Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast. Episode 71.

Playing the Part.

Okay, so I know I said we were going to be doing a biography of Tokugawa Ieasu for the next two weeks, but there was some breaking news, and as a result, I decided to

insert this new biography in place first.

I promise we will get to I.A. Asu next week.

This week will be doing another biography of a woman who, I must admit, embarrassingly enough,

I knew nothing about only a month or so ago. She covered a remarkable number of bases in her life,

from propaganda actress to politician, to National Reconcil of bases in her life, from propaganda actress to politician

to national reconciler, and her life is a fascinating, inspiring, and unpleasant reminder

of Japan's own unsavory past. Yamaguchi Yoshiko was born on February 12, 1920, in Fushun,

a small mining town. Fushun is located in Manchuria in the

northeastern part of China. Thus, Yamaguchi was technically born in the Republic of China,

but by 1920, the republic which had been born after the fall of China's last imperial dynasty,

was in tatters. It had been born after the fall of China's last imperial dynasty was in tatters.

It had been ripped apart by competing warlords,

and Manchuria at the time was under the de facto control of one of those warlords,

a renegade general named Zhang Zwo Lin,

who used the army given to him by the central government to set himself up as the de facto

independent ruler of Manchuria. He did so with the backing of the Japanese government,

which treated Zhang Zwo Lin as one of their clients. He would serve Japanese interests and give

Japanese companies and nationals preferential treatment in his territory,

and in exchange the Japanese would offer him weapons, training, and financial support.

...