In fact, Japan's invasion of China did not begin with the September 18th Incident in 193 1 year, nor did it begin with Japan's invasion of Taiwan Province Province in 1874, but with the Ming Dynasty in China in16th century, that is, the Japanese invaders harassed and invaded the southeast coast of China.
Huang Renyu said this in the book "Fifteen Years of Wanli":
/kloc-In the middle of the 6th century, Japan, an island country, could seriously threaten the security of the provinces along the East China Sea of Korea (that is, the Ming Dynasty). This phenomenon is hard to understand. It is natural that soldiers of this dynasty should cross the sea to attack Japan. Because at that time, Japan was not only vast and sparsely populated, but also failed to form a unified regime for decades, with frequent civil wars and no law and order. North Korea is a highly centralized country, ruled by highly organized civilian groups. The central command places are like arms, and there are few disobedience. At the same time, our empire nominally had the largest standing army in the world at that time, with as many as two million people.
However, the unified Ming Dynasty with 2 million troops had no desire to invade Japan. However, Japan, which is disunited and has frequent civil wars, has a great attempt to annex China. /kloc-at the end of 0/6, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who unified Japan, said, "I swear to bring the territory of the Tang Dynasty into my territory, ... destroy China, move the capital to China, and the emperor will live in Beijing." It can be seen that Japan's ambition to be tiny is really amazing.
Japanese militarists do have an answer to this question: Japanese islands are silkworms and China is mulberry leaves. Silkworms just want to eat mulberry leaves. Japanese teachers instill in students the view that Japan is like a silkworm, while Zhina is like a mulberry leaf. It is natural for silkworms to eat mulberry leaves, otherwise wouldn't they starve to death?
This is really a ridiculous fallacy.
To answer why Japan invaded China, we should look at both Japanese factors and China's situation.
From the Japanese side, the first thing is to invade China, and the second is to have the ability to invade China. The former explains the inevitability of Japan's invasion of China, while the latter answers the possibility of Japan's invasion of China.
From China's point of view, the reason why Japan takes China instead of other countries as the main target of aggression is because China is a "fat meat", with a vast territory and abundant resources, and it is close to Japan, which is convenient for Japan to use troops; The more important reason is that China's national strength is weak, and the Chinese nation has great weaknesses and defects, which gives the Japanese aggressors an opportunity.
The first question: From the perspective of Japan. Why did it invade China? Why did it invade China? That is, where is the inevitability of Japan's invasion of China?
The reason why Japan embarked on the road of aggression and expansion lies in its strong militaristic tradition in its national culture.
Then, why did Japan form a tradition of militarism?
1. This is closely related to the original Bushido in Japan.
Bushido in Japan is a well-known term, but what is Bushido? How is it formed? What role and influence does it have on Japan?
There was a long Warring States period in Japanese history, in which famous countries were divided into different kingdoms and scuffled with each other, gradually forming a samurai class specializing in war. 1 192, Japan established the first samurai regime, the kamakura shogunate, and began the era of samurai rule for hundreds of years. "Warrior's Habit" and "The Way of Bow and Arrow" combined with Confucian ethics in China to form a set of feudal ethical norms such as loyalty to the monarch, chastity, honesty, courage and perseverance, which are collectively called "Bushido".
The formation of Bushido greatly strengthened the samurai consciousness, not only strengthened the samurai class from the ethical relationship, but also made the samurai's ideological and behavioral characteristics more clear. The elegance advocated by China's Confucian ethics not only failed to make Japanese warriors as vulnerable as China's Confucian scholars, but also clothed bloodthirsty warriors with elegance, achieving a psychological balance between blood pool and literature and ink. Feudal warriors often cut passers-by to try knives for no reason, and then politely bowed to the dead and said "I'm sorry". This typically embodies the dual character of gentleness and ferocity of Japanese samurai. This is also the difference between Japanese samurai and western robbers. During hundreds of years of samurai rule, Bushido has been promoted to the basic content of Japanese social ethics, and its subtle influence has made Japanese culture and Japanese national character strong and martial.
Meiji Restoration overthrew the dominant position of samurai class and abolished the rank of samurai, but Bushido was inherited by Japanese rulers as the dominant ethical tradition, which was used to instill the spirit of Bushido into the education of young people and try every means to cultivate their cruel mentality. For example, in order to cultivate children's courage, send them to the execution ground late at night to take the dead head, and whoever dares to do it will be rewarded; Give the child red soup and let him experience the feeling of drinking blood.
2. The second factor closely related to militarism is the emperor system.
The imperial government is another feudal remnant besides the Bushido preserved in the Meiji Restoration. Japan's Mikado system has two characteristics: first, it has never changed its surname, and most Japanese nationals have absolute spiritual belief in Mikado system; Second, the emperor has no real power. This feature of the Mikado system has also been used by Japan in the military field. The Japanese army implements the so-called independent commander-in-chief system, that is, the command of the army belongs to the emperor rather than the cabinet, and Japanese warlords can use the army at will in the name of the emperor. The Japanese political party system is not binding on the Japanese military.
It can be said that militarism is the root of Japanese aggression, and Bushido and Mikado are the spiritual pillar and political foundation of Japanese militarism.
3. The development of capitalism after Meiji Restoration prompted Japan to embark on the road of militaristic army building.
Judging from the situation of western powers, the development of capitalism will inevitably bring urgent demand for overseas resources and markets. The imbalance of world politics and economy and the advantages of capitalist powers in political organization, economic strength and military strength, especially in weapons and equipment, enable them to seize overseas resources by violence and open up overseas markets.
Japan embarked on the road of capitalist development much later than the European and American powers, and its national strength was relatively weak. Therefore, Japanese rulers generally have the mentality of catching up. In addition, due to its inherent militaristic tradition and the influence of imperial power, the development of Japanese capitalism relies more on violent external expansion than European and American powers.
To forcibly seize overseas resources and open up overseas markets through violence, we must have a strong military force. To this end, the Meiji government took military as its fundamental national policy, made every effort to expand armaments and quickly embarked on the path of militarism.
4. Western fascism was introduced into Japan, forming fascist militarism.
In the late World War I, the fascist trend of thought originating from Europe also began to sprout in Japan. Western fascism and Japanese militarism can be said to be brothers with different surnames. Under the introduction and advocacy of North Ikki, the originator of Japanese folk fascism, and Zhou Ming, another fascist thinker, the trend of fascism spread rapidly in Japan, especially in Japanese military circles. The fascist thoughts put forward by North Ikki and Zhou Ming of Dachuan, together with the fascism in the army, constitute a relatively complete fascist ideological system, that is, through the loyalty of the emperor, the "national consciousness" with the emperor as the absolute authority is established; Rely on the army to carry out "national transformation", abolish party politics, crack down on conservative rulers and establish fascist dictatorship; Through the implementation of national general mobilization, the establishment of a general war system, launching a war of aggression, seizing the hegemony of the Far East, and completing the "Showa Reform".
1936 After the coup, the military and political power completely fell into the hands of the military departments, and the Japanese fascist militarism system was formally established.
We can sort out a train of thought: Bushido makes the Japanese strong and martial, strong and martial, and the characteristics of the imperial system. In addition, the demand for the development of Japanese capitalism after the Meiji Restoration prompted Japan to embark on the path of militarism. Japanese militarism and fascism imported from the west are intertwined, giving birth to a freak with Japanese characteristics-more militant, more brutal, more adventurous and aggressive fascist militarism. In this way, Japan is like a chariot manipulated by the devil, and it is impossible not to launch a war of aggression. This is the inevitability of Japanese invasion of China.
The second question: the possibility of Japan's invasion of China, that is, why Japan has the ability to invade China?
This is first related to the Meiji Restoration, which can be said to be a fundamental turning point in the historical destiny of modern Japan.
Japan began its foreign aggression and expansion long before the Meiji Restoration, but it basically failed to realize its aggression attempt. The fundamental reason is that Japan's national strength was not enough to support its external expansion at that time, which can be said to be insufficient spare capacity. However, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan's foreign expansion was almost successful, mainly because the economic development after the Restoration provided a material basis for its foreign expansion.
Take weapons and equipment as an example. By the eve of the full-scale war of aggression against China, Japan had been able to mass-produce all the advanced heavy weapons at that time, such as tanks, armored vehicles, large-caliber artillery, combat aircraft, battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, military communication equipment, etc., and their performance was equivalent to that of British and American weapons. At that time, China could only produce light infantry weapons and small-caliber artillery, and basically relied on imports for heavy weapons.
Therefore, Meiji Restoration was a blessing to Japan and a curse to China. A successful reform in neighboring countries has brought a great impact on the fate of their own country, which many China people never dreamed of. This bloody fact reminds us that we must look at the world and pay close attention to international affairs.
Secondly, some characteristics of Japanese national culture and national character have enhanced Japan's national strength and its ability to invade China.
In addition to Bushido, Emperor, militarism, fascism and economic development, there are also some things that reflect Japan's national character and cultural characteristics, such as unity, dedication, creative imitation and crisis awareness. Japan may launch a full-scale war of aggression against China because of its strength, and Japan's strength cannot be separated from these national characteristics.
1. No infighting.
The Japanese are not without internal contradictions, but do not engage in infighting. They cherish their compatriots very much. Who dares to touch a finger on the Japanese, even if a senior general of the puppet army accidentally injured a Japanese soldier, it is also a terrible thing.
During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, it was easy for us to resist the puppet troops, but none of them could resist the Japanese army as a whole. There has never been a civil war in China, but there are constant internal frictions among Japanese troops. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, we once put forward a famous slogan: "Unite with the outside world!" However, China people on the just side didn't do it completely, and Japanese people on the unjust side basically did it. Mao Zedong's On Protracted War is a great strategic work. After the test of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's practice, the basic predictions have all been realized, except one thing that has not been realized, that is, "the victory of China and War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression depends not only on our own efforts, but also on international assistance and Japanese changes." The so-called "changes in Japan" refers to the growth of Japan's anti-war forces. However, until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, Japan's anti-war force was still extremely limited and hardly constituted a force.
So why are the Japanese more United?
There are three reasons: first, loyalty to the emperor, second, the theory of national superiority, and third, foreign criticism. Let me talk about the loyalty of Japanese nationals to the emperor. In Japanese society with hierarchy as its basic structure, the emperor stands at the top, which is the same as the imperial power system in ancient China. However, in the 5,000-year history of China, the surnames of the throne have changed frequently, with a total of 36. Since Emperor Jimmu initiated the Mikado system, Japanese emperors have never changed their surnames, which can be described as generation after generation.
In Japan, the emperor is not the actual ruler, but a symbol. The emperor's isolation from the world, on the one hand, does not prevent important officials from mastering real power and controlling state affairs, on the other hand, he will not make any big mistakes without real power and will not become the focus of social contradictions, which is conducive to maintaining the permanence of the imperial power system and the people's spiritual belief in the emperor. As a result, the imperial system continued, and the emperor was infinitely kind. With the passage of time, the Emperor became an extraordinary symbol of Japan's unity and eternity. Loyalty to the emperor means loyalty to Japan, and loyalty to the emperor has become the unshirkable obligation and responsibility of every Japanese national. This makes Japan a cohesive country.
The core of the people and the spiritual belief of centralization and unity.
The second is the theory of national superiority. Since ancient times, the Japanese have regarded themselves as descendants of the "gods" and considered themselves the best nation in the world. The deep-rooted sense of national superiority strengthens the Japanese's recognition of their own nation and respect for their compatriots, and at the same time strengthens the Japanese's contempt and contempt for other nations.
The third is the spearhead. Japan is an island country with a small area and poor resources. Many needs cannot be solved from Japan, but must be solved from abroad through trade or war, so its spearhead is foreign, trade is foreign, and war is a war of aggression. Whether it is to solve the problems of resources and markets or to expand its territory, Japan always points its finger at other countries, especially China. Facing the outside world can ease internal contradictions, so the Japanese are more United as a whole.
2. Be serious and dedicated
The seriousness and seriousness of the Japanese are comparable to those of the Germans in the world. These two countries happen to be world-class powers, and their product quality reputation is also one of the best in the world.
Japanese scholars studied how many rivets Zheng He used in his voyages to the West. A Japanese female scholar who specializes in Li Dazhao can tell clearly where Li Dazhao lives in Japan, where he ate in that restaurant, where he went for a walk and so on. The experts who study Li Dazhao in China are stunned; Some Japanese scholars specialize in the etiquette of the prince's wake after the death of the Tang emperor. If China scholars are allowed to explain this problem, I wonder if anyone has made it clear. There is a great contrast between the papers of Japanese scholars and those of China scholars. We pay attention to the arrangement of chapters, the refinement of viewpoints and the overall conclusive evaluation. The Japanese, on the other hand, pay attention to details and materials and write in great detail. China people feel too fussy when they read Japanese newspapers, while Japanese people feel big and empty when they read China newspapers.
The reason why the Japanese are serious is probably related to its smallness, small industry and little land resources, and everything must be carefully calculated; It may also be related to Japan's external expansion. As a small country, you must make careful preparations to become a big country. It may also be related to private ownership in Japan. Everything is your own, and if you don't take it seriously, you will suffer.
Serious style concerns all the contents of life. A serious nation must be a dedicated nation. The benefits of seriousness can not only ensure the quality of products and the accuracy of work, but also help to establish a scientific spirit among the people. The Japanese can learn from western science and technology, and then come from behind, which must be related to seriousness. Because science is a delicate thing, we must not be careless.
3. Creative imitation
A person, a nation, can't make progress without imitation, but the level and result of imitation are quite different. In the long ancient society, China has always been a world-class advanced country, and China people have always been accustomed to posing as the boss. It was not until the Opium War broke out that China found himself behind in everything. Therefore, people of insight in the Qing court launched the Westernization Movement with the aim of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners" in an attempt to "learn from foreigners to control foreigners". However, due to the long-term feudal autocracy, China people's imagination, initiative and creativity have been imprisoned, and they have developed inertia from the system. Therefore, we often have to imitate what is advanced in the West without innovation, and then introduce it when we are backward.
Japanese imitation is in sharp contrast with China. They followed the British to learn shipbuilding technology, and finally reached or even surpassed their teachers and built a world-class "joint fleet"; They learned camera manufacturing technology from the Germans and eventually became the world's first camera power; They followed the west to learn automobile manufacturing technology, which eventually led to Japanese cars occupying the western market on a large scale; They learned from China people the manufacturing technology of traditional products such as ceramics, paper making, dyes, tofu and cloisonne, and finally left us behind.
It can be seen that Japanese imitation is different from ours, which can be called creative imitation or transcendental imitation. Why can the Japanese achieve the transcendence effect of imitation? The primary reason is that the Japanese are serious and serious, and they carefully ponder over what they have introduced and learned, so that they can have the basis for transcendence and innovation; The second reason is the attitude of the Japanese towards the strong. I admire your skill. I study, I introduce, but in the end I will surpass you. This shows the indomitable spirit of the Japanese to the strong.
4. Have a sense of crisis
Crisis consciousness can be regarded as a part of the mentality of Japanese island countries. The Japanese have formed a particularly strong sense of crisis because the country is too small and resources are scarce. If there is the slightest sign of trouble, they will make a hullabaloo about, just like facing an enemy. In the eyes of China people, it's just neurotic and fussy. But the sense of crisis is not a bad thing. It keeps the Japanese in a state of walking on thin ice and being cautious, so that it is easy to do things well without making big mistakes. In contrast, the blind optimism and insensitivity of China people are in sharp contrast.
The third question: From China's point of view, why did the Japanese invade China?
First of all, objectively, why is China the target of Japanese foreign expansion?
The direction of Japan's external expansion is determined by its geographical location and the international situation in the Far East. China, Korea and Japan face each other across the sea, and the distance is very close. At the same time, because it is far away from Europe and America, it is not completely controlled by European and American powers. All these factors are beneficial to Japan. Japan can concentrate all its military forces in the Far East and wage an all-round struggle against the Asian continent, especially China.
This is an objective factor for China to suffer Japanese aggression. Anyway, we are too close to the devil.
However, this is not the main factor. The more important reason why we were invaded by Japan lies in ourselves.
Judging from China's subjective factors, there are the following reasons:
First of all, China's weak national strength made the Japanese aggressors think that China was vulnerable.
China's comprehensive national strength is backward, which is manifested in many aspects, such as political corruption, economic backwardness and people's ignorance. From a military point of view, the backwardness of China's army exposed in the Opium War and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 actually experienced a long-term quantitative accumulation in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and finally formed a qualitative gap; Moreover, this backwardness is not one aspect, but comprehensive and comprehensive, which is manifested in weapons and equipment, military training, strategy and tactics, organization and command ability, military literacy, cultural vision, and self-confidence of officers and men.
Japanese warlords value strength most and even believe in force. Japan's remarkable superiority in the strength comparison between China and Japan greatly inspired their aggressive ambitions and made their all-round war of aggression against China of practical significance. Some Japanese warlords even boasted that as long as Japan sent three cruisers and 1 division, China could be destroyed within 1 week. Its arrogance can be seen.
Secondly, the national character of China people made Japanese warlords feel that China was weak.
Japan's superiority in strength gave Japan the material conditions to invade China, while China's weakness in national character made Japanese warlords feel that China was weak.
The Chinese nation advocates serving people with virtue, harmony and moderation in times of trouble. Under this cultural background, China people are peaceful, kind, tolerant, introverted, passive and cowardly, and introverted.
So where does this national character come from?
First of all, it originated from China's self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy for thousands of years. Because the economic base is the decisive factor of all social life and cultural concepts. The self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy fundamentally determines the national character of China people: moving to a foreign land and advocating peace. The small-scale peasant economy model requires the owners of land to protect their land, rather than wandering around and expanding. "Men plow and women weave", "Cowherd and Weaver Girl", "Three acres of land, a cow, wife and children are hot kang heads". This is the most typical life picture of China people for thousands of years.
The defensive nature of small-scale peasant economy determines the defensive nature of China's army. China's military theory and facilities are completely defensive in system. The Great Wall of Wan Li is a military product of China's national defense culture. This magnificent military facility reflects not the ambition of attack, but the will of peace. Although there are many world-famous military strategists and brave generals in China, they basically emerged in the war of self-defense. China Wushu includes eighteen kinds of martial arts, which are wonderful, but its main purpose is not to attack, but to defend itself. European and American knights and Japanese samurai are proud of fighting and enjoy it, but they are afraid that the war is not big and the journey is not far away. Their literary works describing the war are full of praise for the war and the brave. And China's ancient poems describing war are basically about the bitterness of fighting, not the joy of fighting. Open the Tang poetry and Song poetry, and such works abound. For example, one of Cen Can's Seven Laws wrote: The bow becomes stiff, and it is difficult to pull it out, and it is difficult to protect your iron clothes. The vast sea dried up, thousands of feet ice, dark clouds bleak, Wan Li condensed. This kind of work reflects a general mentality of China people: this battle has to be fought, but it is too bitter! How bitter is it? The general can't hold the bow because of the cold, because he can't sleep. When will this battle be over?
China people's worship of peace has a deep-rooted economic foundation, and China people's awareness of peace has almost penetrated into the blood and bone marrow of the nation. It is not difficult to understand why China's ancient poems describing war are always so melancholy and bitter, and there is no heroism. It is also not difficult to understand why the strong and unified China dynasty in history, especially the Han Dynasty, never had the desire to invade weak Japan.
Moving the capital and advocating peace is not a bad thing, but things always have their opposite: moving the capital and moving the capital will inevitably lead to no progress, and advocating peace will inevitably emphasize literature over martial arts. Over time, the character of the Chinese nation lost its blood and courage and became more comfortable and conservative. Civil servants are sophisticated, and military commanders are afraid of war. Lu Xun said: "China has always had few heroes who failed, few who resisted tenaciously, few warriors who dared to fight alone, and few followers who dared to call traitors." This sentence really hits the nail on the head
The autocratic rule of feudal centralization is another important factor in casting China people's national character.
As we all know, the centralized autocratic rule system is extremely huge, overbearing, cowardly, obedient and bloodless, which becomes the inevitable character of the subjects under this system. Because the centralized autocratic rule system is extremely huge and overbearing, the individual is too small, too humble and too weak. This great and minimal contrast, extremely strong and extremely weak, makes China people derive a series of characteristics from the national character: the light ones lack independent opinions, self-confidence and independent personality, follow the crowd, be timid, be afraid of power, submit to humiliation, and be obedient; Or weak, willing to be oppressed and full of servility. Under the autocratic rule of centralization, only emperors and officials are allowed to outcrop, and civilians are not allowed to outcrop. Therefore, there are many proverbs in China throughout the ages that warn people not to show their heads. When the puppet troops defected to the enemy, most of the grassroots officers and men followed the crowd, and few people stood up and resisted. During the Nanjing Massacre, a dozen Japanese soldiers guarded thousands of prisoners. In fact, in that case, if someone takes the lead, everyone will step on the Japanese, but no one dares to take the lead. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, it was common for a squad or platoon of Japanese soldiers to rule a county in the vast enemy-occupied areas. The humble and cowardly national character makes China people and Japanese people have completely different attitudes towards the strong. For the strong, the Japanese admire, learn and conquer, and knock you down with admiration. If you treat Zhang Zizhong, although you regard him as a "modern Guan Gong", you will try your best to hit him until you kill him. The same is true in America. No matter how powerful you are, you will still go to war. China people admire, fear and avoid the strong. Awe, that is, respect and fear, fear and avoid it, and fear and follow it if you can't avoid it, rather than learn from it.
Of course, China people are not without indomitable spirit and all-powerful figures, but this does not mark the overall outlook of the Chinese nation. It is conceivable that if there were more people like Tan Sitong, Qiu Jin, Zou Rong, Chen Tianhua, Peng, Ji Hongchang, Zhang Zizhong, Yang Jingyu, Zhao Shangzhi and Zhao Yiman, no matter how powerful Japan is, it would not dare to launch an all-out war aimed at destroying China.
Third, the internal strife in China gave the Japanese aggressors an opportunity.
The self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy model not only determines the closeness of China's economy, but also determines the introversion of China's culture and national character. All appeals and contradictions and frictions arising from appeals are solved from within, not through aggression and expansion. This fundamentally determined that feudal China must be a country that attached great importance to peace and internal strife, with fierce internal contradictions and struggles.
The geographical features of vast territory but closed surroundings also strengthen this situation from the natural environment.
China has the sea to the east, Altai Mountain and Tianshan Mountain to the west, Himalayas to the southwest, mountains and sea to the south, and Siberia in the desert and snow to the north. This geographical environment is characterized by being large and closed. Vast land and rich resources, you can get whatever you want, and you don't need to ask for and plunder from other countries; Closure means that China is surrounded by mountains or seas, which seriously blocks the communication between China and neighboring countries. This unique geographical factor, which is large and closed, strengthens the introversion and contradictory struggle of China's national character caused by the small-scale peasant economy.
The fierce factional struggle within the Kuomintang not only gave foreign enemies an opportunity, but also directly prompted some national scum to throw themselves into the arms of Japanese aggressors and kill their compatriots under the Japanese egg wing. Whether it is Wang Jingwei or the leader of the puppet army, the direct cause of many people's defection to the enemy and treason is internal contradictions.
History has proved that for a country or group, the scale and degree of civil war is directly proportional to the scale and degree of foreign aggression. There is unity inside, strength outside, and a tough foreign policy; On the other hand, if it is not United internally, even if it plays happily and loses both sides, its strength will be weak and it will have to compromise and give in externally.
Personally, Japan is located between the Pacific plate, Eurasian plate and Indian Ocean plate, with frequent earthquakes and volcanoes, heavy economic burden and labor shortage, and China is a piece of fat meat.