proceeded to murder sixteen children and their teacher using various guns before killing himself. (27)
 
Pinker explained the ‘amok mindset’ thus:
 
“I am not an important or “big man”.  I possess only my personal sense of dignity. My life has been reduced to nothing but an intolerable insult.  Therefore, I have nothing left to lose except my life, which is nothing, so I trade my life for yours, as your life is favoured.  The exchange is in my favour, so I shall not only kill you, but I shall kill many of you, and at the same time rehabilitate myself in the eyes of the group of which I am a member, even though I might be killed in the process.” 
 
Even in samurai households of the Bakumatsu era….
 
One could therefore say that the ‘case of the thousand cuts killer’ that took place on the evening of the 24th of the 8th month of Kanbun 3 (1663), steeped though it was in the mores of the early Edo period, was a tragedy whose origins lay in the amok mindset of its perpetrator, a mindset whose existence transcends both time and place.  
 
Tonight’s story thus ends here. Or does it? Since we’ve come this far, I’ll relay the details of one further case that took place during the Edo period.
 
On the evening of the 10th of the 9th month of Kaei 4 (1851, during what is known in Japanese as the Bakumatsu era, when the Tokugawa shõgunate was in its twilight years yet before the emerge of Japan as a modern state), an incident took place in the residence of one of Tokugawa shõgunate’s close retainers, that of Hongõ Tango no Kami Yasukata.    One of the members of the household retinue managed to cut his way into the female quarters at the centre of the household, where he proceeded to strike five women down before killing himself. (28)
 
A doctor was called for, yet all of the women were already dead. I’m not really sure what sort of treatment they were hoping the doctor would be able to offer.  Nevertheless this incident was recorded in the ‘Naniwa Diary’ (Naniwa Nikki) written by Kawaji Toshiakira. It seems that Minagata wasn’t aware of the existence of this book, and so it wasn’t included in his study of sennin-kiri. (28)
 
But what became of Magara Shingorõ? He had gone about slicing up victims with abandon and so, no surprises here, wasn’t spared execution.  The conclusion to this case is recorded in the “Collection of Various Tales and Testimonies of Martial Houses” (Bumon Shosetsu Shûi), which said:
 
“And so Shingorõ, despite being affected by madness, was found guilty of having killed a large number of people and was cut down.”  
 
This “cut down” tells us that even seppuku (ritual suicide) was considered too good for someone of the likes of Magara. (29)

Yoshida Yutaka, “Nippon Gunpeishi – Ajia Taiheiyõ Sensõ no Genjitsu” (Soldiers of Japan – the Reality of the Asia – Pacific War), Chuõkõron, 2018 (page numbers are in parenthesis)
 
The deaths of Kamikaze pilots – Excessive expectations versus reality
 
One of the more unique forms of death in battle that occurred during the desperate final stages of the Pacific War was, of course, those of the well-known Tokkõtai (‘special attack squad or group’).  The Tokkõtai (the abbreviated version of Tokubetsu Kõgeki Tai) were primarily involved in attacks (‘special air attacks’) against ships, whereby aircraft loaded with explosives would crash into the said ships.  There were other forms of such attacks, such as the so-called ‘Unyõ’, which involved crashing a motor boat known as a ‘Marule’ into the side of ships (‘special above-water attacks’), and attacks by single-seat, modified torpedos known as ‘Kaiten’ (‘special under-water attacks’).  However it was the attacks carried out by aircraft that led to the greatest number of casualties for Japan, and so it is upon these that I will focus my attention. (52)
 
The Tokkõtai made its first appearance in October 1944 as part of the defence plan for The Philippines. Its formal name was the Shinpû Tokubetsu Kõgeki Tai (although the reading of the characters for Shinpû was later modified to the more common Kamikaze). The original purpose of the Tokkõtai was to provide support to the fleet of Admiral Kurita in its attempt to break through to Leyte Gulf. Pilots would crash their aircraft into the flight decks of the US Navy’s main aircraft carriers, thereby rendering the carriers temporarily inoperable. They were not attempting to actually sink the carriers, and so their initial mission was limited in its scope.  However as the war progressed, the role of the Tokkõtai escalated. By the start of the Okinawan campaign towards the end of March 1945, the Tokkõtai had become both the army and navy’s principle strategy for resisting the US. Yet this meant that the expectations placed upon the Tokkõtai began to grow ever more excessive. (52)
 
For example, on the 26th of January 1945, Admiral Oikawa Koshirõ, Chief of the Naval Staff, wrote in relation to the distribution of 250 ‘Õka’ (‘cherry blossom’) flying bombs:
 
“At present, there are a variety of opinions regarding the state of the war, and while I recognize that the situation is grave, I do not regard it as critical.  A large number (250) of special weapons (human piloted Õka bombs) have been gathered together, and right now we have large numbers of recruits undergoing training at Kanoya (base). (Abridged) We had planned to deploy these pilots to Hitõjima (The Philippines’ front) by November of last year, but were not able to make it in time. However if these pilots can be used in the next (engagement), our military will reverse the situation, and we will be able to recapture territory extending as far as the Marianas”. (source: Takagi Sõkichi, Diary and Papers, Vol.2). (52, 53)
 
One of the former colleagues of Chief of Navy Admiral Oikawa, Admiral Okada Keisuke, had plenty of experience listening to Admiral Oikawa’s conversations, and had the following blunt remarks to say about Admiral Oikawa’s plan:
 
“I have to say, the idea of manufacturing 200 odd such weapons a month and then using them to retake territory from Hitõjima to Saipan was something a little akin to a dream.” (source: cited above). 
 
In truth, the expectations placed on the ‘Õka’ were no more than a dream.  The ‘Õka’ was a small, glider type aircraft packed with advanced rocketry and explosives and steered by a single human pilot.  Although many resources refer to it as a ‘rocket’, it was not officially regarded as one.  It would be suspended underneath a conventional ‘mother’ Mitsubishi G4M (‘Betty’) bomber aircraft and taken up into the air.  Upon approaching an enemy ship, it would be released from the mother aircraft.  The Õka pilot, locked into his cockpit, would then steer the aircraft using the air current.  Just before making contact with the enemy ship, the pilot would ignite the rocket, boosting the speed of the aircraft which then slam into the ship.  However because the over 2-ton ‘Õka’ had to be suspended beneath the 'mother' bomber aircraft, that significantly slowed the bomber down and impeded its manoeuvrability. Many bombers were attacked by enemy aircraft before they could launch their Õka, and thereby failed to contribute in any way to boosting Japan’s wartime successes. 
 
Furthermore, the maximum weight load that Japan’s Mitsubishi G4M bombers could carry in relation to torpedos or bombs and still be manoeuvrable was 800 kg.  The 21st of March 1945 marked the start of the use of Õka bombs. On that day, all 18 G4M bombers belonging to the “Shinrai Butai” (‘Thunder God Squadron’) took off on their mission, but none returned. (54)
 
The losses attributable to air attacks by the Tokkõtai by the end of the war were as follows:
 
Main aircraft carriers = 0 sunk, 26 damaged
Light aircraft carriers (smaller carriers modified from commercial vessels) = 3 sunk, 18 damaged 
Battleships = 0 sunk, 15 damaged
Cruisers = 0 sunk, 22 damaged
Destroyers = 13 sunk, 109 damaged
Other vessels (transport ships, amphibious ships etc.) = 31 sunk, 219 damaged
 
Hence for all the air attacks on naval shipping, no more than 47 ships in total were sunk.  On the other hand, the IJN lost 2,431 personnel in Tokkõtai based attacks, while the army lost 1,417, making a total of 3,848 lives. (source: Tokkõ – War and the Japanese People). 
 
The lack of success in sinking major ships meant that most of those sunk were smaller vessels.
 
Another reason why the Tokkõtai were not able to achieve much success was because in the aftermath of the Battle for The Philippines, the US strengthened its defences against suicide attacks. The US Navy deployed a number of destroyers equipped with powerful radar in front of its task force to act as a radar picket and to provide early warning of any incoming attacks and direct any fighter aircraft in response.  The Tokkõtai were not able to so easily break through this sort of forward defence line. (54, 55)

Furthermore, many of the planes used by the Tokkõtai were older models, flying laden down with the weight of explosives and so became easy prey for American fighter aircraft. The US Navy’s success in the development of variable time fuses (which used an electromagnetic wave pulse, thereby causing ammunition to automatically explode when it came within proximity to a target) led to the development from 1943 onwards of anti-aircraft shells installed with VT fuses, which in turn led to great success in anti-aircraft defence. (55)
 
The destructive power of the Tokkõtai
 
There are already a large range of sources about the Tokkõtai, so what I would like to focus on is the issue of the destructive power that the Tokkõtai were able to wield. 
 
When an aircraft undertakes a conventional attack against a surface target, the bomb that it drops is able to increase both its destructive power and its penetrating power through additional speed created by gravity. However in an attack committed by crashing into a target, an aircraft that undertakes a sudden dive in order to crash into a target creates lift, and so the aircraft itself begins to act as an airbrake (and slows down).  Hence when compared to bombs dropped from aircraft in accordance with conventional methods of attack, the damage caused by crashing an aircraft itself into a ship is much less extensive.  This is why Tokkõtai attacks on major US Navy vessels were unable to sink them. (56)
 
One piece of evidence that illustrates the lack of destructive and attacking power created by crashing an aircraft into a target is the tale of the US Navy destroyer, the USS Laffey (DD-724).  On the 16th of April 1945, the Laffey was acting as part of an advance radar warning picket line in the seas off Okinawa.  Over the course of 80 minutes, she was attacked 22 times by Tokkõtai aircraft and suffered extensive damage after being hit six times by aircraft and four times by bombs.  She was also strafed by Japanese aircraft, leading to a casualty list of 31 sailors dead or missing and 72 wounded.  Yet the Laffey did not sink, and was towed by other destroyers and tugboats back to a safe harbour where she underwent emergency repairs.  She was later able to sail to Guam under her own power. (source: Victory in the Pacific 1945). (56)
 
This example illustrates the high level of damage control capabilities possessed by the Americans (damage control being those measures taken onboard a vessel, such as firefighting, in order to minimise the amount of damage suffered). It also shows is that despite crashing six times into the Laffey, no Tokkõ aircraft were able to sink a comparatively small warship like a destroyer. (56).  
 
Tokkõ pilots themselves were aware of the limits of the effectiveness of flying a plane into a ship with a bomb still attached.  Hashimoto Yoshio, a pilot of a Zero-class fighter aircraft, examined the most effective way of crashing a plane into an enemy’s ship with his fellow pilots.  He wrote the following about those discussions:
 
“It was about this time that we started to consider dropping your bomb immediately before you yourself collided with the target (at a low altitude), as opposed to having the bomb skip and hit the ship while you performed a sudden evasive manoeuvre, or else hitting the ship yourself or trying to launch the bomb from a higher altitude.  The origins of this line of thinking came from the fact that if you could exploit the penetrating power of a 250 kg or 500 kg bomb then you could create a much larger explosion.  This emphasised using the weight of the bomb rather than simply hitting the target with the aircraft itself to increase the penetrating power and armour-piercing capability of the attack.  It was a very logical way of thinking.” (source: Student Kamikaze – Life and Death, Memoirs of a student pilot of the IJN 14th Naval Air Corps). (57) 
 
 ‘Skip bombing’ is understood to refer to releasing a bomb first before hitting a target with an airplane.  In truth, Tokkõ pilots themselves shifted to hitting targets using just their aircraft.  
 
In May 1945, two Zero-class Tokkõ aircraft crashed into the USS Bunker Hill, an Essex-class major aircraft carrier in the seas off Okinawa. While the carrier itself didn’t sink, it suffered extensive damage including the loss of close to 400 personnel.  Both of these aircraft managed to release their bomb payload immediately before crashing into the carrier.  (source: M.T Kennedy, Tokkõ). 
 
The reason the pilots Ogawa Kiyoshi and Yasunori Morimitsu, both Kamikaze pilots, chose this form of attack was because they shared a desire with fighter pilots to inflict the greatest amount of damage on the enemy.  It was the ultimate form of silent protest at the otherwise illogical, reckless attack strategy of the Tokkõtai. (58)
 
Among the various Tokkõ aircraft, there are examples of planes that had explosives placed in the cockpit, and others which had their bombs fixed to the aircraft body so that they would be unable to drop them. (58)

Yoshida Yutaka, “Nippon Gunpeishi – Ajia Taiheiyõ Sensõ no Genjitsu” (Soldiers of Japan – the Reality of the Asia – Pacific War), Chuõkõron, 2018 (page numbers in parenthesis)
 
Chapter 2. Deaths at sea 
 
Over 250,000 deaths at sea 
 
Among the narrow definitions of casualties that occur during conflict, a number of particular manners of death stood out during the war.  One of these was the large number of deaths that occurred at sea.  
 
Attacks by aircraft belonging to allied fleets and submarines during the Asia-Pacific War resulted in a considerable number of ships being sunk, although it should be noted that deaths at sea here refers to those who died when their ships were sunk.  Detailed estimates on the number of deaths that occurred in this manner are included in my previous work “The ecology of the former Japanese Imperial Army and Navy”, so here I will only use round numbers. (42) 
 
According to the “Compendium of research on fatalities resulting from the sinking of vessels during the Pacific War”, the number of deaths at sea came to 182,000 in the case of the navy and navy-affiliated personnel, while the army and army-affiliated personnel deaths came to 176,000, making an overall total death toll of 358,000.  By way of contrast, the total number of casualties for both the Japanese navy and army during the entire Russo-Japanese War was 88,133 (source: A military historical study of the Russo-Japanese War). This reveals the scale of the loss of so many personnel.  Furthermore, the Army Medical Service for Transport Vessels, in its own report, pointed out that “Almost half of all deaths that occurred during combat aboard transport vessels should be ascribed to drowning” (source: Transport Ship Hygiene). (43)
 
The leading cause for so many deaths at sea was the great success that US Navy submarines had in sinking ships.  During the course of the Second World War, the US Navy lost 52 submarines, yet it managed to sink 1,314 vessels, making a combined commercial tonnage of 5.2 million tons. What this meant is that for every US submarine sunk, it managed to sink 25 commercial Japanese ships.  The German Kriegsmarine lost 781 U-boats during the war but sank 2,828 commercial vessels, for a combined tonnage of 15.5 million tons.  This resulted in a U-boat loss to vessel sunk ratio of 1:3.6, thereby giving the US a comfortable lead. However in the case of the Japanese Imperial Navy, it lost 127 I-class submarines but only sank 184 commercial ships, for a combined tonnage of 500,000 tons. This resulted in a loss to sunk ratio of little more than 1:1.4. (43)
 
The US Navy’s submarine campaign against Japan underwent a dramatic shift from around the middle of 1943.  The US Navy not only managed to reduce the number of defects in its torpedos, which up until this time had suffered from either premature detonation or failure to explode, it also successfully broke Japan’s commercial shipping codes.  This made it possible for US submarines to lie in wait for transport ships and ambush them (source: Research notes concerning the campaign to destroy Japan’s commercial shipping). (43)

Another reason for why so many Japanese troops died at sea was because most of the commercial vessels used to transport troops by the Imperial Japanese Army were requisitioned cargo ships. The interior compartments of these ships were narrow and cramped, despite being renovated, and hosted large numbers of troops.  As a result, when these ships began to sink, it became impossible for all of the personnel on board to escape.  In time, the loss of so many commercial vessels led to a shortage in ships, which meant that many of those ships still available were then overloaded with men and materials. This then exacerbated the amount of losses in personnel suffered when these ships were sunk. (source: Battlefields and Soldiers of the Asia-Pacific War). (44)
 
The Transport Ship Hygiene of the Army Medical Service for Transport Vessels, quoted earlier, pointed out that one of the particular characteristics of transport ships was the narrowness of the living spaces. Military transport ships had, on average, between 3 to 4 soldiers occupying a space of 1 tsubo (around 3.3 metres squared).  If 5 fully laden soldiers occupied a space of 1 tsubo, it would have been impossible for any of them to freely move about. In September 1944, Fukuoka Yoshio, a trainee medic on board a transport ship heading for The Philippines, wrote the following about his experience on the ship (44):
 
“Like slaves on board a slave ship, soldiers were crammed into the hold of transport ships over and above the prescribed number of crew.  Those who couldn’t get up on deck suffered from a debilitating fever (heatstroke) because of the dramatic increase in temperature and humidity in the hold. This led an increase in body temperature and the onset of shock. Over time, soldiers lost complete control over regulation of their central nervous system and many died.  Whenever this happened, I would accompany the body for burial at sea. I witnessed many a sad, tragic end, as the body of the soldier, with no relatives to farewell it, disappeared beneath the waves.” (source: A Doctor’s Greater East Asian War) (44)
 
According to Dr. Fukuoka, one reason that many of the younger soldiers who had just joined the army couldn’t go up on deck was because many of the veterans had parked themselves and their equipment near the exits to the deck in order to make use of the fresh air for themselves. (44)
 
“The 8-knot convoy” – Applying the spurs to a worn-out fleet of cargo ships
 
Another problem that the military faced was the lack of capability in Japan’s transport fleet.  During the Pacific War, in order to meet the military’s demand for transport vessels, a large number of ships were constructed that met wartime specifications.  Simplicity in design and construction, a shortened construction schedule, and savings on material and labour meant that speed of construction was prioritized to the detriment of the vessel’s capability. (45)
 
A variety of wartime-regulation ship types were constructed during the war. If we examine the speed at which such cargo ships travelled, a 1st generation cargo ship had a top speed, in the fastest class, of 12.3 knots, while the slowest type had a top speed of 10 knots.  A 2nd generation vessel could move, at the fastest, at 10 knots, while the slowest moved at 7 knots.  A 3rd generation vessel could move at 14 knots at the fastest, and 7.5 knots at the slowest.  A 4th generation vessel, which prioritised speed, could move at a top speed of 18 knots (source: A History of Wartime Ship Construction). (45)

Transport ships and tankers would make up part of a naval convoy where they would grouped together to protect them from attacks from submarines and aircraft.  Some ships within these convoys travelled at the comparatively low speed of 8 knots (around 15 kilometres an hour), which forced the remaining ships to modify their speed to match that of the slowest vessels.  Such convoys were referred to as “8 knot convoys”. These became the norm in time, which caused considerable problems for those vessels ordered to escort them.  (46)
 
To protect these “8 knot convoys” from submarine attack, the convoy would engage in zig-zag manoeuvres known as “noji manoeuvres” (because of the resemblance the movements had to the character no, or 之).  This often resulted in convoys having to drop their speed to 6 knots in order to successfully complete such manoeuvres (source: A Record of conversations with the Commander of the Combined Fleet).  (46)
 
Let’s have a look in more detail at what happened to transport ships after they had been attacked.  Both fatalities and injuries would result from explosions caused by either torpedos or bombs.  Within the ship this could provoke different reactions - from those who froze out of fear, to those who lost all sense of reason. Even though you might successfully escape from inside the ship, there would be a scramble to get hold of floating equipment like boats and rafts.  According to the “Military Regulations - No.49 - Lessons for use during difficulties at sea” (dated 18th January 1945) 
 
“Either seize a flotation device or get hold of one and use it exclusively. Do not worry about others but save your own life. There are many examples of sailors losing their lives trying to save both themselves and others.” (46)
 
One example of this ‘survival at all costs’ mentality was the tragedy that struck the ‘Taiseimaru’.  In April 1945, the Taiseimaru (1,948 tons) was making its way to Hakodate as part of the 3rd Amphibious Brigade. After being attacked by a submarine, she sank in the seas off Niikappu Seppuchõ in Hokkaido. (source: A History of Wartime Shipping).  One crew member of the Amphibious Brigade, Õyashiki Kiyoshi, provided an eyewitness account of what happened next:
 
“Soldiers floating around in the sea called out for help from the “Taihatsu” (an amphibious boat) and attempted to cling onto its side. I then saw an officer draw his sword and cut the arms off a number of soldiers (armless corpses later washed up on nearby beaches).” (source: Survey materials concerning records of wartime experiences and conversations, Vol.1). (47)
 
The writer Yoshimura Akira would cover this incident and use it for the basis for his story “The Sea Casket”. However he would supress the name of the ship, the unit involved, and the name of the place where the incident occurred. (47)
 
Pressure injuries and injuries from underwater explosions
 
Other forms of injury that occurred when a vessel sunk, but which were not widely recognised as war injuries, were pressure injuries and injuries that resulted from underwater explosions.  Pressure injuries usually refers to injuries that occur from the shock that the body (such as the legs) has to absorb after landing on the ground or a hard surface following a fall from a great height.   However Lieutenant Yamada Junichi, of the former Imperial Army Medical Corps, had a particular fascination with the problem of pressure injuries caused as a result of military action, and made the following observation about this phenomenon:
 
“During the recent war, ship explosions resulting from hits from individual mines (underwater mines or torpedos) created the opposite effect to what would ordinarily happen. An explosion would create such a shockwave that personnel on either the deck of a ship or in the water would be sent flying through the air. In addition to severe pressure injuries, there were other forms of injury including wounds from the explosion itself, contusions, bruising, fractures, burns, perforated eardrums, and internal injuries which ranged from simple to severe. It was common for multiple injuries to temporarily combine to form one major injury.” (source: War diary of a medical officer sent to The Philippines) (47, 48)
 
According to Yamada, among the recorded fatalities that occurred after being sunk, “44% had pressure injuries that accompanied (their other injuries).” (48)
 
But what about injuries that resulted from underwater explosions? Another medical officer who served during the Asia-Pacific War, Kunimi Hisahiko, knew of the type of wounds that could result from underwater explosions as a result of his studies at the naval medical school.   In his memoirs, he wrote:
 
“If an explosion happened to occur near someone floating in the sea, the organs of the victim would begin to rupture one after another despite the absence of any visible wounds to the outside of the body. They would suffer severe abdominal pain, which would gradually lead to emaciation and then death.  It was a horrible way to die.  At first, we didn’t know what the cause of death was, but soon learnt that it accompanied anyone who had been in the vicinity of an underwater explosion caused by a depth charge.” (source: Diary “Onkõ Chishin”) (48) 
 
Depth charges were the most common form of anti-submarine weapon. They were carried by destroyers and submarine chasers for use against enemy submarines in order to protect convoys. They would either be dropped or launched from an anti-submarine vessel and would explode underwater.  (48)
 
One record of the type of casualties that resulted from underwater explosions was documented by naval medical officer Hatano Katsumi. In January 1944, Hatano was stationed at Rabaul where he was responsible for providing medical assistance.  In his memoir of the war, he wrote:
 
“I had never treated so many suffering patients before.  Patients would complain about the terrible pains in their stomachs, which were so painful that it would make them cry.  They would be vomiting up blood.” (source: The Cave Hospital of Rabaul)
 
Hatano would later recognize what the cause of these injuries was.  In June 1942, Lieutenant Satõ Mamoru graduated from the naval medical school. In July 1944, Satõ found himself on Cerebus Island and responsible for operating on patients suffering from injuries caused by underwater explosions.   In his memoirs, he wrote:
 
“The crew of a cargo ship that had been torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine found themselves floating in the sea.  The shockwaves caused by depth charges dropped by friendly submarine chasers carrying out attacks on enemy submarines would cause ruptures in the intestines of these sailors. Soon there were around ten patients who had contracted peritonitis all at once.  (Abridged) When we opened their intestines up, we were astonished to find that the intestines of all of the patients had suffered ruptures in various places. There was a peculiar trait to that part of the body, (Abridged) and so from that we were able to discern that the injuries were not a result of the shockwave passing through the wall of the intestine, but rather explosive pressure had forced its way into the intestine via the anus, and damage to the intestine wall had thus occurred from within the intestine itself.” (source: Clouds over the sea) (49)
 
Hence although we might think of only one type of death at sea, in truth death came in many different forms. (49)
 
“There were a sudden series of incidents of men going mad”
 
One further issue regarding deaths at sea that can’t be ignored was the psychological trauma that accompanied any experience of being sunk.  As losses in shipping began to dramatically escalate, a sense of dread would spread among the troops onboard a transport ship making its way out of port.  From February to March 1943, a campaign was waged to increase the amount of supplies reaching New Guinea.  During the ‘81st campaign’, aerial attacks by US and Australian aircraft resulted in the loss of 8 cargo transport ships and 4 destroyers, thereby annihilating an entire convoy.  This was referred to as the ‘Battle of the Bismarck Sea’ (in English, or the ‘Dampier Strait Tragedy’ in Japanese). (50)
 
Tsuchii Zenjirõ wrote the following words in his memoir, based on his notes taken in relation to the state of the soldiers and crew scheduled for embarkation:
 
“Many of those marked for embarkation would gradually fall ‘silent’ and begin to feel ill.  In the afternoon of the day before embarkation, when tension had reached its maximum point, there were a sudden series of incidents of men going mad among the soldiers making their way into the holds of the transport ships.  This became a serious problem.  What is more, these men were so affected (by their madness) that they clearly weren’t faking it.” (source: Records of crews from sunken vessels) (50)
 
The state of mind of troops who had been rescued after their ships were sunk was also a serious issue.  In a number of military reports, personnel who had been rescued after “being in a perilous situation”:
 
 “would ordinarily display a more sensitive mental state for some time afterwards, particularly a heightened sense of fear” which, it was noted, would interfere in the performance of the soldier’s military duties (source: “Lessons for use during difficulties at sea” quoted earlier) (51)
 
There were also regiments who, along with losses in men and materials, also lost their battle flags.  Battle flags were flags presented to small infantry and cavalry units by the Emperor at the time of their formation. Along with the psychological, almost mythical, importance attached to objects received directly from the Emperor, it symbolised the unity, or the cohesiveness of the particular regiment. These were the flags that sank together with their regiments. (51) 
 
A specific example of this occurred in November 1942, when a ship carrying the 170th Infantry Regiment was torpedoed by a submarine in the seas off Palau, resulting in the loss of the regiment’s battle flag.   In April 1944, the 210th Infantry Regiment suffered the loss of its battle flag when their transport ship was sunk in the Bashi Channel. And again, in August 1944, the 13th Infantry Division suffered the loss of its battle flags when their transport ships were also sunk in the Bashi Channel by submarine-launched torpedoes. (source: Infantry and Cavalry Units and their Battle Flags). (51) 
 
One could say that this was a fitting symbol for the destruction of “the Emperor’s Army”. (51)

This translation is of a chapter from a book by Majima Mitsuru, which details his time as a soldier within the 30th Army Engineer Regiment sent to fight on the New Guinea front from February 1943 through to around October 1944. As you will see, Majima pulls no punches in his criticisms of what he believed was the gross negligence of the Imperial Japanese military in sending troops into an environment without adequate supplies, reinforcements, or even a definitive plan.  While Majima’s style of writing tends to be stream of conscious, which is why it is given to suddenly veering off on a completely different tangent, it does provide some insight in the mindset of at least one Japanese soldier sent to fight in New Guinea and the reality of what that meant for him and others like him.  As per usual, numbers in parenthesis refer to page numbers.
 
Majima Mitsuru, “A War Diary of New Guinea:  The ill-fated army that vanished among mountain peaks and jungles”, Kõjinsha, Reprinted 2003
 
Chapter One.  Defence to the death, and self-sacrifice
 
An island of coral
 
Rabaul – an island whose exposure to the heat of the sun makes it seem as though it sits directly beneath the Equator; an island of coral surrounded by a crystal blue sea common to islands in the south and covered by jungle.  It was an island that would be familiar to any Japanese who had heard the song titled “the air unit of Rabaul”.  It is an island tempting enough to convince anybody to visit it at least once. 
 
And yet it was a battlefield.  There was no gaiety that you would find at any tourist resort.  Beneath an unfamiliar sky, the entire base was surrounded by jungle.  It was here that General Imamura Hitoshi, commander of the 8th Area Army, decided to place himself as the pivot for Japan’s southern strategy along with Lieutenant General Hyakutake Harukichi, commander of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 17th Army, who was subordinate to General Imamura.  As for the Imperial Japanese Navy, Rabaul would serve as headquarters for Rear Admiral Kusaka Jinichi, commander of the Southeast Area Fleet, and under whose command fell the 8thFleet.  
 
Rabaul was an important strategic point vital to the control of both the Solomon Islands and New Guinea itself.  With its gentle waves, deep water and with an almost spherical, broad coastline, it formed a good, natural harbour.  Small numbers of destroyers and submarines were able to weigh anchor there while awaiting their next mission.  At first glance this arrangement looked peaceful and orderly, yet these vessels represented the remnants from various sea battles.  The Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, the Battle of Midway in June the same year, and then the First to Third Battles of the Solomon Islands that took place between August and November had resulted in the loss of IJN superiority to the allied fleet.  These destroyers and submarines had evacuated to Rabaul with what was left of various units from Guadalcanal, and were mainly being used to ferry men and supplies to the front in New Guinea. (16-17)
 
At the entrance to the harbour lies a dormant volcano covered in grey volcanic ash. On the shoreline around the base of the volcano are shoals made of coral, from which steam escapes through fissures in the coral and form natural hot springs. As the island had no fresh water source of its own apart from rainwater, various units poured the hot spring water into cans and then used this for their baths. The flat plain from which steam rose up to cover the harbour was used as a base for air units. (17)
 
Along one section of the shoreline, the atmosphere was similar to that of small fishing villages that one could find in Japan.  The unfinished houses that made up the village were made of flat, simple plywood, lined up one after another.  A sober grocery store sold simple woven goods of earthen colours made by local people, or else metal goods. And everywhere one could see flowers that resembled weeds that grow virtually everywhere throughout the world, and which sprang back to life no matter how many times you stamped on them. (17) The company houses that the Caucasians had abandoned were used as lodgings for the command staff and naval officers.  The army expeditionary units, out of their element on the sea, made do by dividing themselves up among the fields in the vicinity of the bay near the mountains or else on the red-capped peaks.  (17-18) The narrow, flat plain areas located between the mountains were used to construct log cabins, with enough room in them for one company.  
 
Nonetheless, it was a long trip from Hiroshima Bay (then known by its former name of Ujina Bay), which lasted around a month.  Although cramped and smelly, when I think back of my time spent on those hot transport ships it seemed like heaven. The convoy that made its way south from Hiroshima would pass by way of Palau before finally arriving at Rabaul. The area just outside of Palau’s harbour had already become perilous to Japanese shipping.  The convoy that set out at the start of 1943 and which managed to arrive safely at Rabaul was described as ‘lucky’, such was the danger of being sunk in the southern seas.  
 
Once the convoy had made its way safely into Rabaul harbour, the harbour itself sprang back to life as the new units made landfall one after another.   Black skinned natives, employed as dock workers in order to unload supplies, were crammed into army trucks in great numbers such was the amount of work for them to do. (18)  
 
If you walked in front of the Kempeitai (security police) headquarters near the harbour, from the open windows you would hear the sound of angry voices within yelling “Are you a spy?” or “Are you trying to sabotage the military?”, accompanied by the sound of a whip landing with a ‘thwack’ on some black skin, followed in turn by an anguished scream.  (18)
 
Sad news of the destruction of our combined fleet and the withdrawal from Guadalcanal soon reached us.  In the midst of our consternation and loss of morale, we began to be ruled by fatalism.  All of the news that made it to Rabaul spoke of defeat, with no room for any other news (other than that) concerning the worsening situation.  After the failure of the attack on Port Moresby, we then learned of the sacrifice of the base at Buna, itself an important location.  What it meant was that one corner of the defensive line in eastern New Guinea had collapsed. (18)  While the military had declared that Rabaul alone would never be surrendered to the enemy, the general opinion was that given our isolation and lack of support, it was only a matter of time (before this happened).  As a consequence, most of the labour was used to turn the entire island into a fortress, with a start made on creating a self-sufficient food supply. (19)
 
The first step towards destruction
 
The Solomon Islands is an archipelago running in a long line from north to south in the southern Pacific Ocean.  It was also the scene of the last major battle for the Imperial Japanese Navy.  Bougainville, the most important of islands in the chain, was maintained as the headquarters for the 17th Army and the 8th Fleet. However the losses at Midway and the Battles of the Solomon Islands, followed by the loss of Guadalcanal, completely changed the war’s dynamic in the South Pacific. (19)
 
Guadalcanal, a small island lying at the southern end of the archipelago, was virtually unknown to most Japanese who had no idea where it was located.  Yet the defence of the South Pacific that began on this island, and which involved every military unit sent to the south, would become the first step in the disintegration of the Greater Japanese Empire. This scenario was something that neither the General Staff, nor their regional military subordinates, had ever even dreamed was possible. (19)
 
The successful extraction of the 13,000 troops of the 2nd Sendai Division (led by Lieutenant General Maruyama Masao) from Guadalcanal was regarded with pride as a triumph.  And yet, the reality of the retreat and the failure of the reckless campaign could not be denied. The confusion and consternation of the central command and the regional armies was something equivalent to recklessness.  The failure of the defence of Guadalcanal meant that every effort was put into the extraction plan, which ultimately succeeded.  Yet what it also meant was that the shift to the defence of New Guinea would only be a matter of time. (20)
 
The decision to retreat from Guadalcanal ignored the threat to New Guinea posed by General Douglas MacArthur.  It also spoke of the failure of the overly optimistic plan to transfer one section of the 17th Army to New Guinea once Guadalcanal was secured.  It was a mistake to think that such a reactive strategy could proceed according to plan. (20)  
 
The withdrawal from Guadalcanal meant those destroyers sent to extricate the troops ended up depositing them on the shores of Rabaul. Oh my, what a bunch of malnourished men they were, reduced to little more than skin and bones.  These defeated, sick troops of the 2nd Division could not be sent to the front in New Guinea.   
 
There existed a complacency in the belief of the Emperor’s army and its invincibility, and a distorted education system that taught that Japan was the ‘land of the gods’ and divinely blessed. This education, since it began in childhood, seeped its way into the very marrow of our being, starting with the military and then spreading throughout the nation.  
 
There were, however, neither benevolent gods nor miracles present in the various battles of the South Pacific. (20)
 
We believed that a one-in-a-million chance fluke was the work of some divine presence.  But there was no way that such events would or could continue.  Worst case scenarios, in which a drowning man will clutch at straws and where prayers will go unanswered, showed the folly of such thinking.  This came as a great shock to us all.  It would in turn shatter the ambitions of the Japanese High Command and their southern fleet.  
 
Yet for those of us born and raised in a militaristic country, there was no choice but to dutifully advance along the road to war.  
 
Whatever the rights and wrongs of it were, once the war began, no matter how great your desire to win at all costs was or how ferocious your sense of duty to your country, the poor, antiquated capabilities of the Japanese military and civilian transport ships they relied on, which had been used since the time of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, were no match for the modern weaponry, the speed of the landings, and the air transport capabilities of the US military. (21)
 
The High Command, by making light of the transport situation, effectively sent one part of their army into a starvation-ridden hell, which robbed soldiers of their vitality and fighting abilities and sent them headlong along the road to self-destruction.  
 
One after another, the leaders of Japan taught the people to invoke the name of the Emperor as they went to a glorious death in battle, or else punish themselves by committing suicide to wipe away their shame, and impressed upon them their duty to fulfil these maxims.  This was why to the Japanese mind, the evacuation of General MacArthur to Australia following his defeat at the Battle of Corregidor in The Philippines, abandoning his subordinates when he should have taken responsibility by committing ritual suicide, made him a figure for ridicule, and led to the sin of negligence to take hold of us out of our contempt for him. (22)
 
Yet no matter how many defeats or collapses occurred, the High Command, in their desire to preserve their honour, continued to report on the superiority of Japanese forces while those same forces were undergoing rapid disintegration.  The transformation of the war situation led to desperation, which forced units on the frontline to participate in pointless campaigns, the end result of which was their death amid the hell of starvation. (22)
 
Meanwhile a certain nation, with its overwhelming economic power and manufacturing capability compared to Japan, was turning its automobile industries towards the mass production of aircraft.  Air raids would soon be carried out against the Japanese mainland, with the Boeing B-29, the so-called “Superfortress”, the principal instrument for such attacks. It was said that in America, it was possible to turn out 50 such airplanes a day. The lack of research on the modern weapons manufacturing capabilities of the US was a huge error given the need to know one’s enemy. (22)  
 
Speaking of the evils of the Japanese military, we were told that sending subordinates and commanders to their deaths (!) if the nation so demanded was in keeping with the traditional ethos of the warrior.  We paid little heed to actual concepts of Bushidõ taught by social anthropologists or else ignored them completely.  

The symbiosis of naked militarism with dogmatic thought laid the seeds for disaster.  It was often said that “a samurai pretends he has eaten well when he has no food” (i.e., keeps a stiff upper lip), so even if we were forced to stoop to eating grass, we all believed that we would win in a stand-up fight. (22)
 
While mouthing platitudes about the need for minutely detailed preparations for campaigning, delays in sending incomplete supply runs to various battlefields became the norm. In China, one meaningless expression that got a lot of use was “local arrangements”. As those at the front line couldn’t halt their advance to receive food supplies, they requisitioned any cows, pigs or chickens that were close at hand. Hence anything that could be put to use for the sake of the campaign would be done so to the maximum extent possible. For the High Command, who put a lot of emphasis on this sort of thinking, their negligence in logistics would become the norm by the time of the Pacific War. (23)
 
In New Guinea, where there simply wasn’t enough material available to engage in “local arrangements”, fighting progressed from being one with weapons to the struggle to stave off the hell of starvation. (23)
 
By this time, Douglas MacArthur, the man the Japanese High Command regarded as utterly toothless, had arrived at Port Moresby with 3 full US divisions and had Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” heavy bombers at his disposal. The speed at which the Americans were able to deploy these forces completely transcended the expectations of the Japanese High Command.   The first time we saw the bombers was in the sky over Rabaul.  They passed over at night in the stratosphere. (23)
 
A number of gigantic shapes floated in the searchlights beaming from the various warships in the harbour.  One after another they passed overhead, accompanied by a metallic whirring sound.  Just the mere presence of these enormous shapes was enough to intimidate the Japanese forces on the ground. (23)
 
Speaking of MacArthur, he had been humiliated in The Philippines.  For the sake of his honour, he had to recapture those islands.  After his evacuation from Corregidor, he made his famous declaration “I shall return”.  MacArthur, out of his sense of pride and destiny, and rather than brooding over his defeat, slowly but steadily built up the forces necessary for him to launch a counter-attack. It was a matter of course that he would have also included America’s overwhelming industrial and advanced military power in his calculations. By contrast, the Japanese High Command, when considering when the Americans might attack, believed that it would occur sometime after the summer of 1943. It was a miscalculation, an illusion born out of over-optimistic analysis of the results of the attack on Pearl Harbour. (24) 
 
At the Battle of Midway, and then during the three battles for the Solomon Islands, the Imperial Japanese Navy had engaged in these conflicts with the full expectation that it would win.  Yet what was the result?!  Utter defeat, leading to the downfall of the IJN.  An irreversible event.  And it would serve as a catalyst for the misfortune and deprivation regarding the amount of supplies in eastern New Guinea, as well as their transport and distribution, that the New Guinea expeditionary force would be forced to suffer until the bitter end. (24)   

This particular translation comes from Yoshida Yutaka’s study of the principle forms of combat casualties suffered by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy both during the Japan-China War and the Pacific War. Yoshida’s purpose in writing the study stemmed from his belief that post-war generations had either never learned about the reality of life in the Imperial Japanese armed forces, or else had a distorted view of the wars that ignored their brutality in exchange for a more palatable version of history. The book has gone on to become a best-seller in Japan, although obviously has faced its critics from among the revisionist sector of Japan’s historical societies and right-wing advocacy groups.  
 
Yoshida Yutaka, “Nippon Gunpeishi – Ajia Taiheiyõ Sensõ no Genjitsu” (Soldiers of Japan – the Reality of the Asia – Pacific War), Chuõkõron, 2018 (Numbers in parenthesis indicate page numbers)
 
Chapter One
 
The soldiers who went to their deaths
 
The truth of the forlorn defence campaign
 
1.The exponential growth in deaths from disease and starvation
 
The rapid growth in casualties stemming from disease
 
Given the various developments that took place during the course of the war, how and in what way did Japanese soldiers die?  It is commonplace to think of deaths that occurred as a result of fighting when examining casualties on the battlefield.  However this logic cannot be applied to the Asia-Pacific War, in particular the reality of the defence campaign, or from 1944 onwards. Hereafter I intend to examine the type of deaths that were experienced during that phase and earlier phases of the war. (28). 
 
The first thing to point out is that there were an extraordinary number of deaths from disease.  When examining deaths in battle and deaths from disease, they are generally placed under the combined heading of ‘casualties’.  However I shall divide them up so that I can refer to those who died in battle as “battle casualties”, while those who died of illness will be “casualties from disease”.  
 
Wars of the early modern era were marked by a considerably greater number of casualties from disease than from actual fighting.  As a result of advancements in military medicine and nursing, as well as developments in logistics, the number of casualties from disease fell.  During the Russo-Japanese War, for example, the percentage of casualties from disease dropped to 26.3% of the total number of casualties suffered by the Japanese army. (28-29) The Russo-Japanese War thus marked the first time in the history of conflict that the number of battle casualties actually surpassed those who succumbed to illness (source: Soldiers and Battles of the Asia-Pacific War).
 
However during the Japan-China War, according to documents compiled by the 1st Department of Veterans’ Affairs in November 1945, the longer that conflict dragged on, the greater the increase in casualties from disease.  By 1941, the number of battle casualties from fighting in China had reached 12,498, while the number of casualties from disease totalled 12,713 (not including those involved in the Mukden Incident).  The percentage of those who died of illness, when compared to the total number of casualties, came to 50.4% (source: An Examination of Modern Warfare). While no comprehensive statistics survive from the Asia-Pacific War, as we shall soon see, when one considers the ferocity with which the Asia-Pacific War was fought, surpassing that of the Japan-China War, it is inconceivable to think that the number of casualties from illness in that war were less than those suffered in China. (28-29)
 
In order to narrow down on the number of casualties from illness, we must first examine unit histories.  Amid these histories, there are often lists of total casualties compiled using the unit’s own records. However these lists very rarely make the distinction between those who died in combat and those who died from illness. Let us therefore examine, for example, the unit history of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the China Occupational Army.  From the outset of the Japan-China War, the overall casualties from this regiment, which was at the forefront of fighting throughout the war, and according to its own “casualty lists”, came to 2,625. (29-30)
 
Thereafter, the number of battle casualties that took place during the so-called “defence campaign” period from 1944 onwards, and when combined with post-war deaths, came to 533, while deaths from illness came to 1,475, making a total of 2,008 (not including 14 whose date of death was uncertain, and 2 who died by accident).  The percentage of those who died from illness, compared to the total number of deaths from 1944 onwards, thus came to 73.5% of the casualties suffered by the 1st Regiment (source: Unit History of the 1stRegiment of the China Occupational Army). (30)
 
However one cannot rule out the possibility that the number of those who died of illness was greater than that quoted in the source above. This is because there was a tendency to “re-classify” deaths from illness as battle casualties at the front.  The reason stemmed from the fact that in both the military and society, a death in battle was regarded as a more meaningful then that from disease and was certainly considered more honourable. Torizawa Yoshio, who was sent as a reservist to the China front in June, 1942 as part of the 3rd Regiment of the China Occupational Army, wrote the following note about his experience. The 3rd Regiment, like the 1stRegiment, was affiliated with the 27th Division. (30)
 
“Members of the company fell ill, and as it was not easy to nurse people under field conditions, some of those men died.  Given the situation at the time, those who died from illness under such cruel conditions were looked on with pity, and so as their deaths were regarded as no different to those who died in combat. Thereafter, despite the absence of fighting, they would be recorded as having died in combat. What is more, as in the case of “T”, those who committed suicide while in the field would also be treated as combat casualties.” (source: 8000km Across the Continent). (30)
 
Unparalleled casualties rates from starvation
 
In order to complete the examination of casualties from disease, one must also examine its close relationship with deaths stemming from starvation.  This is because there were huge numbers of such deaths during the Asia-Pacific War.  As noted earlier, the total number of battle casualties among military and military affiliated personnel following on from the Japan-China War came to around 2.3 million. (31) According to the ground-breaking research conducted by Fujiwara Akira, this figure can be further divided up into soldiers who died from malnutrition and those who contracted diseases like malaria as a result of their malnutrition and subsequently died. When such casualties are totalled up, they constitute around 1.4 million deaths (or 61% of the total number of deaths) (source: The Starved Heroes).  (31) These statistics have been criticised by Hata Ikuhiko as excessively high, and that deaths from starvation constituted more like 37% of the total number of casualties. However Hata himself has admitted that “There is no escaping the fact that this was an absolutely unprecedented level (of deaths from starvation) in the annals of both domestic and foreign military history” (source: The Ecology of the former Imperial Japanese Army and Navy). (31) 
 
The reality of this tragedy is seen in what occurred during the defensive war in The Philippines that commenced in October, 1944.  According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 1964, around 518,000 army, navy and associated personnel perished during that conflict.  It also mentioned the following in relation to those members of the Imperial Army who died (not counting those who drowned at sea, details on which will be revealed later):
 
“While there is a scarcity of resources from which accurate data can be obtained concerning the breakdown of casualty rates, in general around 35 – 40% of casualties came as a result of direct fighting (including operations against guerrillas), which meant that the remaining 60-65% of deaths were a result of disease.  Furthermore, among these casualties, those who actually died after contracting a malady of some form constituted less than half of the death rate from disease, which meant that a majority of those who died did so as a result of illness made worse because of starvation.”  (source: A History of Army Sanitation during the Great East Asian War) (The Philippines Conflict) (32)
 
The main reason for this increase in deaths from starvation was the loss of both sea and air superiority, which cut off supply lines for the Japanese military and led to severe shortages of food.  The percentage of war material that arrived at the front undamaged (also known as the rate of stability) stood at 96% in 1942. By 1943 it had dropped to 83%, and then 67% in 1944, and then finally 51% in 1945.  This meant that from one-third to half of all foodstuffs transported by sea were lost.  The drop in the rate of stability led to accumulated war material falling far below levels necessary to sustain an army in the field (source: The Pacific War – A record of Japan’s lost transport ships). (33)
 
The Japanese High Command was certainly aware of just how serious the shortage in supplies was and the problem of starvation among the troops. Kanbayashi Hiroshi, director of the Imperial Army Medical Corps within the Department of the Army, and who had recently returned to Japan from the southern front, issued the following warning about the state of health within the army in both the Solomon Islands and New Guinea at a meeting of the Medical Corps on the 23rd of August, 1943:
 
“Again, while local self-sufficiency can be sustained in Rabaul, it most certainly cannot at the front.  At the front, soldiers lack the strength to be able to bear the weight of their weapons because of their malnutrition (abridged) Furthermore, the leading cause of death at Wau (a New Guinea battlefield) is starvation.  (Abridged) Malnutrition robs soldiers of their will to fight.” (source: Daily Record of Duties within the Department of the Army, Vol.2, Chapter 8). (33)
 
Even the Shõwa Emperor (Emperor Hirohito) was aware of what the true state of affairs was. On the 7th of September 1943, the Emperor, when speaking to Lieutenant General Hasunuma Shigeru, the Emperor’s Aide de Camp, about the halt in supplies to the front, stated “(I cannot bear) the fact that the officers and soldiers have been plunged into something resembling starvation”, and then addressing the Chief of the General Staff, dictated that “I order you to convey my outrage about the supply situation (to the General Staff)” (source: Private Record of the Prime Minister within the Tõjõ Cabinet) (33)
 
War-related trophopathy (malnutrition)  - “like a living corpse”
 
It is important to note that in relation to issues surrounding malnutrition, there is a link between war-related malnutrition and war-related mental illnesses.  This malady was first noticed during the early stages of the Japan-China War.  During the Xuzhou campaign of April to June, 1938, many of the soldiers taking part in that conflict began to fall ill primarily a result of dramatic losses in weight, a lack of appetite, anaemia, and chronic diarrhea.   As treatment for such ailments was difficult, there were many cases which ended in death.  To address this problem, Lieutenant General Nagino Itsuki of the Army Medical Corps wrote a thesis titled “War-related Trophopathy”. The date of publication is unclear, however the cover contains the heading “Army Medical School (Northern China Army Edition)” written in typeset.  Within the thesis, General Nagino addressed the “three main symptoms” of high levels of atrophy, loss of appetite, and diarrhea.  (36)
 
In relation to his patients, General Nagino wrote “The ceaseless diarrhea brings on a decrease in the overall corporeal condition.  In addition to dramatic atrophy, patients lose subcutaneous fat, thus leading to shrunken muscles.  Patients’ bodies begin to appear mummified, vessels begin to constrict, and the patient is unable to maintain a constant body temperature. The limbs turn clammy, while the face turns expressionless and all desire to speak is lost.  Patients fall into a stupor, with glassy eyes, unable to communicate, and for all purposes appear to be ‘living corpses’.  Some fade away like ‘a slowly extinguishing candle’, while others who don’t appear to have such serious symptoms suddenly ‘collapse, and suffer cardiac arrest or pulmonary arrest and die’”. This paints a very vivid picture. (36)
 
Tanaka Hidetoshi, a medic assigned to the 4th Field Hospital of the 27th Division during the continental campaign of 1944, also portrayed the state of patients suffering from war-related malnutrition in a field hospital in the following manner:
 
“(Because of the large number of patients) In the case of the army, long periods of time spent at the front, with its lack of supplies and excessive mental strain, led to high incidences of acute malnutrition.  While this was generally described as “war-related malnutrition”, many of those who suffered from this illness also had amoebic dysentery, bacterial diarrhea, or malaria. Opinions regarding the malady varied when it first began to be researched, with the predominant theory being that it was by nature infectious.” (source: Materials concerning War-Related Malnutrition). (37)
 
However in the preface to his thesis, General Nagino noted that “From around 1942 onwards, and as a result in the spread of education regarding this condition, identical cases were detected in inland areas that had not experienced any fighting. What is more, in the following year there was an increase in such cases, which was a completely unforeseen development.” What this demonstrated was that it was impossible to simply conclude that harsh fighting conditions led to outbreaks of infectious disease cases. (37)  
 
One person acutely aware of this situation was army medic Colonel Namba Mitsushige.  In the preface to his thesis written after the war, he stated that “In relation to the state of health (within the army), long conflicts led to a drop in nutrition, or to put this another way, it led to a condition known as war-related malnutrition syndrome. Its primary symptoms are malnutrition leading to a loss in weight and motivation, and exhaustion brought on by the nature of the war. I intend to argue that there were in fact two separate kinds of war-related malnutrition syndrome.  The first I have dubbed “chronic war-related malnutrition syndrome”, as it included infectious diseases like amoebic dysentery, malaria, or tuberculosis, which would repeatedly re-occur.  The other was not an infectious disease, but rather something that appeared in conjunction with any serious pre-existing ailment, and had no known infection source. This I refer to as “primary war-related malnutrition syndrome” (Source: A pathological anatomical study of 51 strains of so called ‘war-related malnutrition syndrome’). (38-39)
 
What is important to note here is that army physicians had already established the existence of “primary war-related malnutrition syndrome”, which had no relation to any infectious disease. (39)
 
When compared to the army, naval studies into war-related malnutrition syndrome were both late and appeared to favour the infectious-disease theory.  Naval medic Commander Abe Isao, along with five other physicians, examined the possibility that Gartner’s bacillus (a form of salmonella) had led to food poisoning among 11 sailors who were part of a group of 18 suspected of having war-related malnutrition syndrome. In the chapter of their report titled “In relation to the so-called war-related malnutrition syndrome”, they surmised their belief that the principle cause of this condition lay in malaria, dysentery, amoebic conditions, as well as Gartner’s bacillus (source: Self-instruction manual for local conditions in the southern theatre). (39) 
 
As we shall see, one of the characteristics of the Imperial navy was its disregard for psychiatric illness.  Yet this factor repeatedly made an appearance in issues related to war-related malnutrition syndrome.  (39)
 
The strong link to neuropsychiatric symptoms
 
Ultimately the army collapsed without ever establishing the origins of war-related malnutrition syndrome. However thereafter a new theory emerged to explain its prevalence. Aoki Tõru, himself a physician during the war and who engaged in the study of war-related malnutrition syndrome, noted that “There is a tendency to believe that a majority of the army medical corps considered amoebic dysentery the cause of war-related malnutrition syndrome”.  He himself, by concentrating on the pituitary gland, below which lay the part of the brain controlling appetite, posited the following:
 
“In relation to war-related malnutrition syndrome, its early symptoms were a passivity exacerbated by monomaniacal strategists (i.e., commanders that ignored the lack of supplies). The loss of physical strength derived from this passivity would progress, with latter symptoms fatally affecting those areas of the brain located under the pituitary gland. This would result in the loss of regulatory functionality, which then led to the collapse of homeostasis in the patient, which would eventually result in death.” (source: A secret record of war-related malnutrition syndrome). (40). 
 
In other words, a shortage of supplies including food, physical and mental exhaustion brought on by the constant fighting, and the cruelties of war, together with stress, nervousness, tension and fear, brought about changes to the equilibrium within the body known as homeostasis. This led to a loss of appetite and the appearance of eating disorders.  More recently, Dr Noda Masaaki, a psychiatrist, has written about war-related malnutrition syndrome. In his study, Dr Noda wrote that “In truth, soldiers began to refuse to eat. They would vomit up anything they did eat, which made their condition worse.  At the front, where one had to maintain one’s health, this amounted to a decision by the body to quit living”. (41)
 
Nevertheless, war-related malnutrition syndrome was not a result of simple malnutrition, but one inexorably linked to war-related neuropsychological conditions.  
 
We have examined this issue from a variety of angles during this chapter, so we can conclude that the largest number of deaths among the soldiery were not battle casualties, but rather casualties from disease, among which starvation ranked as the principal culprit. (41)

From Owada Tetsuo’s “Hideyoshi”, published by Chûko Shinsho 2007 (numbers after paragraphs refer to pages)
 
Chapter VII. Reproducing the Taikõ legend
 
The militarization of Japan and Hideyoshi
 
I have spent an inordinate amount of time within the pages of this book examining the issue of the invasion of the Korean peninsula, which itself is one issue among many of Hideyoshi’s.   However, at this particular juncture, were I attempting to evaluate Hideyoshi, it would be impossible for me to ignore the question of Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea.  Why? Because since the Meiji period, Hideyoshi has been praised and held up as a national hero, a legend in which the invasion of Korea is an indispensable part. However until the end of the Edo period, Hideyoshi’s popularity was of a completely different character. It was tied to an anti-Bakufu ethos shared among the common people - the so called “Taikõ effect”.  It was, in essence, a reproduction (or re-issue) of the Taikõ legend. (176)
 
During the Edo period, and as touched upon at the beginning of this book, a “pro” Hideyoshi ideology emerged in the form of dissent against the “deification of Lord (Tokugawa) Ieyasu”.  Given that the Bakufu form of government was by its very nature oppressive, anti-Bakufu and anti-Tokugawa ideology took the form of anachronistic depictions of the Hideyoshi era, or else a yearning to return to that era.  This was a result of the image of Hideyoshi portrayed in the “Ehon Taikõki” (The Illustrated Record of the Taikõ) and the “Shinsho Taikõki” (The New Record of the Taikõ).  Upon the arrival of the Meiji era, one further aspect was added to these pre-existing notions. (177)
 
This was the advance of Japan onto the continent. In other words, as militaristic strategy took on more concrete forms, suddenly a lot of focus was placed on Hideyoshi as a sort of ‘pioneer’ or ‘harbinger’.  I’ll give you one example of this.  An old elementary school song went as follows:
 
Over one hundred years ago, when the world was racked with turmoil,
the ‘ensign bearing gourds’ (i.e Hideyoshi) suddenly appeared,
and tamed the four winds and seas,
The trees and grass of over sixty provinces wave in the breeze,
Oh, Taikõ, Hõ Taikõ
 
With overwhelming strength, he invaded Chõsen,
on every street and road, he defeated all before him,
The nation’s light shone bright, and its glory was acclaimed,
Over four hundred provinces all shake as one,
Oh, Taikõ, Hõ Taikõ
 
The first verse sings of the unification of the nation, while the second of the invasion of the Chõsen peninsula.  While the unification of the nation occurred as depicted in the song, the invasion of the Chõsen peninsula is completely at odds with historical reality. Moreover, since it is at odds with reality, it seeks to justify the actions taken during Hideyoshi’s invasion. Hence the references to “the nation shining bright, and national glory” to herald the nation’s achievements.  
 
Another particular point to remember is that this song was composed with the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War – two wars involving invasions of the mainland – as a background.  The Japanese Empire had already embarked on a strategy of large-scale invasion of Korea and China, hence the “bright, shining example of the pioneer Hideyoshi” was introduced to heighten awareness of the nation’s glories. (178)
 
Another elementary song went as follows:
 
Although he rose wearing the clothes of the common man,
He stood above all others,
Who was he, into whose hand fell over sixty provinces?
 
The glories that remain are reflected in today’s world like a mirror,
Who was it, who made the nation’s glorious name known to all and sundry?
 
This song (and others like it) stirred emotions, and the effects of the education provided to children at the time was quite profound.  As seen by the lyrics of elementary school songs, the message that “the invasion of Chõsen by Hideyoshi was a magnificent act that spread the name of Japan far and wide, and is a mirror (for modern times)” became a deeply rooted ideology among the commonalty of Japan.  In truth, Imperial Japan embarked upon its invasion of Korea using Hideyoshi as a guide. (178-179)
 
The union of Japan and Korea and Hideyoshi’s invasion plan for Chõsen 
 
The Treaty of Ganghwa was concluded in the year following the Ganghwa Island Incident of the 8th year of Meiji (1875).  This treaty resulted in Japan opening up Chõsen (Korea), but it also exacerbated the stand-off with Qing China over the suzerainty of Chõsen.  The subsequent Imo (Jingo) Incident of the 15th year of Meiji (1882) and the Gapsin Incident (or coup) of 1884 eventually led Japan and Qing China to sign the Treaty of Tianjin (1885). However the lull created by the treaty did not last long, and in the 27th year of Meiji (1894) Japanese and Qing China troops clashed, which in turn lead to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. Victory in this conflict then expedited Japan’s advance into neighbouring countries. (179)
 
While the purpose of Japan’s war with Qing China was to bring the Chõsen peninsula under Japanese control, it was not as successful as initially planned. Furthermore, the Sino-Japanese War resulted in an increase in Russian influence over Korea.  In February 1904, Japan embarked a large-scale army to the Chõsen peninsula.  With this military force in place, Japan and Korea concluded and ratified the Japan-Korea Treaty. This meant that Korea essentially became a Japanese protectorate.  Following Japan’s victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Potsdam Treaty was signed and Japan assumed overall control of Korea. (180) In the meantime, while Japan was fighting the Sino and Russo-Japanese wars and signing the Ganghwa and Korean treaties, a Kabuki play known as the “Taikõki” (or Record of the Taikõ) concurrently began to be performed, a point that has often escaped attention. 
 
In 1889 (Meiji 22), Kabuki theatres were opened with debut performances of the ‘Taikõki’.  From 1891, and on throughout the Sino and Russo-Japanese wars, the number of performances of this play underwent a dramatic increase (as detailed within Shin Gisu’s ‘The 300th Anniversary Festival of Hideyoshi at Mimizuka’, Kabuki “Taikõki” and “Hideyoshi’s Invasion and Osaka Castle”).  Incidentally, when examining the yearly debut performances of ‘Taikõki tales’, in 1882 the Ichimura-za (or theatre) performed the “Hariõgi Chõsen Gunki” (The Folding Fan Military Tales of Chõsen) (written by Kawatake Mokuami). In 1885, the same Ichimura-za performed the “Tane-hisago Shinsho Taikõki” (The Seed Gourd True Tales of the Taikõki) (written by Kawatake Shinshichi the Third). Moreover in 1886, the same Ichimura-za performed the “Hanamidoki Hisago Taikõki” (The Flower-Viewing Gourd Taikõki) (also by Shinshichi the Third).  (179-180)
 
As seen by the title of the “Hariõgi Chõsen Gunki”, this play was mainly about Hideyoshi’s invasion of the Chõsen peninsula.  The year of its debut performance, 1882, coincided with the Imo (Jingo) Incident, hence the eyes and ears of the populace had already turned towards Chõsen.  As becomes clear given the popularity at the time of the “Taikõki Gunki Chõsen Kan” (The Taikõki War Tales – Chõsen Version) penned by Fukuchi Õchi, the advance of Japan on the continent was accepted by the people as synonymous with Hideyoshi’s invasion of the Chõsen peninsula.  As Professor Shin pointed out, the only conclusion one can draw from this is that Kabuki and other forms of dramatic entertainment made a large contribution to the rise of the anti-Chõsen campaign and invasion ideology.   (181)
 
Following the Russo-Japanese war, Japan’s control over Korea was absolute. In 1905, the second Japan-Korea Co-operation Treaty was signed, which resulted in the transferral of Korea’s diplomatic rights to Japan, the installation of the post of governor in Gyeongseong (Seoul) along with the creation of a domestic administration. Itõ Hirofumi served as the first governor of Korea. Of course, this led to outbreaks of resistance within Korea, however these were suppressed and the course of transforming Korea into a protectorate continued. Finally, in 1910, the union of Japan and Korea was complete. The name of the nation was changed from Korea to Chõsen, and the Chõsen Governor’s Office was installed. The governor, as chief officer, was also the commander of all land and sea forces in Chõsen, and so held absolute power over the constitution, the judiciary, and the administration.  (181)
 
On the 29th of August, following the conclusion of the “Japan-Korea Treaty for Union with Korea”, that evening the first Chõsen governor, Terauchi Masakata, while looking at the moon through his window, wrote somewhat poetically:
 
“If Kobayakawa, Katõ, and Konishi were still of this world, how many times will they have looked upon this moon?” (*Note that all three were generals that took part in Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chõsen)
 
Terauchi Masakata, along with the government officials and military officers at the time, all shared the belief that through the Union of Korea and Japan, they had finally brought Hideyoshi’s dream to fruition. (182)
 
The Invasion of Chõsen and the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”
 
(From the Meiji era onwards) the basic direction of justifying invasion and the glorification of Hideyoshi underwent no substantial modification.  Indeed, as Japan travelled along the road towards militarism, the role of Hideyoshi as a “shining example” was given even greater emphasis than that found during the Sino and Russo-Japanese wars and the Union with Korea.  During the course of Japan’s military invasions of the Chinese continent and into Southeast Asia, once again Hideyoshi made an appearance (in the public consciousness).  The trigger for the 15-year conflict between Japan and China, the so-called Mukden Incident, also coincided with the completion of the iron and concrete recreation of Osaka Castle. (190-191) The completion of the castle and its dedication ceremony took place on the 7th of November in the 6th year of Shõwa (1931).  
 
The Liu Tiao Gou Incident took place on the 18th of September of the same year as the dedication of the castle, and one cannot say that these two events were unrelated.  More definitive than this was the talk of “Hideyoshi’s dream” that emerged around the time of the outbreak of the Pacific War and Japan’s advance into Southeast Asia.  The editorials of the newspapers at the time certainly adopted this view, as can be seen in the headlines and articles written in January of 1942 concerning the Fall of Manila. (191)
 
The “Mainichi Shimbun” for the 8th of January wrote “The dream that the brilliant Hõ Taikõ held 350 years ago, that the light of the “origin of the sun” (Hi no moto, i.e Nippon) would shine from the administered continent all the way to Luzon Island in the south, is inexorably bound to the Fall of Manila”.  The “Asahi Shimbun”, for the same day, touched upon the “Festival honouring the Hõ Taikõ on the occasion of the Fall of Manila” when it reported “What comes to mind following the Fall of Manila and the continuing reports of victory by Imperial forces over the entire Philippines is the letter sent by the National Hero, the Hõ Taikõ, welcoming trade with the Philippine Islands as one part of his overall plan for a united East Asia. This is an historical fact. So this year, given it marks the 350th anniversary of this event, the commercial district of Osaka will hold the “Festival Honouring the Hõ Taikõ” and its “Congratulatory Parade” on the 9th to mark the Fall of Manila and celebrate both the spirit of the Taikõ and the realisation of his ambition”. (191)
 
As Kashiwai Hiroyuki pointed out, celebrations held on the 350th anniversary were obviously military celebrations, major events to both deify Hideyoshi as a “war god” during the “Great East Asia War” and glamorize the invasion of Manila (see Kashiwai Hiroyuki “the Mukden Incident and the Reconstruction of Osaka Castle Keep”, “the Fall of Manila” and celebrations of the 350th Anniversary of Hideyoshi’s Correspondence”, and “Hideyoshi’s Invasion and Osaka Castle”).  Hideyoshi was thus co-opted as one part of the broader “Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere” campaign. (192)
 
For example, the historian Uozumi Sõgorõ stated “The grand concept of administering Greater East Asia held by the peerless hero Hõ Taikõ, stretching back 350 years, has today been realised at the hands of the Imperial Army, and so the designs of that great man have been revealed in all their dazzling colour” (from “Consideration of the ambitions of the Hõ Taikõ”  1st Volume, Published April, 1942).  Thereafter this form of thinking became the norm and was a shared awareness, as seen in the following example: “Today, at this stage in the epochal development of the Japanese people, I wish to examine the ambitions of the Hõ Taikõ - ambitions that should be described as precursors.  Just as the Great East Asia War of today could be expressed in many ways as the ultimate realisation of the Japanese spirit, the active implementation of strategy during those times and their spirit of leadership is something that we share in common.” (Uemura Heihachi’rõ, ‘The ambitions of Hõ Taikõ and Nagoya Castle’, 1943, foreward). (192)
 
Nakano Seigõ, who advocated Pan-Asianism, founded the Tõhõkai and was an ultra-right wing politician, is a famous example of this form of thinking, given that he co-operated in the transformation of the political system into fascism and from 1940 onwards served as the chairman of the Dai-Seiyoku Sankai.  Within the Shintõ-Juku, a cram school for the youth wing of the Tõhõkai that Nakano himself led, Hideyoshi was taught to students using the textbook “Taikõ Hideyoshi” (1943, published by the Tõhõdõshikai).  It is worth examining this particular book to show how those advocating wars of invasion regarded Hideyoshi. (192)
 
The reason that Nakano gave for raising the example of Hideyoshi was “As you know, Hideyoshi was a brilliant general who spread the glorious name of Japan far and wide, as well as serving as a politician”.  Furthermore, “His attitude of unconcern for material things and magnificent bearing personified the simple, honest Japanese.  His heart was always fair and upright, and his bearing towards all matters was not confected but emitted a brilliant natural light, illuminating all and setting the world to right.  The mirror of his soul was perfectly clear.  In his role as an educator to the nation, he did not become mired in theory, but was a naturally disposed Japanese hero.  The Goddess Amaterasu truly favoured this most genuine of her descendants”.  In short, Hideyoshi was the model for what it meant to be “Japanese”, and was very much a Japanese-style of hero. 
 
Nakano regarded Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chõsen as the “first step in the creation of a Greater East Asia” and took Hideyoshi’s war record as a basis for lessons. For example, “While Japan, Germany and Italy are winning and the bonds between each are strong, we must ensure that no gaps emerge between us lest it lead to the start of a British-American “peace conspiracy”.  If this happens, the sickness of pro-US and British ideology will emerge once again. We will all be sucked in by their wily schemes, and debate within the nation will fracture.  If just one crack were to appear in the axle that binds us, the US and Britain will appear to skilfully break us all apart. Japan is honour bound to its allies, and in order to achieve our shared goals must act in an honest and forthright manner.  Being led astray by immediate selfish, minor interests, immersed in calculations, and misinterpreting the general state of affairs will lead to a swift downfall.  Japan must be convincing in its mission to raise up Greater East Asia in the world.  Those who become too engrossed in their own little schemes will in turn be ensnared by other schemes”.  To Nakano, Hideyoshi was a mirror for what was happening now.  (193-194)
 
In an age where the flames of war spread from the Chinese continent to Southeast Asia, one could say that Hideyoshi was man built for such an era. I vividly recall the words written by the novelist Tanaka Sumie, who pointed out the following: “Hideyoshi’s motivation for sending troops to Chõsen, the implementation of his plans, the end result of all of this activity, the waste, the great loss of human life, very closely resembles the ‘holy war’ ideology that possessed Japan during the Great East Asian War” (from ‘Why was the Kanpaku Hidetsugu murdered?’ in “Rekishi Dokuhon” published November 1983). (194)

I will admit that this particular entry was inspired by a recent visit to the National Gallery of NSW to view their “Japan Supernatural” exhibition. The exhibition, in addition to including works by modern artists such as Aoshima Chiho and Murakami Takashi, also featured various works depicting ghosts, goblins, demons, and other creatures of Japanese folklore from the early Edo period. So on that note, I decided to pull out my rather well-thumbed copy of Sugiura Hinako’s “O Edo de gozaru” (お江戸でござる) to translate the chapter dedicated to “ghosts and monsters” (pgs.182 to 191).  Hopefully it captures some of the fascination surrounding the subject matter that Sugiura sought to convey to the reader.

“A popular trend from the mid-Edo period onwards was the telling of “one hundred tales of terror”.  In the evening, adults would gather together, with participants telling between 4 to 5 horror stories each. In the centre of an otherwise dark room were placed 100 candles, lit one after another, the light from which shone on the candle trays supporting them.  Once a tale had been told, a single candle would be put out so that the room grew progressively darker.  By the time of the witching hour (around 2 in the morning), all 100 tales had been told.   Upon the extinguishment of the last remaining candle, creatures of the night would instantly emerge from all directions, making such gatherings a kind of ‘monster viewing’ party. 

However, it was common practice to refrain from telling the hundredth tale.  Superstition had it that if the hundredth story was told, misfortune would befall whomever had spoken it. People were afraid that they would regret having told the hundredth tale, and so avoided doing so.

In truth, there was a very clear distinction between “monsters” and “ghosts”.  ‘Ghosts’ appeared to a specific person and would deliberately seek that person out.  The character of “O-Iwa san” from the Tale of Yotsuya by Tamiya Iemon was one example of this. 

‘Monsters’, on the other hand, would attach themselves to objects and the elements of the natural world, similar in manner to a haunting, and from there would appear to anybody who happened to be passing by.  One example of this was “O-Kiku san” from the “Sara Yashiki Densetsu”, and whose modus operandi consisted of emerging from a well.  There were also monsters who only appeared at fixed times, and so you would be able to avoid them if you refrained from passing their haunting ground during certain hours of the day or night. 

‘Monsters’ consisted of many different forms – from animals such as foxes, badgers, and sparrows, to trees and grass.  Many ancient tales of Japan had monsters made musical instruments and common household objects such as Koto harps, Biwa lutes, Sheng (or Shō) mouth organs, and even cauldrons.  Their purpose was to serve as a lesson to “look after your possessions”. 

‘Monsters’ were divided up into those that transformed and those that didn’t.  Badgers, foxes, ‘snow woman’, and ‘Rokuro-kubi’ (the ‘long-necked woman’) were all examples of everyday people and animals that could undergo transformation. By contrast, ‘Kappa’ (water sprites), ‘Tengu’ (forest goblins), ‘Nurarihyon’ (“the old monk with the elongated head”), and ‘Suna-kake Baba’ (the “old woman who throws sand”) all appeared as they were.  They constituted a separate category to “monsters”, which is why they were referred to as ‘Yōkai’ (or ‘creatures’). 

‘Monsters’ lived in close proximity to the townspeople of Edo.  One of these, known as the ‘Adzuki Bean Washer”, didn’t do anything nefarious at all, merely producing a noise of adzuki beans being washed.  One would think it better to wash rice, but it appears this was a no-no. 

One ‘monster’ that appeared in an unclean public bath was “Akaname” (or ‘filth licker’), who would turn up to lick the dirt and other debris out of a bathtub.  The lesson to be learned from this was “keep your bathtubs clean, otherwise a ‘monster’ will appear”. 

Another ‘monster’ was ‘Nebutori’, an immensely overweight woman who slept on a pile of cushions.  The lesson here was “if you are lazy, then this is what you’ll become”. 

Around the Honjō area there were a large number of canals (or ditches, if you like).  One of these was the infamous “Oite kebori”, although since a canal by this name was never specially designated, it seems that any canal into which someone cast a fishing line could be classified as an “oite kebori”. 

If you spent all day trying to catch fish and ended up on the canal bank as it grew dark, it was said that the spirit of the canal would command you to “leave, leave!” (or 置いてけー、置いてけー！) . If you chose to leave then you would be fine. However if you chose to stay, then some misfortune would later befall you, or all of the fish that you wished to catch would disappear.  This served as a warning not to get carried away in catching fish, and also prevented any water-related accidents around the canal. When it grew dark, there was a greater risk of stepping in a mudhole and end up drowning.

“Oite kebori” was one of the tales that appeared in the “seven mysterious tales of Honjō”. Others included “Kataba no Ashi” (or “The Single Root”), “Tanuki Bayashi” (the “Badger Dance”), “Ochibanaki Shii” (the “Evergreen Beech Tree”), “Okuri Chōchin” (or “the Fleeting Lamp”), “Tsugaruke no Taiko” (the “Drum of the Tsugaru”), and “Mutō Soba” (the “unlit soba noodles”), among others.

“The Fleeting Lamp” was a somewhat positive tale.  When hurriedly returning home late at night, a lamp would occasionally appear and disappear off in the distance ahead of the person running. This lamp was held by a beautiful woman. However the top half of the woman might be hidden by the dark of night, so it was by no means guaranteed that the woman would be beautiful. 

“The Single Root”, by way of contrast, was apparently a true tale of a tree root whose leaves would only appear on one side.

“The Evergreen Beech Tree” was a tale of a giant beech tree whose leaves never fell off, and other such tales of woe. 

Then there was “Ashiarai Yashiki” (or “The Foot-Washing House”).  According to this tale, in the dead of night a giant foot, dripping with mud, would suddenly appear from the ceiling. If you washed the foot, it would immediately disappear.  However if you left it be, it would grow violent and impossible to control.

In addition to Honjō, many other monsters appeared in the newly built suburbs of Azabu and Yoshiwara close to the outskirts of Edo.  As the city continued to develop, the population increased, and many of the suburbs that were rapidly emerging contributed to the destruction of the natural environment surrounding them.  The foxes and badgers that lived in such areas found themselves without places to live nor food to eat, and so began to appear more frequently in human habitats.  It was among such conditions as this that tales of creatures undergoing transformation grew in popularity.

For the people of Edo, who loved a good mystery, the very height of this culture was manifest in the works of the scholar Hirata Atsutane (平田篤胤).  He would go about collecting tales told by the people of the city, and would note them down for posterity.  Among these tales was one of “Heitarō”, the boy who feared nothing.  In this tale, despite being visited by a number of different monsters and creatures over many nights, Heitarō was afraid of none of them, merely commenting “well that’s an odd looking thing”.  Such was his reaction to them that many of the monsters grew more fascinated with him, with ‘Oyadama’ (a giant eye ball) eventually deciding to become his guardian spirit.  

Atsutane conceived of a world in which gods, spirits, and humans all co-existed.  He opened up a private academy in the centre of town known as “Ibuki no Ya” (or ‘The Breathing Inn’), where he told tales of other worlds to those who would listen.  He reportedly had 553 students of his own, and when combined with visitors these might exceed 3000, making it a very lively venue indeed.  Such was his fame that Atsutane came to the attention of the Bakufu government, who ordered him on three separate occasions to “quit talking such nonsense, and advance the cause of national studies.” 

While tales of terror were certainly used as entertainment before the Edo period, in the early Edo period virtually all ghost stories were about men.  There were tales of spirits who, after being defeated in battle, would continue to haunt their descendants.  There were violent ghosts, who after being killed in a fight with another warrior, laid a curse on their murderer’s children, saying that he would “kill them all”.  It was only from the mid-Edo period, a time of relative peace, when people started to think that it was far more frightening to have a beautiful woman transform into a monster.

The person most responsible for the popularity of this type of narrative was the Rakugo entertainer Hayashiya Shōzō (林家正蔵).  He believed that rather than simply trying to frighten people, using humour and other elements would make stories more memorable. So he would use various props, such as flying fireballs or modified pieces of furniture.  People dressed as ghosts would also suddenly spring out behind an audience listening to one of Shōzō’s stories and frighten the bejesus out of them. Over time, tales of terror became popular within the world of Kabuki theatre as well.