Invented Histories: The Nihon Senshi of the Meiji Imperial Japanese Army

DOI: 10.4312/as.2018.6.2.157-172 157 Invented Histories: The Nihon Senshi of the Meiji Imperial Japanese Army Nathan H. LEDBETTER*32 Abstract Nihon Senshi (Military History of Japan) was part of the new Imperial Japanese Army’s attempt to tie itself to examples from Japan’s “warring states” period, similar to scholars who created a feudal “medieval” time in the Japanese past to fit into Western historiography, and intellectuals who discovered a “traditional” spirit called bushidō as a counterpart for English chivalry. The interpretations of these campaigns, placing the “three unifiers” of the late sixteenth century as global leaders in the modernization of military tactics and technology, show the Imperial Japanese Army’s desire to be seen as a “modern” military through its invented “institutional” history. Keywords: Imperial Japanese Army, military history, invented tradition, Meiji period, bushidō. Izumljene zgodovine: Nihon senshi Japonske cesarske vojske v obdobju Meiji Izvleček Nihon senshi (Vojaška zgodovina Japonske) je del prizadevanj nove Japonske cesarske vojske, da bi se povezala s primeri iz obdobja vojskujočih se dežel, podobno kakor so zgodovinarji ustvarili japonski fevdalni »srednji vek«, da bi se ujemal z zahodnim zgodovinopisjem, in kakor so intelektualci odkrili »tradicionalni« duh imenovan bushidō, ki je ustrezal pojmu angleškega viteštva. Interpretacije teh vojaških spopadov, ki so predstavile »tri združevalce« poznega šestnajstega stoletja kot globalne voditelje pri modernizaciji vojaških taktik in tehnologije, razkrivajo željo Japonske cesarske vojske, da bi jo s pomočjo izumljene »institucionalne« zgodovine obravnavali kot »moderno« vojsko. Ključne besede: Japonska cesarska vojska, vojaška zgodovina, izumljene tradicije, obdobje Meiji, bushidō Over the thirty-one years from 1893 to 1924, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) General Staff ’s historical division produced thirteen volumes, each covering a battle from Japan’s “warring states” (sengoku) period, in a series entitled Nihon * Nathan H. LEDBETTER, PhD Student, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, USA. nhl[at]princeton.edu 158 Nathan H. Ledbetter: Invented Histories Senshi (日本戦史; Military History of Japan). Section 9 of the 4th division of the General Staff Office, headed by a colonel with a staff of three, was responsible for producing these historical analyses of the past Japanese battles (Nihon Rikugun Ga Yoku Wakaru Jiten 2002, 324). Nihon Senshi, despite the implication of the name, is not a comprehensive history of warfare throughout Japan’s history. The thirteen volumes cover significant campaigns by Japan’s “three unifiers”, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, in the mid-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, beginning with Tokugawa’s campaigns to secure hegemony in 1600 and 1615, then circling back to the beginning of Oda Nobunaga’s rise and moving forward through the major campaigns of his and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s career. The following table shows the focus and publication date of each volume: Table 1: Focus and publication date of each volume of Nihon Senshi Volume 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Focal Campaign or Battle Year(s) of Campaign Year of Preface Year of Publication Sekigahara 1600 1893 1893 Osaka Summer & Winter 1615 1896 1897 Okehazama 1560 1898 1902 Anegawa 1573 1899 1901 Mikatagahara 1574 1901 1902 Nagashino 1575 1902 1903 Chugoku (Western Japan) 1576-82 1903 1911 Yamazaki 1582 1903 1920 Yanase (Shizugatake) 1583 1903 1907 Komaki (Nagakute) 1584 1908 1908 Kyushu 1587 1910 1911 Odawara 1590 1913 1893(?)1 Korean Invasions 1592-98 1923 1924 1 In the secondary scholarship of late medieval and early modern Japanese warfare, certain battles are treated as iconic—the “kessen”, or decisive battles of the Sengoku jidai, the Warring States period. Not merely representative of sixteenth-century warfare, these battles define it, in popular history books, on movie and television screens, and in video games.2 Meanwhile, battles such as Funaokayama in 1511, 1 2 I have been unable to find a suitable explanation for why the Odawara volume lists 1893 as its date of publication, but has a preface dated 1913. Given that it is the twelfth volume of thirteen, I feel confident in assuming the publication date is a misprint on the part of the publisher of the 1978 reprint, Murata Shoten. The director Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece film Kagemusha concludes with a climactic, though historically inaccurate, recreation of the Battle of Nagashino; video game titles available worldwide that include battles from this list include the Kessen series and the Nobunaga’s Ambition series by Koei. Asian Studies VI (XXII), 2 (2018), pp. 157–172 159 between two Ashikaga claimants to the title of shōgun and their powerful daimyō supporters, or the 1578 Battle of Mimigawa, a decisive clash between rival warlords in western Japan, are given minor consideration. It is not important at this time to debate the merits of one battle versus another in any list of major samurai conflicts. However, it is instructive to think about why some battles have achieved a certain status in both military history and popular culture. Academic historians are not the only ones who fashion “history”. I contend that the Imperial Japanese Army historical section chose to include these victories by the “three unifiers” of Japan because they assessed them as the beginning of a “modern” and “Japanese” military history. These battles provided tactical and strategic lessons, but in addition could be shaped to show historical antecedents for the IJA itself to claim. This paper is thus an exploratory attempt to situate the production of these histories as an institutional microcosm of a larger discourse of national identity formation ongoing within the Meiji and Taishō state. Due to space limitations, this paper will not include a comprehensive analysis of each volume and how well (or poorly) each battle is portrayed. Rather, I will focus on why these histories were written at this time; why these particular battles were chosen as representative examples of a Japanese “military history”; and the transnational intellectual currents and political events that encouraged and shaped their production. Comparison with contemporary Japanese intellectual and institutional “invented traditions” that attempted to negotiate the complexities of the nation’s emerging modernity suggests that Nihon Senshi was one manifestation of the IJA’s same reconciliation between the conflicting identities of a “Japanese” and a “modern” or “Westernized” institution. Yamagata Aritomo, the primary architect of the Imperial Japanese Army of the Meiji period, faced several considerable challenges as he attempted to turn an army of rebellious provincials into a modern, professional force.3 The early Imperial Japanese Army was a hodgepodge of former samurai and conscripted peasants, led by an officer corps divided (...truncated)