日本的明治維新並不令人印象深刻，而日本的現代化（1945年以前）則被誇大了。
這並不是那麼令人印象深刻。日本國內外的明治維新被神話和錯誤觀念所籠罩。也就是說，大多數對這個主題有些模糊了解的非日本人認為，日本在這一時期“迅速工業化”，這可能是基於對戰後日本的刻板印象。事實上，日本二戰前的經濟成長率僅為戰後的1/3。到明治時代末期，日本仍然是一個貧窮的農業國家。
日本的努力也並非獨一無二。事實上，從埃及到中國，每一個「不文明」的國家都曾嘗試現代化。日本人在經濟和軍事現代化方面也並非更成功。甲午戰爭時，日本的戰艦數量為零。中國有2個。
日本的經濟並沒有那麼令人印象深刻，其現代化努力也沒有那麼出色。那麼，為什麼他們是唯一的成功故事呢？
因為這個時期的日本的士兵、水手、軍官都是非常優秀的。到 1905 年，日本陸軍和海軍可以說擁有世界上最高素質的人員和指揮，以及最先進的軍事方法。日本是繼英國之後第二個廣泛採用無線電報的國家，第二個（繼美國之後）採用海軍戰爭遊戲的國家，第一個大規模使用間接炮火的國家，第一個發展出「滲透」的假象的國家。大規模的“戰術”，第一個使用進攻性布雷，第一個使用燃燒彈，第一個建造半無畏艦的國家，第一個（也是迄今為止唯一一個）用陸地火砲摧毀敵方艦隊的國家。在訓練中，日本士兵有著世界上最真實的訓練計劃，包括長時間的行軍和刺刀練習，幾乎沒有隊形訓練。軍官們模仿了德國在睡眠不足的情況下進行兵棋推演的方法。
在與中國和俄羅斯的對抗中，日本人在陸地和海上都處於劣勢。正如我所提到的，日本仍然是一個貧窮的國家。更糟糕的是，它的有效稅率是世界上最低的國家之一——大約 4%。明治時代的日本民眾非常抗稅。儘管存在這樣的劣勢，日本陸軍和日本海軍在質量上完全勝過了他們的敵人。他們不僅以「不文明」的標準來衡量，而且以歐洲的標準來衡量，他們也很優秀。
這就是日本與波斯、奧斯曼、埃及和中國不同的地方。所有國家都採用了西化軍隊的服飾和技術。在人員素質方面，只有日本可以與之媲美。
===日本金融體系基本上已經破產。日本經濟極不穩定===
如果您是 1931 年後在銀行帳戶中存有大量日圓的日本公民，您會希望盡快擺脫它！在 1945 年之前的整個時期，由於主要出口產品（通常是紡織品）的廉價性以及進口外國技術的成本高昂，日本長期遭受國際收支問題。日本是 1929 年市場崩盤後第一個實施「黃金禁運」的國家，禁止黃金出口（當時黃金支持日圓），也是第一個完全放棄金本位的主要國家。儘管這項措施（以及隨後的貨幣擴張）對日本經濟產生了穩定作用，在大蕭條的頭四年裡，日本經濟成長了50% 左右，而世界其他地區則萎縮了，但它導致了國外貨幣貶值，國內兩位數的通貨膨脹是一個持續存在的問題，一直持續到二戰結束。
至於殖民地貨幣的性質，除了偽滿元之外，它們實際上根本不是貨幣。早期的日本殖民地（韓國和台灣）都是按照法國模式進行治理的，其中包括將單獨的殖民地貨幣與大都市的貨幣掛鉤。這些貨幣可以依照殖民宗主國的外匯存底（當時指的是黃金儲備）所維持的固定匯率進行兌換。對於日本金融官僚機構的資產負債表來說，透過出口賺取韓元絕不等於賺取美元或法郎。由於日本需要自己的黃金和外匯儲備來穩定韓元匯率，因此韓元收益無法對日本的外匯存底做出有意義的貢獻。這聽起來可能很神秘，所以用更簡單的話來說：一種貨幣，尤其是在金本位時代，其好壞取決於它的支持者。就韓元、台幣和日元而言，支持者是相同的。
這一切都引出了一個問題：為什麼日本人和他們的法國模式首先要費心去創造單獨的貨幣，而答案就是控制。對於非日本人來說，獲得日圓比台幣或韓元容易得多，特別是因為直到1911 年，日本仍然受到限制其貿易政策的不平等條約的約束。日本人比任何其他殖民國家都更要求他們的殖民地運作以盈利。這被明確寫入許多殖民地政府和公司的章程和章程中。所有日本殖民地的利潤在很大程度上都是由鴉片貿易帶來的，因此英國、法國和美國必須被排除在鴉片貿易之外。透過創造一種平行貨幣來做到這一點要容易得多，這種貨幣只與附屬於殖民當局的日本企業進行兌換，從而使他們能夠壟斷利潤豐厚的毒品貿易。不同的貨幣也確保了殖民地政府可以限制進入殖民地的資本數量。如果「太多」資本進入，韓國和台灣的工資就會增加，從而減少附屬於殖民政府的企業的利潤。
滿洲國是個例外。依照中國的傳統，滿洲國的貨幣一直實行銀本位制，直到1935年。滿洲國貨幣的獨立性與整個滿洲國的相對獨立性有關。滿洲國是透過叛變而建立的：當時的石原寬二上校偽造了中國對日本擁有的南滿鐵路的炸彈襲擊，在沒有命令的情況下開始了敵對行動。日本軍隊沿襲普魯士的分散指揮體制，這使得無數其他軍官可以在沒有上級命令的情況下效仿，這迫使東京接受了滿洲戰爭的「既成事實」。「九一八事變」後，滿洲成為三人的私人項目：關東軍督察長東條英機、南滿鐵道社長松岡洋介和岸信介。信介，商工部王位繼承人。滿洲的「三駕馬車」都是日本政壇「改良主義」派系的領導人，他們支持仍以農業為主的日本的蘇聯式工業化，並且是日本政壇「主流」的敵人：豬肉桶黨老闆、財閥（大型家族貿易公司）和堅持日本強調「戰鬥精神」傳統學說的將軍。
當然，三駕馬車更願意與東京保持盡可能大的行政距離，保留自己的貨幣，只邀請同意他們的財閥（其中最大的財閥，日產公司，奉承地更名為“滿洲工業開發公司”）。這是因為滿洲的內在力量才可能實現這一點——在九一八事變時，滿洲佔了中國工業的90%，並且在三駕馬車的工業化運動之後，滿洲的GDP與日本本身相當。東京和新京官僚機構的兩極化加劇了滿洲國與日本的分裂。1931 年至 1936 年間，東京的保守派將改革派官僚和軍官流放到滿洲，最終導致岸信介本人於 1936 年被流放，日本帝國實際上被「分裂」為兩半。
這種分裂的逐步解決對滿洲貨幣產生了影響。1931年，改革派取得了罕見的勝利，任命高橋是清為財務大臣，重塑了曾經最保守的內閣。在凱因斯提出通論之前，是清就實施了原始凱因斯主義的財政政策和擴張性貨幣政策。是清仍然是唯一與三駕馬車關係良好的內閣級大臣，因此他們同意了他的要求，在 1935 年廢除滿洲國銀本位制，並像日本其他殖民地貨幣一樣將人民幣與日元掛鉤。但這並沒有改變三駕馬車控制滿洲國外匯儲備、可以選擇性地接納或拒絕外國投資、壟斷毒品貿易的事實。
由於殖民貨幣的限制性意圖，獲得大量殖民貨幣並不是一件簡單的事情。對於日本公民來說，在橫濱正金銀行最容易獲得韓元和台幣，該銀行在整個時期都是日本政府殖民企業的主要陣地。像台灣開發銀行這樣的更具體的機構也可以為您提供貨幣，但這些銀行的設立是為了迎合殖民地已有的特殊利益，而不是東京政府：換句話說，如果您與殖民政府沒有隸屬關係，你最好避開開發銀行。如果你人脈廣泛，你可以直接從北韓銀行或台灣銀行購買殖民地日元，但這些機構的存在主要是沿著現有的發行管道（即殖民政府及其附屬機構的官僚機構）發行和分配貨幣。企業），而且他們不強調面向「新客戶」的互動。簡而言之，如果您想獲得大量殖民日元，那麼參觀橫濱正金銀行是您最好的選擇。您將被簡短詢問您打算如何使用殖民地現金，出納員將根據年份向殖民地辦公室的某人發電報或打電話，您的商業投資（或極其昂貴的旅行計劃）將被批准或拒絕。
問題是，這一切都必須提前發生。韓國或台灣沒有YSB 分支機構（儘管上海、大連和檀香山有）。也因為如此，你根本沒有機會利用家裡大量的日圓積蓄。
前往滿洲的昂貴訪問是一件更為複雜的事情。大連有一家 YSB 分行，所以理論上你可以在到達滿洲後兌換貨幣，但你這樣做的機會很小- 即使（不，特別是如果）你是日本建制派的傑出成員。如前所述，岸信介不希望在滿洲國出現財閥，除非那些同意國家主導開發的財閥，而他與日產創始人相川義介的密切關係確保了任何與日產利益存在遠程競爭的開發項目都會在到達時被否決。1931年後，如果你去拜訪YSB大連分部，很可能會引起關東軍官員到你的住所拜訪，他會盤問你到底打算用這麼一大筆錢在滿洲國做什麼，並提醒你這不是像你這樣的財閥部長的國家。
至於軍日元，這嚴格來說是一種「合法化掠奪」的手段。根據法律，二戰期間許多被佔領土必須以軍用日圓開展業務。日本軍方收到了所需的軍用日元，這些軍事日圓被用來「購買」所需的當地產品，如糧食和民用勞動力。與其他殖民地貨幣不同，軍用日圓不能兌換成日圓。
是的，這是現代歷史上最普遍的神話之一。日本在明治時代的工業化速度確實相對較快，但關鍵字是「相對」。當時西歐的平均 GDP 成長率約為 1%，而日本的成長率則與美國持平，均為 3%。速度很快，但與 1931 年後的速度相去甚遠。
與一般看法相反，1931 年之前的日本經濟管理並不出色，而且存在許多問題。薩摩藩叛亂期間和之後，由於為叛亂支付印刷費用（儒家治理本質上是小政府主義，因此直到第一次世界大戰之後，整個東北亞的稅收都非常低）和復制日本的地方儲備銀行體系，出現了大規模的惡性通貨膨脹。美國，自然是通貨膨脹的。財務大臣松方對此的回應是將紙幣發行特權集中在中央銀行，並在中國作出馬關賠償後購買黃金以加入金本位制。結果就是至今在日本經濟學家中爭議極大的「松方通貨緊縮」。有人說這是輝煌的，也有人說這是經濟愚蠢的頂峰，但不可否認的是，這個時代帶來了巨大的經濟混亂。
1900年以後，日本經濟仍以農業為主，其產業也舉步維艱。財閥以外貿公司起家，基本上控制了出口通路。他們剝削小型製造商，這些製造商必須低價出價才能獲得出口交易，而傳統的人造絲、絲綢和紡織工業則受到美國關稅以及來自香港和中國大陸的競爭的影響。與普遍看法相反，由於需要進口大量技術，日本在兩次世界大戰之間的大部分時間都存在貿易逆差。這通常不是以聰明的方式完成的（聘請外國專家、顧問和技術人員或派實習生到國外），而是直接購買大量機械。日本一直缺乏黃金，不得不實行「黃金禁運」以避免本國貨幣全面貶值。
日本經濟管理的轉捩點是1931年，當時「維新官僚」——日本政府中與財閥結盟的機構中長期被邊緣化的群體——在偽滿洲國獲得了一個「實驗室」。在大多數東正教軍官征服該省後，他們與改革官僚結盟。這與日本與財閥結盟的官員對改革派官僚的清洗相一致，因此大多數人被「流放」到滿洲。在那裡，他們嘗試了多項政策來提高企業利潤率（通常是不惜一切代價壓低工資）並鼓勵外國投資。他們在財閥中為自己找到了一名「叛逃者」——日產創始人愛群川義介，由於公司即將破產，他別無選擇，只能接受滿洲國的提議。日本戰後的經濟管理技術多起源於偽滿洲國。
繁榮時期的貨幣政策有著不同的起源。1932 年，大蕭條襲擊了日本，財務大臣高橋是清基本上放棄了當時的主流經濟學，放棄了金本位制，經營印鈔機，並使用巨額赤字支出。有效。大藏省的高層改變了主意，認為古典經濟學確實是改革官僚所說的騙局，從此成為他們在日本的主要盟友。
長話短說，到了 1937 年，軍事機構和政治機構都被改革官僚和東正教軍官組成的“滿洲集團”在希特勒扮演王子的幫助下擊敗了（不是開玩笑，他實際上在化裝舞會上打扮成希特勒）近衛。近衛的表現不錯，斷斷續續地持續了四年（大約是當時日本首相平均時間的10倍），但最終還是東條（東正教領袖）、岸信介（改革官僚領袖）和松方（改革官僚領袖） 。外交部長和他們的老朋友）把他扔到了公共汽車下。然後，東條和岸信介把松方扔到公共汽車下（我忘了具體原因）並轟炸了珍珠港。到那時，經濟改革已經太晚了，但改革派利用戰爭將所有保守派清除出了官僚體系。最後，到了1945 年，改革官僚們將東條和東正波拋在了公共汽車下，讓美國人相信軍隊和財閥應對戰爭負責，而他們沒有參與戰爭（美國人很容易相信這一點，因為美國官僚機構已經幾乎沒有權力）並最終統治了這個國家 40 年。
在這段時間裡，他們實施、改進和完善了他們已經在滿洲國以及在日本的貨幣方面使用的技術。然而，重要的是，這些技術在1931 年之前並不為人所知，而明治時代儘管在軍事上取得了成功，但在經濟上卻失敗了，因為日本直到20 世紀40 年代仍然是一個相對貧窮的「大國」。
資料來源：
約翰遜、查爾默斯。通產省和日本的繁榮。
德里斯科爾、馬克. 絕對是色情，絕對怪誕：日本帝國主義中的生者、死者與不死者。
達巴、弘。後藤新平 o meguru。
弗萊徹，威廉‧邁爾斯。日本商界與國家貿易政策，1920-1942 年。
杜斯，彼得。算盤與劍：日本對北韓的滲透，1895-1910 年。
===日本帝國軍隊是優秀的，所有神話的根源===
對於海軍來說，有兩個主要階段：1868 年至 1895 年，然後是 1895 年以後。對軍隊來說，情況更加複雜。兩者都是從模仿外國形式開始的，然後在取得一些成功後，將本土創新與外國學說結合起來。
日本帝國海軍的歷史更為簡單──它的「真正創始人」是榎本武昭，一位曾與指揮分裂國家的明治政府作戰的武士。在最初的30年裡，日本海軍意識到所有可能的競爭對手（主要是中國的北洋艦隊和南洋艦隊）都擁有更強大的財力，因此創新了法國海軍的不對稱「青年學院」學說，該學說相信成群結隊的小型艦艇可以戰勝戰艦行。一大堆外國顧問來到這裡訓練海軍，但是，與那些在外國顧問方面表現不佳的國家不同，真正的控制權始終掌握在日本海軍的軍官集團手中，他們與顧問保持一定的距離，並使用比特和數字來標準化他們的標準作業程序。每個外國海軍的條令，而不是讓外國顧問發生衝突並提出相互矛盾的建議
不幸的是，像大多數不對稱學說一樣，「青年學院」最終被證明是無稽之談。甲午戰爭期間，與其說日本海軍贏了戰爭，不如說是北洋海軍輸了。1889年慈禧太后退休後，她的繼任者太傅翁太師大幅削減軍費，導致北洋水師自此之後不再購買船隻，所有人員的工資都嚴重過低。戰爭期間，日本海軍的巡洋艦、魚雷艇、砲艇未能摧毀中國海軍的任何一艘戰艦。相反，當發現戰艦上的軍官工資過低，在腐敗行為中用木屑代替了大部分火藥時，戰艦被迫投降。
這項結果令日本海軍深感失望，它原本希望其不對稱學說能夠使其能夠以更少的資源對抗法國、英國、美國或俄羅斯等更大的敵人。戰爭結束後，他們試圖透過遊說一項名為「6-6計畫」的10年建設計畫來彌補失地：6艘戰艦，6艘裝甲巡洋艦。他們以卓越的能力完成了從法國式小型艦隊到英國式戰艦的轉變，透過卓越的砲術訓練和進攻性布雷等非對稱創新以及使用燃燒性雷尼特砲彈摧毀上層建築來彌補物質上的不足。繼英國皇家海軍之後，日本海軍是第一支在其艦艇上廣泛採用無線電報的部隊。這個重組過程包括派遣像秋山實之這樣有前途的軍官到美國和英國觀察他們教育戰艦軍官的方式——秋山帶回了海軍兵棋的概念，並很快將其引入了日本海軍的學院和學院。關鍵的是，日本海軍的想法並非全部都奏效——戰爭摧毀了他們對魚雷艇的持續信心，而秋山在亞瑟港用一艘“沉船”複製聖地亞哥港堵塞（失敗的）的想法和它的前身一樣順利。儘管發生在理想的條件下，但對旅順港的「原始珍珠港」襲擊卻是一次悲慘的失敗。最終，日本海軍願意嘗試新事物並接受失敗，這就是其成功的秘訣。
與陸軍不同，海軍在日俄戰爭期間表現完美，戰後「精神」幾乎沒有改變，只是在隨後的幾十年裡根據時代調整了「勝利主義」。日本海軍完全超越了各種俄羅斯艦隊，並「了解」速度和遠程戰艦火力是海軍戰術成功的關鍵因素。從戰略上講，這場戰爭似乎證實了阿爾弗雷德·塞耶·馬漢的著作，日本海軍繼續虔誠地閱讀他的著作。
IJA 的歷史更為複雜。明治維新後的十年裡，它竭盡全力模仿法國和德國軍隊——到1871年，「德國步兵，法國騎兵」成為共識。然而，1877 年的薩摩叛亂徹底改變了遊戲規則。在叛亂的最後時刻，其領導人、前統治集團成員西鄉隆森發起了自殺指控，極大地鼓舞了他的門徒變成敵人的山形有友。雖然此類自殺指控在日本軍事史上很常見，但在世界其他地方幾乎很少見。將軍們認為，這種大和魂（日本精神）將是日本擊敗更富裕、人口更多的國家（換句話說：除了朝鮮以外他們可能與之戰鬥的每個國家）所需的「X因素」。Seishin Kyoikyu （精神訓練）早在 1882 年就滲透到 IJA 手冊中，同年《士兵和水手的帝國敕令》發布，呈現出獨特的日本風格，並拒絕了當時歐洲流行的許多信仰。儘管如此，直到 1880 年代末，當最後一批獲得授權的外國顧問被驅逐時，外國建議仍然在理論形成中佔據主導地位。到1895年，IJA仍然是一支“模仿西方力量”，其表現雖然值得尊敬，但以大國的標準來看卻很平庸。儘管如此，它在 1894-95 年戰爭中的表現遠不如海軍的缺陷，因此改革的動力要低得多。
從 1895 年到 1905 年，IJA 僅對理論進行了較小的修改，主要是圍繞它所經歷的少數明顯的失敗。針對旅順口大屠殺，沒有俘虜戰俘的文化和歷史傳統的日本士兵屠殺了數千名投降的中國人，日軍加強了紀律，並設立了“團妻”（妓女，慰安婦的前身）作為一種阻止強姦和暴行的宣洩方式。這些措施似乎在 1899 年發揮了作用，因為在義和團運動期間，西方人稱讚日本士兵的文明和紀律（儘管八國聯盟的一些成員的行為門檻很低）。日本海軍確實開始創新的另一個領域是將一些傳統的「東方」軍事戰術重新引入其理論中，即夜間攻擊。從 1895 年到 1905 年，中國軍事經典開始滲透到日本軍事教育和「娛樂」軍事讀物中，因為日本軍隊正在尋找「本土」優勢來對抗物質和數量上佔優勢的西方軍隊。
日俄戰爭雖然取得了成功，但對日本帝國主義來說是一個嚴重的警鐘，因為它引起了人們對當時歐洲「主流」理論的廣泛失望。預示著第一次世界大戰，日本軍隊對防禦工事反覆發動人海攻擊，雖然他們通常造成的傷亡多於損失，但高層很快就意識到，他們無法以這種方式贏得對數量上佔優勢的敵人的戰爭。戰爭期間，IJA 表現出了比俄羅斯敵人更強的能力（他們仍然練習齊射，並根據戰術規則指示“不要瞄準”，因為瞄準會減慢攻擊的勢頭），並受到歐洲觀察家的廣泛讚揚。他們的軍隊遵循同樣過時的學說），但私下里，其將軍們知道他們的戰術是不可持續的。
儘管比日本海軍少，但日本陸軍在戰爭期間確實有亮點。它的夜間襲擊令俄羅斯人感到恐懼，並且在其解體之前一直是其學說的固定內容。它的士氣是傳奇性的，歷史學家仍然在爭論這是否是由Seishin Kyoikyu創造的，或者只是日本人的文化。為了反對東方主義，20世紀70年代至2000年代的許多學者試圖調整敘述，並斷言是「灌輸」導致日本士兵如此狂熱。有些人試圖為 IJA 的行為以及 1930 年代和 1940 年代的暴行辯解，聲稱他們只是在模仿歐洲法西斯主義。
然而，日本的日俄戰爭回憶錄，最著名的是《人肉子彈》，證明這些「開明」的論點大多是無稽之談。這些回憶錄表明，在日俄戰爭期間，許多日本軍隊實際上根本沒有接受過任何訓練，在某些情況下甚至很少接受過訓練。儘管如此，這些記載仍然充滿了“日常狂熱”，其中包括諸如“在這場特殊的戰鬥中，做好死亡準備是不夠的；我們需要的是不死不休的決心。事實上，我們是‘ “必死之人”，這個新的稱謂給了我們很大的刺激」。這些記載表明，早在法西斯主義出現之前，日本就是「榮譽文化」的極端版本，一個人在當地社區的聲譽比他的生命更重要，甚至更重要。他們也充滿了士兵本能地試圖鼓舞彼此的士氣，讓彼此忘記痛苦和壞消息的描述。簡而言之，當時的日本文化自然有利於軍事士氣——這一點當時被西方觀察家廣泛注意到，但在後來的冷戰修正主義歷史洪流中被否認。
除了「道德因素」之外，IJA 確實引入了一些理論創新。雖然英國在布爾戰爭中進行了有限規模的間接火砲射擊，但 IJA 是第一支廣泛採用這種技術的軍隊。他們還創新地使用機槍進行進攻，將機槍用作從掩護到掩護攻擊的監視——當機槍開火時，一條小衝突線會從一排掩體衝到另一排掩體，然後停下來用水冷卻（如是當時的格言所必需的），然後再在掩護下繼續前進。然而，總而言之，雖然日本陸軍證明自己是當時戰術能力最強的軍隊之一，但第一次世界大戰前的條令將標準設定得極低，其將軍們痛苦地意識到了這一點。
隨之而來的是幾乎完全拒絕當時的軍事正統觀念，並經過數十年的創新創造了一種學說，允許較小的軍隊擊敗較大的軍隊，允許武裝力量較差的軍隊擊敗武裝較好的軍隊。第一個宰殺的聖牛是歐洲傳統的操練和訓練，強調外表和注重細節。IJA 取而代之的是全年的“實踐訓練”，以培養他們認為有用的技能，包括耐力行軍（直至男子每天行軍 25 英里，持續幾天）、分隊（小隊）戰術、槍法，刺刀工作，並學習使用最有可能的對手的步槍。事實上，沒有人注意到折疊床、遊行或統一標準（在接下來的幾十年裡，制服確實變得非常難看）。有些人擔心歐洲演習活動的解體會導致紀律崩潰，因此 IJA 解決了這個問題，即使是最小的錯誤也會經常受到毆打，理由是“教訓會被記住”，這將“鼓勵迅速服從命令”。
第二個被宰殺的聖牛是戰前的營戰術，當時該戰術涉及一個作為單一有機體運作的大型部隊，每個連總是與下一個連保持聯繫。早在第一次世界大戰之前，日本就將基本戰術單位從連移交給了排，到了第二次世界大戰之前又移交給了步兵班。各部隊被指示忘記彼此保持聯繫或規律性，只強調“迅速接近”，以便日本士兵可以在近距離利用他們的優勢。
最後，IJA 放棄了任何「統一指揮」的說法。最初是在德國接受訓練的，它一直相信“執行式指揮”，但到了1931 年，它已將其推向了邏輯的極端，以至於命令很少長於單個段落，並且在所有級別上執行指令幾乎都是可選的。這種錯誤最臭名昭著的例子是 1944 年的因帕爾攻勢，當時幾乎每個人都告訴穆塔口將軍他的攻勢是一個愚蠢的想法，但他卻忽略了他們。他的指揮官川部允許該計劃繼續進行，儘管他也認為這很愚蠢，因為他認為應該允許軍官做他們想做的事，而且下級總是比上級更準確地了解情況。然而，在許多情況下，這種權力下放也取得了驚人的成功。總體而言，它滲透到軍隊內部的一種「忠誠不服從」文化中，在某些情況下，軍階幾乎變得毫無意義，而人格力量和大膽的結合決定了軍官對要做的事情有多少發言權。
1905年後IJA改革的基本軌跡是將軍隊從傳統力量轉變為「破壞性」力量。意識到軍事後勤和 C3 逐年變得更加複雜，大多數國家都專注於在這 4 個領域取得卓越成就。相較之下，日本由於其工業基礎較弱，專注於建立一支能夠在缺乏良好後勤和指揮控制能力的情況下發揮作用的部隊，並且能夠擾亂敵人的行動，使敵人成為「離水之魚」。
這種非傳統的信念帶來了超越其作者在 20 世紀 30 年代和 40 年代所預期的顯著成功，這一過程極大地增強了 IJA 的信心和擴張主義。它的勝利始於 1931 年征服滿洲，在抗日戰爭期間繼續取得勝利，最終在 1941-42 年征服歐洲和美洲殖民地時達到頂峰。這些勝利中的每一次勝利都以寡不敵眾、火力不足的部隊以令人驚訝的輕鬆方式取得勝利。當時 IJA 的反對者指出，其士兵能夠比實際情況更快地行軍並在任何條件下作戰，而其軍官則表現出非凡的主動性和聰明才智。然而，這段時期的後期也暴露了 IJA 系統的缺陷——它只擅長做一件事，而不擅長做其他事情。在整個 1941-42 年的攻勢中，IJA 廣泛依賴繳獲的裝備，到 1944 年，英國人已經學會將其倉庫保持在遠離戰線的地方。此外，作為一支以進攻為主的軍隊，日本陸軍幾乎對防禦一無所知，甚至沒有縱深防禦的概念。直到硫磺島戰役之前，日本的任何陣地都沒有得到有效的防禦——相反，它是「透過進攻來防禦」的。從紙面上看，這不是問題——即使在島嶼防禦的非常不利的戰術條件下，日本人受到海軍轟炸，並且面對數量上始終佔優勢的敵人，他們的損失比率通常是均勻的，有時甚至是有利的。然而，實際上，這種侵略性的防禦意味著 IJA 駐軍被擊敗的速度比原本應有的速度要快得多，這意味著軍隊基本上無法對抗任何形式的拖延行動。
由於兩次世界大戰期間相對惰性，海軍的表現遠沒有那麼引人注目。珍珠港、爪哇海、印度洋突襲和薩沃島都是亮點，但海軍也有災難性的失敗，包括在戰爭初期。與陸軍不同，陸軍基本上放棄了日俄戰爭時期的大部分做法，而海軍仍然堅持其過時的決戰學說，未能發展出任何有效的反潛戰術，而且似乎很少考慮如何結果是長期戰爭。陸軍對數量上佔優勢的對手有一套連貫的“勝利理論”，而海軍卻沒有考慮到其小班飛行員訓練計劃等方面的缺陷，只是簡單地假設“艦艇建造時間很長”，因此一次勝利就能將對手淘汰出戰爭。
顯然，我在這篇文章中沒有討論很多內容，包括：
- IJA 對抗北韓、滿洲和中國遊擊隊的記錄。
- 1918 年至 1922 年對俄羅斯東部的殘酷佔領。
- IJA 內部的派系陰謀（chobatsu 與其他所有人，然後是巴登巴登集團/toseiha 與 kodoha）。
- 蘇日邊境戰爭以及圍繞它的廣泛的偽造運動。
- 日本明治時代的「快速工業化」（或更確切地說，缺乏工業化）。
- 月國城的戰國根源，早在德國人到來之前。
但這篇文章已經太長了，我希望它至少能給出這個主題的基本概述。
====日本軍隊是無法控制的野獸====
日本政府能否真正控制日本軍隊，是一個非常重要的議題。正如你所指出的，軍隊在日本帝國的決策機構中確實掌握著很大的權力，並且發生過多起政府高級官員被暗殺的事件，例如5月15日事件，首相犬養剛被刺殺。年輕海軍軍官，或作為未遂政變一部分的2 月26 日事件，其中一群下級陸軍軍官試圖做同樣的事情，作為其未遂政變的一部分。除了東京的這些軍事叛亂行為之外，日本帝國陸軍（IJA）和日本帝國海軍（IJN）因特別不服從中央政府的命令而臭名昭著，日本帝國軍隊發動了對滿洲的入侵和對北方的入侵中國在沒有或公然違抗政府指示的情況下對盧溝橋事件作出反應。從西方的角度來看，我們習慣看到軍隊完全處於文官控制之下，這一切似乎令人震驚。畢竟，幾乎不可能想像羅斯福或邱吉爾會被美國海軍或英國皇家海軍的一群下級軍官暗殺，更不用說這些下級軍官會因其行為而受到讚揚。
那什麼給出呢？日本帝國到底發生了什麼事？
也許首先要理解的也是最重要的一點是，日本首相並不是任何類型的帝國政府的首腦，也不是受到軍方特別尊重的職位。這種根源非常深厚，幾乎是日本帝國的基礎。1877年，推翻德川幕府的起義領袖之一西鄉隆盛在薩摩之亂中起兵反抗新帝國政府。薩摩之亂是對全新日本軍的第一次重大考驗，雖然叛亂最終被鎮壓，但其遺產卻在日本軍中留下了深刻的印記。也許最重要的是軍隊應該脫離政治、與政府分離並且只對皇帝負責的想法。這場運動由山形有友親王帶頭，他尋求使軍隊完全獨立於政治，既是為了防止未來像薩摩之亂這樣的叛亂，也是為了防止可能反對帝國統治的政客干涉該組織和軍隊的運作。這意味著日本陸軍和日本海軍都直接向天皇負責。1882 年的《兵水敕書》是軍隊自身概念的基礎文件，它大力強化了這一點，強調日本士兵和水手對天皇的忠誠，「既不被當前的觀點引入歧途，也不被流行的觀點所誤導”。干涉政事”，還有“責重於山，死輕於鴻毛”的名言。因此，日本陸軍和日本海軍被視為真正的帝國機構，忠於皇帝高於一切，而不一定忠於文職領導。1889 年的明治憲法正式規定了這一點，第11 條將天皇尊為日本陸軍和日本海軍的最高統帥。重要的是，天皇為最高統帥，陸軍總參謀部直接向天皇負責，這意味著天皇被認為是被允許的不透過內閣來，因此不受總理的影響。這正是意圖，因為明治憲法的製定者迫切希望阻止政客（或政黨）控制軍隊。然而，當與更普遍的觀念相結合，即皇帝應該統治，而不是統治（即皇帝不應該因日常治理事務而玷污自己）時，這意味著軍隊實際上被留給了自己運作。1893年，海軍建立了自己的總參謀部，可以直接與皇帝接觸，獲得相同的基本地位：不受文職政府的控制，只對皇帝負責（這實際上意味著只對自己負責）。
在這方面，首相的權力確實不如華盛頓或倫敦的首相。陸軍和海軍實際上不在他的控制範圍內，整個文職政府對它們的唯一真正的權力槓桿是由國會控制的國防預算。順便說一句，日本帝國的內閣並不是從國會中多數席位中選出的。相反，總理由天皇直接任命，然後天皇將召集必要的部長來組成一個完全獨立於議會選舉方式的政府。為了回答你的一個問題，日本陸軍和日本海軍的士兵和水手被鼓勵將自己視為帝國意志的直接僕人，而帝國意志最終主導了文職政府和首相可能想到或想要的任何事情。從政治角度來看，1900年的新立法將陸軍部長職位限制為僅由現役軍官擔任。雖然這項規定於 1913 年被取消，但又於 1936 年恢復，並有效地賦予了軍隊在內閣中的重大影響力。由於陸軍部長必須是現役軍官，如果情況緊急，陸軍可能會讓陸軍部長辭職並拒絕提出繼任者，從而導致政府垮台。這有點偏離主題，但有關日本帝國政治的更多信息，我推薦這篇文章通過/u/StarWarsNerd222。雖然存在一定程度的控制，但由於文官政府最終控制了錢袋，這在很大程度上是日本帝國決策機構內多個幾乎對等的權力中心之間的推拉問題，而不是一個由首相主導的體系。部長向軍隊發出指示，隨後軍隊予以遵守。
雖然所有這些都有助於解釋為什麼 IJA 和 IJN 沒有特別高度重視首相，但這只是 IJA 不服從的問題的一小部分。這些討論中經常出現的術語是“gekokujō” （下克上），這個詞在日語中大致翻譯為“較低的規則較高”。在多種情況下，直到戰爭的最後幾天，日本陸軍和日本海軍的資歷相對較低的軍官都感到自己有權採取違反命令的行動，而且——在許多情況下——成功地把他們名義上的上級拖到了最後的軌道。他們選擇的道路。這樣的例子比比皆是，但根本問題是：為什麼？
這是一個很難解開的問題，但與之前日本陸軍和日本海軍如何將自己視為帝國意志的直接工具有關，除了皇帝之外誰都不對自己負責，而同時皇帝並不意味著直接參與日常事務。這導致了丹尼·奧爾巴赫（Danny Orbach）在其有關“ gekokujō”的著作中所說的“日本帝國整個詭計的“模糊中心””。他的意思是，雖然日本帝國是以天皇為中心而構建的，但天皇的行為缺乏明確性，這意味著軍官們很容易聲稱他們是在“按照天皇的意志行事”。 ”，即使這是直接反對文職政府的行為。在第二次世界大戰之前的昭和時代的大部分時間裡，「昭和維新」的概念，即圍繞天皇並歪曲天皇意志的腐敗顧問、政治家和資本家將被掃除，天皇將統治直接 奧爾巴赫也提到了日本帝國內部的一個總趨勢，即國家總是要繼續擴張、控制更多領土、擁有更強大的軍隊等，以及繼承自許多明治時代國家創始人的傾向更加強調一個人意圖的純潔性，而不是必然的後果，以及尊重為行動本身所採取的大膽、果斷的行動。這在某種程度上使得上級很難對不服從命令的下級軍官採取行動，只要這些下級軍官能夠反過來表明他們的理想是殘酷的，他們擴張和賦予日本和天皇權力的願望是純潔的，他們的行為導致了皇權的擴張。
我希望這有助於回答您的問題。請隨時詢問任何後續情況。這可能是一個非常深刻和迷人的話題，我很高興嘗試更多地探索它。
來源
- 愛德華‧德雷 (Edward Drea)，《日本皇軍：興衰，1853-1945 年》
- 大衛‧艾文斯與馬克‧皮蒂，《海軍：日本帝國海軍的戰略、戰術與技術，1887-1941 年》
- 丹尼·奧爾巴赫《詛咒這個國家：日本帝國的反抗軍》
- J. 查爾斯‧申金 (J. Charles Schencking)，《掀起波瀾：政治、宣傳與日本帝國海軍的興起，1868-1922 年》
It wasn’t all that impressive. The Meiji restoration inside and outside Japan is shrouded in myth and false perceptions. Namely, most non-Japanese who are vaguely familiar with the topic believe that Japan “rapidly industrialized” during this period, probably based on stereotypes of postwar Japan. Actually, Japan’s growth rate before WW2 was only 1/3 of its growth rate after the war. By the end of the Meiji era, Japan was still a poor, agrarian country.
Japan’s efforts also were not unique. Virtually every “uncivilized” power, from Egypt to China, had tried to modernize. Not were the Japanese more successful in economic and military modernization. At the time of the Sino-Japanese war, Japan had zero battleships. China had 2.
Japan was not that impressive economically, nor exceptional in its modernization efforts. Why, then, were they the lone success story?
Because Japan’s soldiers, sailors, and officers in this period were excellent. By 1905, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy arguably had the highest quality of personnel and command in the world, and the most advanced military methods. Japan was the second country, after Great Britain) to widely adopt wireless telegraphy, the second (after the US) to adopt naval war games, the first to use indirect artillery fire on a large scale, the first to develop a semblance of “infiltration tactics” on a large scale, the first to use offensive minelaying, the first to use incendiary naval rounds, the first country to build a semi-dreadnaught, and the first (and so far only) country to destroy an enemy fleet with land artillery. In training, Japanese soldiers had the most realistic program in the world, involving long forced marches and bayonet practice with almost no formation drill. Officers copied the German method of war gaming while sleep deprived.
Against both China and Russia, the Japanese were badly outnumbered in land and sea. Japan, as I mentioned, was still a poor country. Worse, it had one of the worlds lowest effective tax rates - about 4%. The Japanese public in Meiji times was very tax resistant. Despite this disadvantage, the IJA and IJN completely outclassed their enemies qualitatively. They weren’t just good by “uncivilized” standards - they were excellent by European standards.
This was where Japan was different than Persia, the Ottomans, Egypt, and China. All countries adopted the trappings and the technology of a Westernized army. Only Japan matched that with personnel quality.
===Japanese financial system was essentially bankrupt. Japanese economy was extremely unstable===
If you were a Japanese citizen with a boatload of Yen stashed in your bank account after 1931, you'd want to get rid of it as soon as possible! Throughout the entirety of the pre-1945 period, Japan suffered chronic balance of payments problems owing to the cheapness of its main exports (usually textiles) and the cost of importing foreign technology. Japan was the first country following the 1929 market crash to institute a "gold embargo", prohibiting the export of gold (which then backed the Yen), and the first major power to leave the gold standard entirely. Though this (and the subsequent monetary expansion) had a stabilizing effect on the Japanese economy, which grew by around 50% in the first four years of the depression while the rest of the world shrank, it led to a devaluation of the currency abroad and double-digit inflation at home - a persistent problem which continued until the end of WW2.
As for the nature of the colonial currencies, with the exception of the Manchukuo Yuan they were de facto no currencies at all. Both early Japanese colonies (Korea and Taiwan) were governed along the French model, which included having separate colonial currencies pegged to that of the metropole. These currencies were echangeable at fixed rates maintained by the foreign currency reserves (meaning, at the time, the gold reserves) of the colonial overlord. For the balance sheet of Japan's financial bureaucracy, earning Korean yen through export was in no way equivalent to earning US dollars or French francs. Earnings of Korean yen could not meaningfully contribute to Japan's foreign exchange reserves since Japan's own gold and foreign currency reserves were required to stabilize the Korean yen's exchange rate. This may all sound arcane, so in simpler terms: a currency, especially in the age of the gold standard, was only as good as its backer. In the case of the Korean yen, Taiwanese yen, and Japanese yen, the backer was the same.
This all begs the question of why the Japanese - and their French models - bothered to create separate currencies in the first place, and the answer is control. It was far easier for non-Japanese to acquire Japanese yen than Taiwanese or Korean yen, especially because Japan was still subject to unequal treaties that restricted its trade policy until 1911. The Japanese, moreso than any other colonial power, demanded that their colonies operate at a profit. This was explicitly written into the bylaws and charters of many colonial governments and corporations. Profits in all Japan's colonies were largely buoyed by the opium trade, so it was imperative that the British, French, and Americans were kept out of this trade. This was much easier to do through the creation of a parallel currency that was only exchanged only to Japanese businesses affiliated with the colonial authorities, giving them a monopoly on the lucrative drug trade. Separate currencies also ensured colonial governments could limit the amount of capital that entered the colonies. If "too much" capital entered, Korean and Taiwanese wages would increase, decreasing the profits of businesses affiliated with the colonial governments.
Manchukuo was the exception. Following Chinese tradition, Manchukuo's currency existed on the silver standard until 1935. The independence of the Manchukuo currency was related to the relative independence of Manchukuo as a whole. Manchukuo was created by an act of mutiny: then-colonel Kanji Ishiwara faked a Chinese bomb attack on the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway, commencing hostilities without orders. The Japanese army followed a Prussian system of decentralized command, which allowed countless other officers to follow suit without orders from their seniors, which forced Tokyo to accept the "fait accompli" of the Manchurian war. In the aftermath of the "Mukden Incident", Manchuria became the private project of three men: Tojo Hideki, Inspector General of the Kantogun (the army formation guarding the South Manchuria Railway), Matsuoka Yosuke, President of the South Manchuria Railway, and Kishi Nobusuke, heir to the throne of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The "troika" of Manchuria were all leaders of the "reformist" faction within Japanese politics which sponsored Soviet-style industrialization of a still-agrarian Japan, and were enemies of the "mainstream" of Japanese politics: pork-barrel party bosses, zaibatsu (large, family-owned trading companies), and generals who clung to Japan's traditional doctrine emphasizing "fighting spirit".
Naturally, the troika preferred to keep as much administrative distance between themselves and Tokyo as possible, preserving their own currency and only inviting zaibatsu who agreed with them (the largest of which, Nissan, flatteringly renamed itself "Manchurian Industrial Development Corporation"). This was only possible because of Manchuria's inherent power - at the time of the Mukden Incident, Manchuria constituted 90% of China's industry, and, following the troika's industrialization campaign, matched the GDP of Japan itself. The division of Manchukuo from Japan was accentuated by the polarization of the Tokyo and Hsinking bureaucracies. Between 1931 and 1936, the Japanese Empire was effectively "split" in two as conservatives in Tokyo exiled reformist bureaucrats and military officers to Manchuria, culminating in the exile of Kishi himself in 1936.
The gradual resolution of this split had consequences for Manchuria's currency. In 1931, the reformists earned a rare victory in the appointment of Takahashi Korekiyo as Minister of Finance, reshaping what was once the most conservative ministry. Korekiyo implemented a proto-Keynesian fiscal policy and an expansionary monetary policy before Keynes had authored the General Theory. Korekiyo remained the only cabinet-level minister with whom the troika had good relations, so they agreed to his request to dismantle the Manchukuo silver standard in 1935 and peg the Yuan to the yen like Japan's other colonial currencies. This did not change the fact, however, that the troika were in control of Manchukuo's foreign currency stock and could selectively admit or deny foreign investment and monopolize the drug trade.
Because of the restrictive intention of colonial currencies, acquiring a significant amount of them was not a simple business. For a Japanese citizen, Korean and Taiwanese yen could be most easily acquired at the Yokohama Specie Bank, which throughout the period was the Japanese government's main front for colonial businesses. A more specific institution like the Taiwan Development Bank could also provide you with currency, but these banks were set up to cater to special interests already in the colony instead of the Tokyo government: in other words, if you had no affiliation to the colonial governments, you were better off avoiding the development banks. If you were well connected, you could acquire colonial yen directly from the Bank of Chosen or the Bank of Taiwan, but these institutions existed primarily issue and distribute the currency along existing distribution channels (i,e. the bureaucracies of the colonial government and affiliated businesses) and they placed no emphasis on "new customer"-facing interaction. In short, if you wanted to acquire a large amount of colonial yen, a visit to the Yokohama Specie Bank was your best bet. You would be briefly interrogated as to what you intended to do with colonial cash, the tellers would, depending on the year, telegram or call someone in the colonial office, and your business venture (or exceedingly expensive travel plan) would be approved or denied.
Problematically, all this had to happen beforehand. There were no YSB branches in Korea or Taiwan (even though there were in Shanghai, Dalian, and Honolulu). Also for this reason, you had exactly no chance of making use of your extensive yen savings at home.
An expensive visit to Manchuria was a more complicated affair. There was a YSB branch in Dalian, so theoretically you could convert currencies after arriving in Manchuria, but your chances of doing this were slim - even if (no, especially if) you were an eminent member of Japan's establishment. As mentioned, Kishi wanted no zaibatsu in Manchukuo except those who agreed with state-led development, and his close relationship with Nissan founder Aikawa Yoshisuke ensured that any development project that even remotely competed with a Nissan interest would be shot down on arrival. A visit to the Dalian branch of the YSB after 1931 would likely provoke an visit to your lodgings by an officer of the Kantogun, who would grill you on exactly what you were planning to do in Manchukuo with such a large sum of money and remind you that this was not a country for zaibatsu buchō like you.
As for the military yen, this was strictly a method of "legalized plunder". By law, many occupied territories in WW2 had to conduct business in military yen. The Japanese military received however much military yen it needed, and these were used to "buy" needed local products like provisions and civilian labor. Military yen could not be exchanged for Japanese yen, unlike the other colonial currencies.
Yep, and it's one of the most pervasive myths in modern history. Japan did industrialize relatively quickly in the Meiji era, but relative is the key word. At a time when average GDP growth in Western Europe was around 1%, Japan was tied with the US at 3%. Fast, but nowhere close to speeds after 1931.
Contra popular belief, Japanese economic management before 1931 was hardly brilliant and had a lot of problems. During and after the Satsuma rebellion, there was massive hyperinflation both from printing to pay for the rebellion (Confucian governance was essentially minarchist, so taxes were very low in all of northeast Asia until after WW1) and from copying the local reserve bank system of the US, which was naturally inflationary. Finance Minister Matsukata responded to this by centralizing banknote issuing privileges in the central bank, and, after the Shimonoseki indemnity from China, buying gold to join the gold standard. What resulted was the "Matsukata deflation", which is extremely controversial among Japanese economists to this day. Some say it was brilliant, others say it was the height of economic stupidity, but the fact that this era involved great economic disruption was undeniable.
After 1900, Japan's economy was still mostly agrarian, and what industries it had were struggling. The zaibatsu started as foreign trading firms, and basically controlled the export distribution channel. They exploited small manufacturers, who had to bid low for export deals, and the traditional rayon, silk, and textile industries were suffering from American tariffs and competition from Hong Kong and China. Japan, contra popular belief, ran a trade deficit for most of the interwar years, owing to the need to import huge amounts of technology. This usually wasn't done in the smart way (hiring foreign experts, consultants, and technicians or sending interns abroad) but by directly buying huge amounts of machinery. Japan was always short of gold, and had to institute a "gold embargo" to avoid its currency being totally debased.
The turning point in Japanese economic management was 1931, when the 'reform bureaucrats', a long marginalized group in the zaibatsu-aligned establishment of the Japanese government, acquired a 'laboratory' in Manchukuo. Following the conquest of the province by mostly toseiha officers, they made an alliance with the reform bureuacrats. This concurred with a purge of reformist bureaucrats by zaibatsu-aligned officials in Japan, so most were "exiled" to Manchuria. There, they experimented with several policies to expand corporate profit rates (usually by depressing wages at all costs) and encouraging foreign investment. They secured for themselves a 'defector' among the zaibatsu in Nissan Founder Aigunkawa Gisuke, who essentially had no choice but to accept Manchukuo's overtures due to the impending bankruptcy of his company. Most of the Japanese postwar economic management techniques got their start in Manchukuo.
Boom-era monetary policy had a different genesis. By 1932, the Great Depression was hitting Japan, so Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo essentially dispensed with mainstream economics at the time, left the gold standard, ran the money printer, and used heavy deficit spending. It worked. The Finance Ministry brass had a change of heart, believing that Classical Economics was indeed the scam the reform bureaucrats were saying it was, and from then on became their main ally in Japan.
Long story short, by 1937 both the military establishment and political establishment were outmaneuvered by the "Manchurian clique" of reform bureaucrats and toseiha officers with the help of the Hitler-cosplaying (not a joke, he actually dressed as Hitler to costume parties) Prince Konoe. Konoe had a good run, lasting four years on and off (about 10 times longer than the average Japanese PM at the time), but eventually Tojo (the leader of Toseiha), Kishi (the leader of the reform bureaucrats), and Matsukata (the foreign minister and their longtime friend) threw him under the bus. Then, Tojo and Kishi threw Matsukata under the bus (I forget exactly why) and bombed Pearl Harbor. By then, it was too late for economic reform, but the reformists used the war to clear all the conservatives out of the bureaucracy. Finally, by 1945, the reform bureaucrats threw Tojo and Toseiha under the bus, convincing the Americans that the military and zaibatsu were responsible for the war and they had no part in it (something easy for the Americans to believe, as the American bureaucracy had virtually no power) and ended up ruling the country for 40 years.
In this time, they implemented, refined, and perfected the techniques they were already using in Manchukuo and, on the monetary front, in Japan. Critically, however, these techniques were unknown before 1931, and the Meiji era, despite being a military success, was an economic failure as Japan remained a relatively poor 'great power' up to the 40s.
Sources:
Johnson, Chalmers. MITI and the Japanese Boom.
Driscoll, Mark. Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japanese Imperialism.
Daba, Hiroshi. Gotō Shinpei o meguru.
Fletcher, William Miles. The Japanese Business Community and National Trade Policy, 1920–1942.
Duus, Peter. The Abacus and the Sword: the Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910.
===Japanese Imperial military was good, and the source of all myths===
For the navy, there were 2 broad phases: 1868 to 1895, then 1895 onward. For the army, the situation was more complicated. Both started by imitating foreign forms, then, after some successes, combined indigenous innovations with foreign doctrine.
The history of the Imperial Japanese Navy is more straightforward - its 'true founder' was Enomoto Takeaki, a samurai who had once fought the Meiji government commanding a breakaway state. For its first 3 decades, conscious that all its likely rivals, chief among them the Chinese Beiyang and Nanyang fleets, had greater financial resources, the Japanese navy innovated the French navy's asymmetric "jeune ecole" doctrine which believed swarms of small ships could overcome battleship rows. A hodgepodge of foreign advisors arrived to train the navy, but, unlike countries that did poorly with foreign advisors, real control was always in the hands of the IJN's officer cliques, who held the advisors at arms' length and standardized their SOP using bits and pieces of each foreign navy's doctrine, instead of allowing foreign advisors to clash and create contradictory recommendations
Unfortunately, like most asymmetric doctrines, the jeune ecole turned out to be nonsense. During the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Navy did not so much win the war as much as the Beiyang Navy lost it. After Empress Dowager Ci Xi's retirement in 1889, her successor as kingmaker, Grand Tutor Weng, slashed military funding to the point at which the Beiyang navy purchased no more ships after that year, and all personnel were fatally underpaid. During the war, the Japanese Navy's cruisers, torpedo boats, and gunboats failed to destroy any of the Chinese navy's battleships. Instead, the battleships were forced to surrender when it was found out that their underpaid officers replaced most of their gunpowder with sawdust in a corruption racket.
This outcome was a grave disappointment for the IJN, which had hoped its asymmetric doctrine would allow it to take on much bigger foes like France, Britain, the US, or Russia with fewer resources. The aftermath of the war saw them try to cover lost ground by lobbying for a 10-year building plan called the 6-6 plan: 6 battleships, 6 armored cruisers. They handled this transition from a French-style small ship fleet to a British-style battleship row with remarkable competence, making up for material deficits through superior gunnery training and asymmetric innovations like offensive minelaying, and the use of incendiary melinite shells to destroy superstructures. After the royal navy itself, the IJN was the first force to widely introduce wireless telegraphy (radio) on its ships. This restructuring process involved sending promising officers like Akiyama Saneyuki to the US and UK to observe the way they educated battleship officers - Akiyama brought back the concept of naval wargames, which he quickly introduced to the IJN's academies and colleges. Critically, not all of the IJN's ideas worked - their continued faith in torpedo boats was shattered by the war, and Akiyama's idea to replicate the (failed) plugging of Santiago harbor with a "sinkship" at Port Arthur went just as well as its predecessor. The "proto-Pearl Harbor" surprise attack at Port Arthur was a miserable failure, despite happening in ideal conditions. Ultimately, the IJN was willing to try new things and fail, and that was the secret to its success.
Unlike the army, the Navy fought flawlessly during the Russo-Japanese War, and changed very little "in spirit" following the war, simply adjusting its "victorious doctrine" to the times in subsequent decades. The IJN totally outclassed the various Russian fleets, and "learned" that speed and long-range battleship gunnery were the key ingredients to tactical naval success. Strategically, the war seemed a confirmation of the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, who the IJN continued to read religiously.
The IJA's history is more complicated. For the decade following the Meiji Restoration, it did everything in its power to imitate the French and German armies - by 1871, "German infantry, French cavalry" became the consensus. The 1877 Satsuma rebellion, however, would totally change the game. In the dying moments of the rebellion, its leader, former ruling clique member Saigo Takamori, launched a suicide charge that greatly inspired his protege-turned-enemy, Yamagata Aritomo. While such suicide charges were commonplace in the military history of Japan, they were rare virtually anywhere else in the world. This Yamato Damashii (Japanese spirit), the generals reasoned, would be the "X Factor" Japan would need to defeat richer and more populous countries (in other words: every country they would possibly fight save for Korea). Seishin Kyoikyu, or spiritual training, filtered into IJA manuals as early as 1882, the same year the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors was issued, striking a uniquely Japanese tone and rejecting many of the beliefs in vogue in Europe at the time. Still, foreign advice remained dominant in doctrinal formation well into the late 1880s, when the last empowered foreign advisors were expelled. By 1895, the IJA was still an "imitation Western force", and its performance, while respectable, was mediocre by the standards of great powers. Still, its conduct of the 1894-95 war was far less flawed than that of the Navy, so the impulse to reform was far lower.
From 1895 to 1905, the IJA made only minor doctrinal revisions, mainly around the few visible failures it did experience. In reaction to the Lushunkou massacre, when Japanese soldiers, who had no cultural or historical tradition of taking POWs, massacred thousands of surrendered Chinese, the IJA stiffened discipline and instituted "regimental wives" (prostitutes, and a precursor to comfort women) as a sort of catharsis to discourage rapes and brutality. These measures seem to have worked by 1899, as, during the Boxer Rebellion, Westerners praised Japanese soldiers for their civility and discipline (though the conduct of some of the members of the 8-Nation Alliance set a very low bar). The other area where the IJN did start to innovate was in re-introducing some traditional "Eastern" military tactics into its doctrine, namely the night attack. From 1895 to 1905, Chinese military classics started to filter back into Japanese military education and 'recreational' military reading, as the army searched for "native" advantages against materially and numerically superior Western forces.
The Russo-Japanese War, while a success, would be a serious wakeup call for the IJA as it caused widespread disenchantment with the "mainstream" European doctrines at the time. Foreshadowing World War 1, Japanese forces launched repeated human wave attacks against fortified positions, and, while they generally killed more than they lost, it rapidly became clear to the brass that they could not win wars against numerically superior enemies in this fashion. During the war, the IJA displayed more competence than their Russian enemies (who still drilled volley fire and were instructed "not to aim" by their tactical regulations, as aiming slowed down the momentum of the attack) and were widely praised by European observers (whose armies were following the same outdated doctrine), but privately its generals knew their tactics were unsustainable.
While fewer than those of the IJN, the IJA did have highlights during the war. Its night attacks were terrifying to the Russians, and would remain a fixture of its doctrine until its dissolution. Its morale was legendary, and it is still debated by historians whether this was created by seishin kyoikyu, or was simply cultural to the Japanese. Reacting against orientalism, many scholars in the 70s to 2000s tried to adjust the narrative and asserted that it was "indoctrination" that caused Japanese soldiers to be so fanatical. Some have tried to "excuse" the conduct, and indeed the atrocities of the IJA in the 30s and 40s by claiming that they were merely imitating European fascism.
However, Japanese memoirs from the Russo-Japanese War, most famously Human Bullets, prove that these "enlightened" arguments are mostly nonsense. These memoirs reveal that a great many Japanese troops during the Russo-Japanese War received virtually no seishin kyoikyu at all, and in some cases even very little training. Despite this, the accounts are full of "everyday fanaticism", including such gems as "In this particular battle to be ready for death was not enough; what was required of us was a determination not to fail to die. Indeed, we were 'sure-death' men, and this new appellation gave us a great stimulus". The accounts reveal that Japan, long before fascism, was an extreme version of an "honor culture" where one's reputation in his local community was more important, even far more important, than his life. They are also full of accounts of soldiers instinctively trying to raise each others' spirits and take each others' minds off suffering and bad news. In short, Japanese culture at the time was naturally conducive to military morale - something that was widely noticed by Western observers at the time but denied amid a torrent of revisionist history in the later Cold War.
Outside "moral factors", the IJA did introduce some doctrinal innovations. While the British conducted indirect artillery fire on a limited scale in the Boer War, the IJA was the first army to introduce it widely. They also made innovative offensive use of machine guns, using them as overwatch from defilade to cover assaults - a skirmish line would dash from one row of cover to another when the machine gun fired, then stop and allow it to be cooled with water (as was required with the Maxims of the time) before resuming the advance under cover again. All in all, however, while the IJA revealed itself to be one of the most tactically competent armies of the time, pre-WW1 doctrine set the bar extremely low, and its generals were made painfully aware of that.
What followed was a near total rejection of the military orthodoxy of the time, and decades of innovation to create a doctrine that would allow smaller forces to defeat larger ones, and less well armed forces to defeat better armed ones. The first sacred cow to be slaughtered was traditional European drill and training, which emphasized appearances and attention to detail. The IJA replaced this with year-round "practical training" for skills they thought would be useful, including endurance marches (building up to the point where men would be marching 25 miles a day for several days), section (squad) tactics, marksmanship, bayonet work, and learning to use the rifles of their most likely adversaries. Virtually no attention was paid to bed folding, parade, or uniform standards (and uniforms would indeed get remarkably uglier in the intervening decades). Some feared the collapse of discipline amid the dissolution of European drill practices, so the IJA worked around this problem by instituting frequent beatings over even the smallest mistake, reasoning that "the lesson would remembered" and this would "encourage prompt obedience to orders".
The second sacred cow to be slaughtered was pre-war battalion tactics, which at the time involved a large unit working as a single organism, each company always having contact with the next. Japan devolved the basic tactical unit from the company to the platoon even before the First World War, and by the second it had devolved to the section. Units were instructed to forget about maintaining contact or regularity with one another, with a sole emphasis on "closing rapidly" so Japanese soldiers could leverage their advantage at close ranges.
Finally, the IJA dispensed with any semblance of 'unity of command'. Originally German-trained, it had always believed in 'mission command', but by 1931 had taken this to its logical extreme, to the point at which orders were rarely longer than a single paragraph and following them was almost optional at all levels. The most notorious example of this gone wrong was in the Imphal Offensive of 1944, where General Mutaguchi was essentially told by everyone that his offensive was a stupid idea, but ignored them all. His commander, Kawabe, allowed the plan to go ahead despite also thinking it was stupid because he believed that officers should be allowed to do what they wanted and the junior ranks always had a more accurate picture of the situation than their seniors. However, in many cases this decentralization also resulted in stunning successes. On the whole, it permeated a culture of gekokujo ("loyal insubordination") within the military where ranks in some cases became almost meaningless and a combination of force of personality and audacity determined how much say an officer had in what was to be done.
The basic trajectory of post-1905 IJA reform transitioned the force from a conventional to a "disruptive" force. Aware that military logistics and C3 were getting more complicated by the year, most countries focused on acquiring excellence in these 4 areas. Japan, in contrast, owing to its weaker industrial base, focused on building a force that could function in the absence of good logistics and C3, and which could disrupt that of the enemy, rendering him a "fish out of water".
This unconventional set of beliefs led to remarkable successes beyond what any of its authors expected in the 30s and 40s, a process which greatly buoyed the confidence and expansionism of the IJA. Its triumphs started in 1931 with the conquest of Manchuria, continued during the Second-Sino Japanese War, and finally culminated with the conquest of the European and American colonies in 1941-42. Each of these victories involved an outnumbered and outgunned force triumphing with surprising ease. Opponents of the IJA at the time noted that its soldiers were able to march far faster than they were and fight in any conditions, while its officers showed exceptional initiative and ingenuity. However, the later part of this period would also expose flaws in the IJA's system - it was excellent at doing 1 thing, and not very good at anything else. Throughout the 1941-42 offensives, the IJA relied extensively on captured equipment, and by 1944 the British had learned to keep their depots far behind their lines. Further, as a basically offensive army, the IJA knew almost nothing of defense and did not even have a concept of defense in depth. It wasn't until Iwo Jima that any Japanese position was defended competently - instead, it was "defended through attack". On paper, this wasn't an issue - even in the highly unfavorable tactical conditions of island defense, where the Japanese were subject to naval bombardment and faced an always numerically superior enemy, their loss ratios were often even and sometimes favorable. In practice, however, such an aggressive defense meant IJA garrisons were being defeated far faster than they otherwise would have been, meaning the army was essentially incapable of fighting any kind of delaying action.
The performance of the navy, due to its relative inertia during the interwar, was far less remarkable. Pearl Harbor, the Java Sea, the Indian Ocean Raid, and Savo Island were highlights, but the navy also had its share of catastrophic failures, including early in the war. Unlike the army, which had essentially discarded most of its Russo-Japanese War era practices, the navy still clung to its antiquated decisive battle doctrine, failed to develop any semblance of competent ASW tactics, and seemed to have done very little thinking about how a long war would turn out. Whereas the army had a coherent "theory of victory" against numerically superior opponents, the navy did not consider the deficiencies in, for example, their small-class pilot training program, and simply assumed that "ships took a long time to build" so a single victory would knock an opponent out of the war.
There is obviously a lot that I didn't discuss during this post, including:
- The IJA's record against Korean, Manchurian, and Chinese guerrillas.
- The brutal occupation of Eastern Russia from 1918-1922.
- The factional intrigues within the IJA (chobatsu vs everyone else, then Baden-Baden group/toseiha vs kodoha).
- The Soviet-Japanese Border War and the extensive falsification campaign that surrounded it.
- Japan's 'rapid industrialization' (or rather, lack thereof) during the Meiji era.
- The Sengoku roots of gekokujo, long before German arrival.
But this post is already getting way too long and I hope it at the very least gives a basic overview of the topic.
====Japanese military is an uncontrollable beast====
The question of whether the government of Japan could actually control the military of Japan is a very important topic. As you have noted, the military indeed wielded a great deal of power within the decision making apparatus of Imperial Japan, and there were multiple instances of senior government officials being assassinated, such as the May 15 Incident, which saw Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi assassinated by young naval officers, or the February 26 Incident as part of an attempted coup, wherein a group of junior Army officers attempted to do the same as part of their attempted coup. Beyond these acts of military rebelliousness in Tokyo, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) were infamous for being particularly recalcitrant to obeying orders from the central government, with the IJA launching both the invasion of Manchuria and the invasion northern China in response to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident either without or in open defiance of their government's instructions. From a Western point of view, where we are used to seeing the military fully under civilian control, this all seems almost astounding. After all, it's nearly impossible to imagine a world where FDR or Churchill would be assassinated by a cabal of junior officers in either the US Navy or Royal Navy, much less that the same junior officers would be lauded for their actions.
So what gives? What on earth was going on in Imperial Japan?
Perhaps the first and most important thing to understand is that the Prime Minister of Japan was not the head of any kind of imperial government, nor was it an office particularly respected by the military. The roots of this go very deep, almost the very foundation of Imperial Japan. In 1877, Saigō Takamori, one of the leaders of the rebellion that had overthrown the Tokugawa Shogunate rose in rebellion against the new imperial government in the Satsuma Rebellion. The Satsuma Rebellion was the first great test for the brand new IJA, and while the rebellion was ultimately crushed, its legacy left deep marks on the IJA. Perhaps the most important was the idea that the military should be rendered apolitical, separated from the government and answerable only to the Emperor. This movement was spearheaded by Prince Yamagata Aritomo, who sought to make the military fully independent of politics, both to prevent future rebellions like the Satsuma Rebellion, and to prevent politicians--who might be opposed to Imperial rule--from interfering in the organisation and operation of the army. What this meant was that the IJA and IJN each answered directly to the Emperor. The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors of 1882, which served as a foundational document for the military's conception of itself, heavily reinforced this, stressing that the loyalty of Japanese soldiers and sailors was to the Emperor, “neither being led astray by current opinions or meddling in political affairs,” and the famous quote that, “duty is heavier than a mountain while death is lighter than a feather.” The IJA and IJN were thus presented as truly Imperial institutions, loyal to the Emperor above all else, and not necessarily to civilian leadership. The Meiji Constitution of 1889 formalised this, with the Emperor enshrined as the Supreme Commander of the IJA and IJN in Article 11. Importantly, with the Emperor as Supreme Commander and the Army General Staff answering directly to the Emperor meant that the Emperor was supposedly allowed to run the Army without going through the Cabinet and thus outside the influence of the Prime Minister. This was as intended, as the framers of the Meiji Constitution desperately wanted to prevent politicians (or political parties) from having control over the Army. However, when combined with the more general idea that the Emperor was meant to rule, but not to govern (i.e. that the Emperor was not supposed to sully himself with day to day matters of governance), this meant that the Army was effectively left to run itself. The Navy achieved its own General Staff with the same direct access to the Emperor in 1893, gaining the same basic position: outside of the control of the civilian government, and answerable only to the Emperor (which effectively meant, answerable only to itself).
In this respect, the Prime Minister was indeed less powerful than their counterparts in Washington or London. The Army and Navy were effectively outside of his control, and the only real lever of power over them available to the civilian government as a whole was the defense budget, controlled by the Diet. As an aside, the Cabinet in Imperial Japan was not drawn from a majority in the Diet. Rather, the Prime Minister was appointed directly by the Emperor, who would then gather the necessary ministers to form a government entirely independent of how elections might have transpired in the Diet. To answer one of your questions, the soldiers and sailors of the IJA and IJN were encouraged to see themselves as direct servants of the Imperial Will, and that the Imperial Will ultimately predominated over whatever the civilian government and the Prime Minister might have thought or wanted. From a political perspective, in 1900 new legislation restricted the office of war minister to solely active-duty officers. While this provision was eliminated in 1913 it returned in 1936, and effectively gave the army significant influence within the Cabinet. As the War Minister had to be an active-duty officer, if push came to shove the Army could collapse the government by having the War Minister resign and refuse to put forward a replacement. This is a bit off topic, but for more information on Imperial Japanese politics, I'd recommend this post by /u/StarWarsNerd222. While there was a degree of control, as the civilian government ultimately controlled the purse strings, it was very much a matter of push and pull between multiple near-equivalent centers of power within Imperial Japanese decision making bodies, rather than a system wherein the Prime Minister issued directives to the military that were then obeyed.
While all of this helps to explain why the IJA and IJN did not hold the Prime Minister in particularly high regard, it is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to the disobedience of the IJA. The term commonly thrown around in these discussion is gekokujō (下克上), a word in Japanese which roughly translates out to "the lower rules the higher". In multiple situations, up to and including the final days of the war, relatively junior officers of the IJA and IJN felt empowered to act in contravention to orders, and--in many of these situation--succeeded in dragging their nominal superiors along the path they had chosen. Examples of this abound, but the fundamental question is: why?
It's a very difficult question to untangle, but ties in previously to how the IJA and IJN viewed themselves as direct tools of Imperial Will, answerable to none but the Emperor, while simultaneously the Emperor was not meant to be directly involved in day to day matters. This results in what Danny Orbach refers to in his work on gekokujō as a "hazy center" to the entire artifice of Imperial Japan. By this, he means that while the Empire of Japan was constructed with the Emperor at its very center, the lack of clarity with which the Emperor acted meant that it was very easy for officers to claim that they were acting "according to the Imperial Will", even if that was directly against the actions of the civilian government. Throughout much of the Shōwa era leading up to World War II, the idea of a "Shōwa Restoration", in which the corrupt advisors, politicians, and capitalists surrounding the Emperor and distorting His Will would be swept away, and the Emperor would rule directly was quite common, and a justification for many of the attempted coups of this period. Orbach also refers to a general trend within Imperial Japan that the state was always meant to continue expanding, controlling more territory, with a grander military, etc. as well as a tendency inherited from many of the Meiji era founders of the state to place a greater emphasis on the purity of one's intentions as opposed to the necessary consequence, as well as a respect for bold, decisive action for its own sake. This in part made it difficult for superiors to take action against junior officers who had disobeyed orders, so long as those junior officers could in turn point to the ferocity of their ideals, the purity of their desire to expand and empower Japan and the Emperor, and their actions resulted in expansion of imperial power.
I hope this has helped to answer your question. Please feel free to ask any follow ups. This can be a very deep and fascinating topic, and I'm happy to try and explore it more.
Sources
- Edward Drea, Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945
- David Evans & Mark Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941
- Danny Orbach, Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan
- J. Charles Schencking, Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, and the Emergence of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868-1922
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