1.
Shinjitai
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Shinjitai are the forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in simplified Chinese, shinjitai were created by reducing the number of strokes in kyūjitai, unsimplified kanji equivalent to Traditional Chinese characters, also called seiji. There have been a few stages of simplifications made since the 1950s, the following forms were established as a result of the postwar character reforms. However, they were not completely created anew, as many were based on widely used handwritten abbreviations from the prewar era, due to the complexity of kanji, many abbreviations were used in handwriting, whose status rose to become official characters in the postwar reforms. Attention was paid to the balance of the characters in their new form. In almost all cases, characters in the new standard have fewer strokes than old forms, though in a few cases they have the same number, the most radical simplification was 廳→庁, removing 20 strokes. For example, the character 擧 was simplified as 挙, but the character 欅 which also contained 擧, simplified forms of hyōgaiji do exist, and are referred to as extended shinjitai. However, they are unofficial, a position reiterated in the National Language Council’s 2000 report on Characters Not Listed in the Jōyō Kanji Table, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper is thorough in its simplification of hyōgaiji, and its in-house simplifications are called Asahi characters. For example, 痙攣 is simplified following the model of 經→経 and this is also said to have been done because in the age of typewriter-based printing, more complicated kanji could not be clearly printed. Cursive script and semi-cursive script forms of kanji were adopted as shinjitai, examples include, 圖→図 觀→観 示 →礻 晝→昼 The aforementioned 门 handwritten simplification also originated from semi-cursive, but is not generally accepted in official Japanese writing. Characters in which there were two or more variants were standardized under one form, the character 島 also had the variant forms 嶋 and 嶌, but the 島 form became standard. The 辶 radical was once printed with two dots but was written one, so the written form with one dot became standard. The upper 丷 portion of the characters 半, 尊, and 平 was once printed as 八 and written 丷, Characters of the keisei monji group each contain a semantic part and a phonetic part. The choice was made to swap the phonetic parts with homophones which had fewer strokes, for example, 圍 was changed to 囲, because 韋 and 井 were homophones. Other simplifications of this method include 竊→窃, 廳→庁, 擔→担, there are also colloquial handwritten simplifications based on this model, in which various non-kanji symbols are used as onpu, for example 魔, 慶, 藤, and 機. In some cases, a character was replaced with a simpler character which neither had graphical resemblance, nor was homophonic. Examples include 登 → 正 and 登 → 丁, some kanji were simplified by removing entire components. Firstly, only a group of characters was simplified, with many characters outside this group retaining their earlier form
2.
Imperial Japanese Army
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The Imperial Japanese Army or IJA, literally Army of the Greater Japanese Empire, was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan, from 1871 to 1945. Later an Inspectorate General of Military Aviation became the agency with oversight of the army. During the Meiji Restoration, the forces loyal to Emperor Meiji were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist daimyōs of Satsuma. This central army, the Imperial Japanese Army, became even more essential after the abolition of the han system in 1871. One of the differences between the samurai and the peasant class was the right to bear arms, this ancient privilege was suddenly extended to every male in the nation. In 1878, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office, based on the German General Staff, was established directly under the Emperor and was given broad powers for military planning and strategy. The Japanese invasion of Taiwan under Qing rule in 1874 was an expedition by Japanese military forces in response to the Mudan Incident of December 1871. The Paiwan people, who are indigenous peoples of Taiwan, murdered 54 crewmembers of a merchant vessel from the Ryukyu Kingdom on the southwestern tip of Taiwan. 12 men were rescued by the local Chinese-speaking community and were transferred to Miyako-jima in the Ryukyu Islands and it marked the first overseas deployment of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. Not surprisingly, the new led to a series of riots from disgruntled samurai. One of the riots, led by Saigō Takamori, was the Satsuma Rebellion. Thenceforth, the military existed in an intimate and privileged relationship with the imperial institution, top-ranking military leaders were given direct access to the Emperor and the authority to transmit his pronouncements directly to the troops. The sympathetic relationship between conscripts and officers, particularly junior officers who were mostly from the peasantry, tended to draw the military closer to the people. In time, most people came to look more for guidance in matters more to military than to political leaders. By the 1890s, the Imperial Japanese Army had grown to become the most modern army in Asia, well-trained, well-equipped, however, it was basically an infantry force deficient in cavalry and artillery when compared with its European contemporaries. The Sino-Japanese War would come to symbolize the weakness of the military of the Qing dynasty and this was the result by Japans 120, 000-strong western-style conscript army of two armies and five divisions, which was well-equipped and well-trained when compared with their Qing counterparts. The Treaty of Shimonoseki made the Qing defeat official, with a shift in regional dominance in Asia from China to Japan. In 1899–1900, Boxer attacks against foreigners in China intensified eventually resulting in the siege of the legations in Beijing
3.
Ministry of the Army (Japan)
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It existed from 1872 to 1945. The Army Ministry was created in April 1872, along with the Navy Ministry, initially, the Army Ministry was in charge of both administration and operational command of the Imperial Japanese Army. However, with the creation of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff in December 1878 and its primary role was to secure the army budget, weapons procurement, personnel, relations with the National Diet and the Cabinet and broad matters of military policy. The post of Army Minister was politically powerful, although a member of the Cabinet after the establishment of the cabinet system of government in 1885, the Army Minister was answerable directly to the Emperor and not the Prime Minister. From the time of its creation, the post of Army Minister was usually filled by an active-duty general in the Imperial Japanese Army. Abolished in 1913 under the administration of Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, the law was revived again in 1936 at the insistence of the Army General Staff by Prime Minister Hirota Kōki. At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Army prohibited its generals from accepting political offices except by permission from Imperial General Headquarters, taken together, these arrangements gave the Imperial Japanese Army an effective, legal right to nominate the Army Minister. After 1937, both the Army Minister and the Chief of the Army General Staff were members of the Imperial General Headquarters, warriors of the Rising Sun, A History of the Japanese Military. Soldiers of the Sun, The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army, foreign Office Files for Japan and the Far East
4.
Hideki Tojo
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After the end of the war, Tojo was arrested, sentenced to death for Japanese war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and hanged on December 23,1948. Hideki Tojo was born in the Kōjimachi district of Tokyo on December 30,1884, as the 3rd son of Hidenori Tojo, under the bakufu, Japanese society was divided rigidly into four castes, the merchants, peasants, artisans and the samurai. The Tojo family came from the caste, through the Tojos were relatively lowly warrior retainers for the great damiyos that they had served for generations. Tojos father was a samurai turned Army officer and his mother was the daughter of a Buddhist priest, making his family very respectable, Tojo had an education typical of a Japanese youth in the Meiji era. Japanese girls who were taught it was the highest honor for a woman to have as many sons as possible who could die for the Emperor in war. Japanese schools in the Meiji era were very competitive, and there was no tradition of sympathy with failures, Tojo was of average intelligence, but he was known to compensate for his limited intelligence with a willingness to work extremely hard. Tojos boyhood hero was the 17th century shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu who issued the injunction, Avoid the things you like, Tojo liked to say, I am just an ordinary man possessing no shining talents. Anything I have achieved I owe to my capacity for hard work, in 1899, Tojo entered the Army Cadet School. When he graduated from the Japanese Military Academy in March 1905 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the infantry of the IJA. Tojos anger at the Treaty of Portsmouth left him with a dislike of Americans. In 1909, Tojo married Katsuko Ito, with whom he would have three sons and four daughters, in 1918-19, Tojo briefly served in Siberia as part of the Japanese expeditionary force sent to intervene in the Russian Civil War. Tojo served as Japanese military attache to Germany between 1919-1922, a stern, humorless man, Tojo was known for his brusque manner, his obsession with etiquette, and for his coldness. Tojo wrote with bitterness at the time that American whites would never accept Asians as equals, Japan, too, has to be strong to survive in the world. By 1928, he had become the chief of the Japanese Army. He began to take an interest in militarist politics during his command of the 8th Infantry Regiment. Reflecting the hermaphrodite imagery often used in Japan to describe people in power, Tojo often visited the homes of the men under his command, assisted his men with personal problems and made loans to officers short of money. In 1934, Tojo was promoted to general and served as Chief of the Personnel Department within the Army Ministry. Tojo wrote a chapter in the book Hijōji kokumin zenshū, a book published in March 1934 by the Army Ministry calling for Japan to become a national defense state
5.
Pacific War
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The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in the Pacific and East Asia. It was fought over a vast area that included the Pacific Ocean and islands, the South West Pacific, South-East Asia, and in China. The Pacific War saw the Allied powers pitted against the Empire of Japan, the formal and official surrender of Japan took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. In Allied countries during the war, The Pacific War was not usually distinguished from World War II in general, or was known simply as the War against Japan. Japan used the name Greater East Asia War, as chosen by a decision on 10 December 1941. Japanese officials integrated what they called the Japan–China Incident into the Greater East Asia War, in Japan, the Fifteen Years War is also used, referring to the period from the Mukden Incident of 1931 through 1945. The Phayap Army sent troops to invade and occupy northeastern Burma, also involved were the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang, and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime. The official policy of the U. S. Government is that Thailand was not an ally of the Axis, Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Formosa. To a small extent, some Vichy French, Indian National Army, Germany and Italy both had limited involvement in the Pacific War. The German and the Italian navies operated submarines and raiding ships in the Indian, the Italians had access to concession territory naval bases in China, while the Germans did not. After Japans attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war, mexico, Free France and many other countries also took part, especially forces from other British colonies. Between 1942 and 1945, there were four main areas of conflict in the Pacific War, China, the Central Pacific, South East Asia, U. S. sources refer to two theaters within the Pacific War, the Pacific theater and the China Burma India Theater. However these were not operational commands, in the Pacific, the Allies divided operational control of their forces between two supreme commands, known as Pacific Ocean Areas and Southwest Pacific Area. In 1945, for a period just before the Japanese surrender. By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and was ready to move deeper into China, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to fight about 300,000 Japanese troops in Shanghai, the Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937 and committed which was known as Nanking Massacre. In March 1938, Nationalist forces won their first victory at Taierzhuang, but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops to invade Wuhan, the Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the United States—condemned Japan, especially after the Panay incident
6.
Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors
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All military personnel were required to memorize the 2700 kanji document. The Rescript was issued by Emperor Meiji of Japan on 4 January 1882 and it was considered the most important document in the development of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy. The Imperial Rescript was primarily written by Inoue Kowashi and Yamagata Aritomo, the Rescript was presented to Army Minister Yamagata Aritomo directly by Emperor Meiji in person in a special ceremony held at the Tokyo Imperial Palace. This unprecedented action was meant to symbolize the personal bond between the Emperor and the military, making the military in effect, the Emperors personal army, coming shortly after the Satsuma Rebellion, the Rescript stressed absolute personal loyalty of each individual member of the military to the Emperor. The Rescript also advises military personnel to be frugal in their personal habits, however, a clause that the military was subordinate to civilian authority did not make it into the final draft. A famous precept in the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors states that duty is heavier than a mountain, text of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors
7.
Filial piety
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In Confucian philosophy, filial piety is a virtue of respect for ones parents, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian classic Xiao Jing or Classic of Xiào, thought to be written around the Qin-Han period, has historically been the source on the Confucian tenet of xiào / filial piety. The book, a conversation between Confucius and his student Zeng Shen, is about how to set up a good society using the principle of xiào, Filial piety is central to Confucian role ethics. Filial piety is considered a key virtue in Chinese culture, one of the most famous collections of such stories is The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars. These stories depict how children exercised their filial piety in the past, while China has always had a diversity of religious beliefs, filial piety has been common to almost all of them, historian Hugh D. R. Baker calls respect for the family the only element common to almost all Chinese believers, Filial piety is illustrated by the Chinese character xiao. The character is a combination of the character lao above the character zi, that is, in Korean Confucianism, the character 孝 is pronounced hyo. In Vietnamese, the character 孝 is written in Quoc Ngu as hiếu, in Japanese, the term is generally used in spoken and written language as 親孝行, oyakoukou, adding characters for parent and conduct to make the word more specific. For Confucius, filial piety was not merely blind loyalty to ones parents, more important than the norms of xiào were the norms of rén and yì. For Confucius and Mencius, xiào was a display of rén which was applied in ones dealings with all elders. However, in practice, xiào was usually reserved for ones own parents and grandparents, Filial piety was emphasized in Confucianism because devotion to ones parents was often associated with ones devotion to the state. Early Buddhism did not have a tradition of filial piety. Buddhism in India involved many men leaving or abandoning their families, parents, wives, the true Buddhist had to reject all family ties, just as they had to reject social and class ties if they were to pursue Nirvana. Family was viewed as just another encumbrance of mortal life that had to be dealt with, sorrow and grief were said to be born of those who are dear. In India, Buddhism also advocated celibacy among its monks which was unacceptable in the Confucian world view, when Buddhism was introduced to China, it was redefined to support filial piety. The Mouzi Lihuolun, a work defending Buddhism to the Chinese, presented arguments for Buddhist monks seemingly poor treatment of their parents, the Guiyangtu and Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra are also Buddhist works portraying lay householder duties and obligations in contrast with pure monastic renunciation. The Mouzi Lihuolun compares the Buddhist monk to a son who saves his father from drowning. A long time ago, the Chi people crossed a river in a boat
