Genyosha

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The Dark/Black Ocean Society (玄洋社, Gen'yōsha^?) was an influential ultranationalist group and secret society active in Meiji, Taisho and early Showa period Japan.

[edit] Foundation as the Koyosha

Originally founded by Hiraoka Kotaro (1851-1906), a wealthy ex-samurai and mine-owner, with mining interests in Manchuria, Toyama Mitsuru, and other former samurai of the Fukuoka domain as the “Koyosha”, it agitated for a return to the old feudal order with special privileges and government stipends for the samurai class. The Koyosha participated in the various ex-samurai uprising in Kyūshū against the early Meiji government, but after the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, it abandoned its original goals, joined the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, and formed a political organization to agitate for a national parliament instead.

[edit] Foundation as the Gen'yosha

In 1881, the Koyosha changed its direction again. This time, the declared aims of the Gen'yosha were honorable and noble: “to honor the Imperial Family, respect the Empire” and “to guard the rights of the people”. However, its true agenda was to agitate for Japanese military expansion and conquest of the Asian continent. The true agenda was reflected in its new name of Gen’yosha, taken after the Genkainada strait which separates Japan from Korea.

The tactics which the Gen'yosha was prepared to use to achieve its goals was also far from noble. It began as a terrorist organization, and although it continued to recruit disaffected ex-samurai, it also attracted figures in involved in organized crime to assist in its campaigns of violence and assassination against foreigners and liberal politicians.

In 1889, the Gen'yosha strongly criticized the unequal treaty revision plan drafted by foreign minister Okuma Shigenobu. A Gen'yosha member threw a bomb which wounded him severely. In the election of 1892, the Gen'yosha mounted a campaign of intimidation and violence with the tacit support of the Matsukata administration to influence the outcome of the election.

One of the primary targets of the Gen'yosha were the many Chinese secret society, some of which were very hostile to Japan. However, the Chinese secret societies had a shared goal with the Gen'yosha in wanting the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. In 1881, Mitsuru Toyama sent over 100 men into China to gather information and to infiltrate these secret societies. One of the first and most detailed histories of the secret societies was written by Gen'yosha member Hiraya Amane, who assisted in the establishment of the Gen'yosha's Chinese headquarters in Hangzhou. The Gen'yosha not only provided funds and weapons to the secret societies, but also arranged for refuge in Japan for leaders exposed by the Qing government. The Gen’yosha established a large network of brothels across China (and later throughout Southeast Asia) to provide meeting locations, and also to gather information. In addition to being a profitable side-business, the brothels provided opportunities to gather useful information for the later blackmail or subversion of patrons. However, although blackmail and bribery were often resorted to, more often information was obtained by employing prostitutes highly skilled in extracting information for their clients. The Gen'yosha even established a training school for such agents in Sapporo, in Hokkaidō..

Another sphere of Gen'yosha activity was Korea. The Gen'yosha established a task force to prepare detailed topographical survey maps of Korea in secret, in anticipation of a future Japanese invasion. The Gen'yosha also actively supported the Donghak Movement, knowing that the uprising was likely to draw China and Japan into a war. The assassination of Queen Min of Korea in 1895 is believed to have been conducted by Gen'yosha members, at the instigation of the Japanese Minister in Seoul, Miura Goro.

Originally ignored by the Japanese military, during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War, both theImperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy found the Gen'yosha’s extensive intelligence gathering network throughout East Asia to be invaluable. The Gen'yosha network was also useful for the military in conducting sabotage activities behind enemy lines.

After the annexation of Korea in 1910, the Gen'yosha continued to support efforts towards Pan-Asianism. Domestically, it formed a political party called the Dai Nippon Seianto (Greater Japan Production Party) to combat the influence of socialism in worker trade unions.

Towards its later years, the Gen'yosha was far removed from its origins as a secret society, but had evolved almost to the mainstream of Japanese politics. A number of cabinet ministers and members of the Japanese Diet were known members, and mainstream political leaders, such as Hirota Koki and Nakano Seigo emerged from its ranks. It continued to exert considerable influence on the politics and foreign policy of Japan until the end of World War II.

The Gen’yosha was disbanded by the American authorities during the Occupation of Japan.

[edit] Legacy

The Gen'yosha was the forerunner of a number of organizations which inherited and developed its ideology. It also set the stage for the ties between right-wing politicians and yakuza organized crime syndicates.

Although modern yakuza crime syndicates share many of Gen'yosha's political and social philosophies, and although many of Gen'yosha's members were drawn from yakuza ranks, the Gen'yosha was primarily a political organization which often used criminal means to attain its goals, and was not a yakuza crime syndicate itself, as some authors have claimed.