a modernized regional power, defeating both the  Chinese and Russian Empires, annexing Korea and  

Taiwan, and expanding their sphere of influence  across East Asia. But after the death of Emperor  

Meiji, new problems would arise, opportunities  would be taken and Japan would continue to expand  

and develop itself as a rising great power. Today,  we're going to continue analyzing the evolution of  

the Japanese Empire during the Taishō and Early  Shōwa eras, covering its role in the Great War,  

subsequent expansionist developments, and  the start of its trajectory towards fascism  

and the Pacific War. Unfortunately, not every  event and fun detail can be told in a 20-minute  

video. And in order to alleviate that, we decided  to create a new podcast that will cover the events  

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It is July 30, 1912. Emperor Meiji is dead,  his family is mourning him, and his heir is  

preparing to ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne  as Emperor Taishō. For the past four decades,  

Meiji had overseen the modernization and  industrialization of the Japanese Empire,  

which underwent an extensive political, economic  and social revolution. On his funeral, a massive  

procession gathered to pay homage to the Emperor  that had brought a new era for Japan. Of this  

event, the New York Times wrote that “the contrast  between that which preceded the funeral car and  

that which followed it was striking indeed. Before  it went old Japan; after it came new Japan”.  

And in this new Japan, many differences could  be already noticed, such as a great economic  

growth in many sectors, aided by the financial  power of the Zaibatsu business conglomerates  

and by the introduction of electric power; a heavy  government investment in engineering, industry and  

railway building that resulted in the rapid  industrialization of Japan; the establishment  

of a Western-based education system; and the  complete modernization of the Army and Navy. 

Yet the death of Meiji would also spark a  political crisis in the Japanese Empire,  

as the Meiji Constitution was written in such  a way that the military had dominance over  

the civilian government: if the IJA or the IJN  refused to appoint a minister for the new cabinet,  

then the cabinet couldn't be formed and  the government would be interrupted.  

When this happened two times in 1912 and 1913,  the acting Prime Ministers were forced to resign.  

In response, the public was outraged due to  the military manipulation of the cabinet,  

and soon, demands against the oligarchic  system of the Japanese Empire began to emerge. 

But the political uprisings would  have to temporarily take a break,  

as in Europe, the First World War broke out in  1914 between the Central Powers and the Entente.  

As a consequence of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty,  Japan entered the war on the side of the Entente,  

seizing the opportunity to expand its sphere  of influence in China and the Pacific,  

where the German Empire had colonial possessions.  While Australia and New Zealand launched invasions  

against German Samoa and German New Guinea,  Vice-Admiral Sadakichi Kato of the 2nd Fleet  

started the blockade of the German colony  of Tsingtao and Vice-Admiral Yamaya Tanin  

of the South Seas Squadron started to pursue  the fleeing German East Asia Squadron towards  

the Marshall Islands. Quickly, the IJN seized the  Mariana, Caroline, Palau and Marshall Islands with  

virtually no resistance, and the IJA landed  on Shandong to start the Siege of Tsingtao.  

After two months, Tsingtao fell on November 7, and  the city was occupied by Japanese troops. The IJN  

would also continue to support naval operations  in the Pacific against German raiders and,  

eventually, it would even send squadrons into the  Mediterranean to help the Entente in the region. 

During the war, Japan increasingly filled orders  for needed war material for its European allies.  

The wartime boom helped to diversify the  country's industry, increase its exports,  

and transform Japan from a debtor to a  creditor nation for the first time, although  

this industrial boom also led to a rapid inflation  and the outbreak of rice riots throughout Japan.  

Meanwhile in China, the Empire attempted  to consolidate its position in the region  

by presenting the Twenty-One Demands to Chinese  President Yuan Shikai in 1915. These demands  

essentially transformed China into a Japanese  protectorate, and in response, the Japanese earned  

the international condemnations of their allies,  particularly from the United States. In the end,  

Japan withdrew the demands, but it would  continue to extend its influence in China  

via more subtle means. The Fall of the Russian  Empire in 1917 also saw the Japanese wanting to  

increase their influence in the region with  an intervention in Siberia, landing almost  

70000 men under the orders of General Otani  Kikuzo and penetrating as far west as Lake Baikal.  

In 1919, as the British and American expeditionary  forces withdrew, the Japanese decided to stay for  

three more years with the objective of creating  an anti-Bolshevik buffer state in Siberia;  

an enterprise that would fail, costing a  lot of money for the Empire. That same year,  

Japan's representative, Saionji Kinmochi, sat  alongside the “Big Four” at the Paris Peace  

Conference. As a result of the peace treaties,  the Japanese Empire gained a permanent seat on  

the Council of the League of Nations, annexed  the German leased territories in Shandong  

and was granted the South Seas Mandate  over the Pacific islands they had occupied. 

After the war ended, the Japanese  Empire emerged as a naval powerhouse,  

having the third largest navy in the world  and learning important anti-submarine warfare  

techniques and technologies that contributed  to future Japanese submarine developments.  

Back home, the political strife ended with  the adoption of a two-party political system  

known as the Taishō Democracy. But the failure of  the Siberian Intervention and the termination of  

the Anglo-Japanese Treaty would leave Japan alone  and weakened, forcing the Empire to adopt a more  

neutral attitude towards China and to sign the  Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the subsequent  

London Naval Treaty of 1930, that established an  international capital ship ratio, limited the size  

and armaments of capital ships and forced Japan  to return the leased territories in Shandong.  

Furthermore, the national debt started to grow  again because of the renewed export competition,  

the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 devastated  the capital, a Communist Party dangerous to  

current regime was founded, and the rise of  the tenant farmer movement led to the outbreak  

of social unrest. Although the communists  and the tenants were brutally repressed,  

thus ending the threats they posed, economic  and political pressures forced the government  

to enact the Peace Preservation Law of 1925  that essentially criminalized socialism,  

communism, republicanism, and democracy. This  was the end of the Taishō Democracy, with Emperor  

Taishō dying himself the next year. Upon the  death of his father, Prince Hirohito ascended  

to the Chrysanthemum Throne on December 25, 1926. Hirohito would have a rough start as Emperor, with  

the outbreak of the Shōwa Financial Crisis in the  first year of rule. Many businesses went bankrupt,  

exports decreased, silk and rice prices plummeted,  and unemployment skyrocketed. The situation  

worsened with the Great Depression of 1929, but  Japan's Finance Minister, Takahashi Korekiyo,  

would start working to devalue the currency  and to provide economic relief, measures that  

would be very successful. The four major Zaibatsu  also managed to avoid great losses in the panic,  

leading to their domination over every field  of Japanese industry in the following years.  

In the countryside, the establishment of  nohonshugi organizations led to the emergence  

of emperor-centered ultranationalism and Japanese  fascism. The nohonshugi won increasing support  

because they offered solutions to the economic  problems of the rural countryside: it was their  

practical program of cooperatives and credit  associations, not their ideology, that accounted  

for their growing popularity and local influence. This new Japanese nationalism leaned on the  

Bushidō moral code and the idea of racial  superiority over other Asian nations.  

It was aimed against Western criticism and  restrictions on Japanese immigration. In the  

military itself, an ultranationalist faction known  as the Kōdōha was formed by General Sadao Araki,  

seeking to purge the corruption in the government  by establishing a militaristic administration run  

by Emperor Hirohito himself. Moreover, the Kōdōha  disliked modernization and the economic control of  

the Zaibatsu, and also wanted to crush communism  once and for all by attacking the Soviet Union  

and expanding into Siberia. Opposed to them was  the more moderate Tōseiha faction, which was also  

right-wing, but acknowledged that the IJA needed  the support of the Zaibatsu and the continuation  

of a modernization process to wage global war. Meanwhile in Manchuria, the Kwantung Army had  

been established back in 1919 to defend the  Liaodong Peninsula and the South Manchurian  

Railway. In the following decade, this army would  become a stronghold for the Kōdōha, advocating for  

a more aggressive expansionist policy in mainland  Asia and going so far as to plot the assassination  

of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin. In 1931,  seeking the perfect excuse to expand into the  

rich region of Manchuria, the Kwantung leaders  purposely sabotaged the Japanese-controlled  

railway to blame the Chinese garrison nearby  and thus start a conflict in the region.  

On September 18, the plan of the Kwantung Army  was executed and the Mukden Incident soon sparked  

a full-blown Japanese Invasion of Manchuria. Soon,  every city along the South Manchurian Railway fell  

into Japanese hands, and by October, the Kwantung  Army had occupied the Jilin, Taonan, Yanbian and  

Eastern Liaoning areas. Although initially shocked  by the insubordination, the government was now  

impressed by the quick victories in Manchuria and  was starting to send reinforcements on their way.  

In the following months, the Jiangqiao and  Jinzhou Campaigns secured the Western Liaoning  

and Qiqihar areas, and the fall of Harbin finally  destroyed the remaining resistance in the region.  

With Manchuria firmly under Japanese control,  the Kwantung army established the Manchukuo  

puppet state and started a pacification  campaign that allowed them to control the  

political administration of this new state.  Despite its insubordination, the Kwantung  

Army would be rewarded for its great success,  establishing a new era of gekokujo inside the IJA.  

In response to the Western condemnation  of the Japanese aggression, the League  

of Nations ordered the Lytton Commission to  investigate the incident, which prompted Japan  

to exit the League of Nations, a decision that was  influenced by the military and the nationalists. 

By 1933, Takahashi's policies had managed to bring  Japan to an economic recovery; but the next year,  

the Finance Minister reduced military  spending to avoid inflation, which resulted  

in a strong negative response from the strong  militaristic fascism that was rising in Japan.  

As the military's dominance over the government  continued to grow after the May 15 Incident,  

the country saw the emergence of right-wing  admirals that wanted unlimited naval growth  

and the Empire started to dream about a Greater  East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. From 1933 to 1936,  

the Japanese would use proxy armies in Inner  Mongolia with the objective of creating a  

Mongolian buffer state next to Manchukuo. The  successes in the provinces of Jehol and Chahar  

allowed for the establishment of the Inner  Mongolian Autonomous Government, a Japanese puppet  

state under the rule of Prince Demchugdongrub.  Since 1934, the retirement of General Araki led  

to the decline in influence of the Kōdōha faction,  culminating in the February 26 Incident of 1936,  

an attempted coup d'état by Kōdōha followers. The  coup resulted in the death of several government  

members and Tōseiha followers, including  Minister Takahashi and General Jōtarō Watanabe,  

yet Hirohito opposed the coup and the uprising was  crushed after two days. The following months saw  

the purging of the Kōdōha, the abandonment of  the London Naval Treaty and a rise of tensions  

with China that would inevitably lead to war. Next week our coverage of the prelude to the  

Pacific War will continue - we are going  to turn to the other side of the Pacific  

to look at the United States, its objectives in  East Asia and the consequences of World War I,  

so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed  the bell button to see the next video in the  

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