Yoshiko Kawashima, when this name is mentioned,
everybody might see something different in their mind.
A beautiful social butterfly.
A traitor who betrayed her own country.
A heroic soldier who dressed like a male.
A cruel female spy.
Her whole life was shrouded in mystery.
Even her death left an unsolved mystery.
This is Klaus.
Welcome to the "New Observation of History" series,
where we interpret historical figures from a new perspective.
Yoshiko Kawashima was an extremely controversial figure.
She did a lot of evil in the eyes of the Chinese.
She took part in the Huanggutun incident which killed Zhang Zuolin, the warlord of Northeast China,
secretly fetched Empress Wanrong to help Puyi become the emperor of Manchuria,
and started the January 28th Incident that provoked the Japanese attack on Shanghai.
She also participated in espionage and assassinations.
Thus, Yoshiko Kawashima was eventually sentenced to death as a “hanjian”.
Some people may find it strange.
Wasn't Yoshiko Kawashima a Japanese spy?
How did she become a traitor?
Actually Yoshiko Kawashima was not Japanese.
Yoshiko Kawashima was formerly known as Aisin Kyora·Xianyu.
You can tell from this name that she was a relative of the emperor.
Her father was the famous Prince Su.
She was a precious princess,
the cousin of the last emperor Puyi.
But even so, if you say Yoshiko Kawashima was Chinese,
does that make her a “hanjian” (traitor to the people of Han)? No.
The term “hanjian” refers to a person who betrays the Han nation.
Yoshiko Kawashima was a Manchurian, so naturally she was not a hanjian.
If we judge her based on the Han national righteousness,
it will be unfair.
But some people might say that she betrayed the Chinese nation.
But the “Chinese nation” is a term invented in modern times.
That term never existed in history.
Besides, among the 56 ethnic groups, there are the Russians, the Koreans, etc.
Are people from Russia, North Korea and South Korea also Chinese?
Grouping people together under the jurisdiction of the regime
and calling them one big ethnic group is also illogical.
If Japan had taken over China,
would the Chinese now have to sing that 57 ethnic groups belong to one family?
Would this be just as reasonable or just as absurd?
Therefore, we must look at Yoshiko Kawashima objectively,
from the perspective of her being a Manchurian,
of her being a human.
If we simply look at Yoshiko Kawashima's life,
it’s actually a tragedy.
This tragedy can be summarized into four words, “having no free will”.
Yoshiko Kawashima never had a say over anything in her life.
She was tortured by her own fate.
Although she was born in the royal family,
the Qing Dynasty was already on the verge of collapse.
In 1912, the Qing Dynasty fell.
Yoshiko Kawashima, who was only 6 years old, was given by her own father who tried to restore the Qing Dynasty,
to Naniwa Kawashima in Japan as an adopted daughter.
She cried and said to her mother,
“I don't want to go to Japan. I don't want to be Japanese.”
In Japan, she had received military and intelligence training since childhood.
Two romances with Japanese soldiers ended in failure.
And she was raped by her adoptive father when she was 17.
At that time, her father Prince Su had passed away.
She had no one to talk to about her sufferings.
Since then, her personality had changed drastically, and she had attempted suicide many times.
Later, at the age of 21, she had to follow the dying wish of her biological father,
and got married to a Mongolian prince.
This was a political marriage that was destined not to be happy.
So three years later, she fled and joined the Kwantung Army in Northeast China.
After having these unfortunate experiences, she only socialized with men,
but never truly fell in love again.
When Japan was defeated, she was sent to a military court.
At that time, a Japanese nationality could have saved her from death penalty.
But for three years she waited for a household registration certificate from Japan, which never arrived.
She wanted to be a princess of the Qing Dynasty, but couldn’t.
She wanted to be a Manchurian, but couldn’t.
When she wanted to be Japanese, she still couldn’t.
The only thing she could be in the end,
was a Manchurian who became a “hanjian”.
After the Qing Dynasty fell,
the Manchus were once bullied or even massacred by the Han.
The Manchus who were once above the sky fell from the clouds.
They not only lost their privileges. They even had to go incognito.
Yoshiko Kawashima, who returned to China, had to change her surname to Jin,
and went by the name of Jin Bihui
As a member of the fallen Manchu nobility,
reasonably, she hoped to restore her nation and wanted her people to be respected again.
Moreover, the Beiyang government of the Republic of China in 1924 tore up the Qing abdication agreement,
drove the last emperor Puyi out of the palace,
and ceased financial support for the royal family.
Thus, the Manchu nobles lost their last ounce of heritage and dignity.
If we look at the story from the perspective of the Manchu,
the image of Yoshiko Kawashima will be completely different.
The three biggest things she did:
1. Killing Zhang Zuolin.
2. Shanghai January 28th Incident.
3. Secretly fetching Empress Wanrong and urging Pu Yi to ascend the throne.
These three things were done before the founding of Manchuria.
Much as she helped Japan, she helped Manchuria even more.
She made great contributions to Manchuria,
and therefore was highly valued by Japan.
In 1932, Manchuria was founded and she was named commander-in-chief of the Manchuria National Security Army.
But this was also the pinnacle of her life.
After that, she increasingly felt that Manchukuo was actually a puppet of Japan.
She began to slowly cultivate her own power,
used her own strategies and beauty,
maneuvering between Japan and Manchuria.
She pretended to comply with the military and political orders on the Japanese side.
Thus, only 3 years after the founding of Manchuria,
Hideki Tojo, then commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, became dissatisfied with her,
and she was under house arrest in Fengtian for three months.
Later, she contacted Dai Li, the military commander of the Nationalist Government,
and privately gave him a list of Japanese spies operating in China.
By the end of 1939, the Sino-Japanese War was on the verge of a stalemate.
Yoshiko Kawashima took a peek at Japan's intelligence information
and learned that Hideki Tojo had plans for peace talks with China.
Yoshiko Kawashima was overjoyed.
As a Manchu royalty, she knew very well that
no matter which side won, China or Japan,
Manchukuo could not exist.
If Japan was defeated, Manchukuo must be destroyed,
and if Japan took over China,
then there would be no need for the puppet Manchukuo to exist.
Only China-Japan peace talks could maintain the status quo,
and give Manchuria a slim chance of survival.
Therefore, Yoshiko Kawashima must seize this opportunity.
She went to Tokyo to try to persuade Hideki Tojo in person,
to get him to make the decision to stop the war.
And with her dual nationality and her connections in both China and Japan,
she nominated herself and asked to be an ambassador for peace talks.
However, on the one hand, Hideki Tojo at the time did not make up his mind on peace talks.
He wanted war actually, as he launched the Pearl Harbor incident two years later,
which dragged the United States into the battlefield.
On the other hand, he was extremely
angered by Yoshiko Kawashima peeking at his military intelligence.
Yoshiko Kawashima was arrested on the spot and tortured in jail.
She was not released until over half a year later with the help of her adoptive father.
After she returned to China, Hideki Tojo tried to have her assassinated many times.
Since then, she had never participated in any more political activities.
Therefore, when we judge her based on the Han national righteousness,
she was a “hanjian”.
But from the perspective of the Manchu national righteousness,
she was a national hero.
Such was her life.
The mission of the family, the burden of the nation,
a life of tragedy during turbulent times.
Hero or traitor.
How can we so simply define an individual?
In the last video, we talked about the disappearance of the gentry, the local autonomous class in China.
Netizen rabbit wearing glasses said,
“The gentry class still exists, but has become a puppet appointed by the central government.”
Netizen Fatch said,
“Privileged class ≠ gentry class.
The source of power of the gentry class was its own ruling power.
Therefore, it could exist without relying on the central government.
But the power of officials under the CCP comes from the central government.
Therefore, it is impossible to be independent of the central government or even confront the central government.”
Netizen DErry CHan said,
“It was the ancient Central Empire that allowed the underworld to exist and depend on each other.
But after the Communist Party became the biggest underworld,
it has been necessary to eliminate potential competitors.”
Netizen Xi's Virus Empire said,
“It’s the aristocrats in China.
Many families could last for thousands of years.
For example, the Hongnong Yang family, the northern clan, had lived on for generations.
They integrated land, capital, and bureaucratic resources.
Anyone who became an emperor dared not offend them,
but could only flatter them.
So there is a saying, "The emperor of flowing water, the clan of iron."
Netizen Kuang Sheng said,
“My grandfather was once a squire in Jiangnan,
He led the villagers in the fight against Japan bravely.
In the 1950s, during the anti-rightist movement, he was wrongly accused of possession of guns and went to jail for 20 years.
Family property and real estate were confiscated. The so-called public-private partnership of the two factories.
Grandma raised two children alone.
My father was both good in character and academics but was forced to support the frontier and spend his youth.
At the end of the 1970s, my grandfather was vindicated and given 2,000 yuan as compensation.
Most other gentries in Jiangnan had a similar fate.
My parents came to Shanghai later and started again purely by their own efforts.
They bought a big house and finally had a not-so-bad ending.
Among the young people assigned to the border, they were the extremely lucky ones.
The most frightening thing is that my parents are staunch patriots,
They think it was the Communist Party that allowed them to live a good life free of worries about food and clothes.
They told me every day that suffering was the wealth of life.
Those who have brought us suffering are obviously the enemies of the whole family.
But my parents said the enemies had brought us wealth!
Why swim across the river when there is a bridge?
Except for the least developed countries,
which country has so many hardworking and wise people who are short of food and clothing?
Obviously every normal person’s life is hard enough.
We all have our fair share of trials and tribulations of life.
There are so many meaningful things to do in life.
To have a fruitful life, we need to stay grounded and make plans step by step.
But you tell me that I should try my best to experience sufferings and be a glutton for punishment?
The deceptions by the central government for thousands of years have reached their extremes.
My parents’ generation were brainwashed slaves who only knew counting money for their masters.
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