Ask for the information of the advance team of Japanese invasion of Korea-God bless Xia Tuan.

In the study of the history of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, most of them pay attention to the open political, military and diplomatic struggles, while ignoring the hidden forms of struggle related to the war. In fact, Japan has carried out a lot of espionage activities in order to launch this large-scale war of aggression. This article is only prepared to talk about the following two issues.

I. The conspiracy activities of God Blessed Chivalrous Regiment in North Korea

1In July, 894, when the Korean Peninsula was overcast, 14 Japanese were rushing to Changchun from Namwon, Jeolla-do, South Korea. This is the so-called "God Blessed Hero". God bless the chivalrous group is organized by the Japanese metaphysical society. Yang Xuan Association is a website based on Fukuoka, Kyushu; A nationalist right-wing political group centered on Hiraoka Kotaro and Toushanman, actively advocating foreign aggression. In the middle of the Sino-Japanese War, it acted as a deep-water bomb.

1894 At the end of March, Kim, an exiled politician of the Korea Independence Party, was stabbed to death by Koreans. Yang Xuan society and other Japanese right-wingers advocate "singling out the culprit" against China. The backbone members of the Yang Xuan Institution organized a "friends' meeting" and sent people to Shanghai to negotiate with China to transport Kim's body back. As a result, Suk Kim's body was transported back to the north of China by South Korean warships, and the North Korean government slaughtered the body in Huayang Town and made it public. Suzuki Tianye, Nosuke and others, members of Yang Xuan Society, think this is a great shame for Japan and advocate waging war against China under the pretext of revenge. On the second day of Kim's funeral, that is, on May 2 1 day, the wild party sent by the society visited Japanese Foreign Minister Luo Ozongguang. The foreign minister said: "It is impossible to wage a revenge war for the sudden death of a desperate politician." However, he suggested visiting the second chief of staff, Kawakami Soro. "Whether to wage war or not, let's listen to the opinions of Sichuan." In fact, shortly after Kim was assassinated, that is, on the night of April 2, an agreement was reached with Kawakami to send troops to North Korea. They believe that the main reason for Japan's two setbacks in Korea in 1882 and 1884 was insufficient military preparation. Now that China's ten-year preparation plan has been completed ahead of schedule, we are determined to make "preemptive" military preparations this time. Therefore, when Nono visited Kawakami, Kawakami immediately said: "If we want to solve the problem of the current situation quickly, someone had better light a fire. As long as the fire is lit, our task is to put out the fire ",suggesting that Yang Xuan society should be responsible for provoking the war. Wild got the message, ecstatic, immediately report to the head of the mountain, Hiraoka Kotaro. On May 27th, Hiraoka made a special trip to Sichuan to visit the Deputy Chief of Staff, and the two sides reached a tacit understanding. From then on, the Yang Xuan Institution began to "become a special unit of imperial aggression".

1 June, 8941day, the Korean East Learning Party Uprising Army captured Jeonju, the capital of Jeolla-do, and shocked the whole of Korea. Yang Xuanshe's stronghold in Busan sent ronin Takeda Fanji and Chai Tian Jiro, alias Park Wushan and Park Shanqi, posing as drug dealers to collect information about the North Korean rebels, and sent Zhengfang Ozaki back to Tokyo to report to the eye of Suzuki. Suzuki arranged Otsuka to hide in the upstairs of Tokyo's February 26 news agency, and then he and Toushanman secretly planned it. The society decided to send Heye to the Oriental Pavilion and Osaki to study the personnel, funds and tasks of the blessed Xia Group. Otsuka telegraphed Yin Ji, a ronin in Sendai, who was interested in recruiting Koreans. Before Suzuki, Osaki and Nishiha set off, the giants and dignitaries of Yang Xuan society held a grand banquet in Osaka Tower in Tokyo to bid them farewell. On the way, he and members of the society, Kazuyoshi Ishizawa, Uchida Ryohei (nephew of Hiraoka), Yoshioka Ohara (reporter of Kyushu Daily, the organ of the society), former Japanese Army Chief of Staff Tanaka, Junfukuoka ronin Takeda Fanzhi, Malaysian ronin Okubo Zhao, retired spy Tsao Chang () Chiba Kyunosuke and a reporter of Busan Daily. The God Blessed Summer Youth League is headed by an elderly Tanaka, but the real organization and leaders are social decision makers Hiraoka and Touyamaman, and their leadership is achieved through their eyes. All the activities of the Divine Companion and the formulation of the Divine Companion were carried out under the auspices of. Therefore, the God Blessed Knight Corps is a special force of the Japanese invaders, which is composed of clubs, ronins, soldiers and spies.

As a non-governmental organization, God-Blessed Chivalrous Group has secret contact with the official legation and consulate. When passing through Hiroshima, Kazuo Ishizawa specially visited the General School of Hiroshima Division to learn about the situation of sending troops to North Korea and "get the gist quickly". The Yang Xuan Society sent Nobu Tokushima and Ishihiko Nishimura to Seoul, North Korea, to keep in touch with the authorities at any time. The director of Busan Police Department, Tadao Nakai, and the consul of Busan Consulate, Enjiro, have a deep relationship with Yang Xuan's club. Therefore, the activities of God Blessed Summer Mission in North Korea have been closely watched by the Japanese legation and the Busan Consulate.

Japan was determined to launch aggressive wars against China and North Korea, but it was "difficult to predict when there would be conflicts or wars" because there was "no suitable excuse for them to go to war with each other". At this time, the God-Blessed Chivalrous Regiment appeared in North Korea, just to realize this conspiracy and enter the East Learning Party Uprising Army.

1In late June, 894, God Blessed Summer Delegation set out from Busan and joined hands by land to meet Mashanpu. Osaki and Takeda left two days late to raise funds and materials. At this time, Nosuke has wired a sum of money in Kyushu. They got a lot of explosives from a gold mine in Changwon. The explosion in Jinzhou scared away the North Korean soldiers who were going to arrest them. Leave Jinzhou on July 3 1894. On his way to the hills, he was attacked by North Korean farmers with stones and tiles several times. God bless Xia Tuan showed Japanese knives and even shot them to get rid of the forced attack of North Korean farmers. In Shanqing, because the backup didn't arrive and the travel expenses were used up, the young Party Uchida pulled out a Japanese knife and rushed into Shanqing County. The sheriff raised his pen and asked, "What are you doing here?" Yoshikura replied in Korean: "We came to Korea for the independence of your country ... to borrow money." The North Korean leader was forced to agree to this unreasonable request. In Nanyuan, Wang Sheng Yoshikura and Yukio Yukio lied that they were Japanese plenipotentiaries, army generals and army lieutenant colonel, and defrauded the Nanyuan government ambassador to receive them and their party as national guests.

In Nanyuan Hotel, Shenyouxia Group studied and determined the next policy: "First, the power of the country must be eliminated from North Korea. If you want to destroy the power of the country, you must make Japan and Qing go to war to punish the violence of the country. " "However, South Korea's ruling and opposition parties mistakenly believe that Qing is an unparalleled power in the world, so they are willing to be vassals of Qing, and their ignorance is really pitiful." Therefore, at present, "the war of Nissin must be provoked." They decided to scout the situation of the East Learning Party Uprising Army before going forward, prepared weapons for attack and defense, and a "campaign" that needed to be made public when they met the East Learning Party Uprising Army. It was also decided to officially name this organization "God Blessed Man". Then Tanaka, Ishizawa, Chiba, Ogara and the translator were sent to scout the situation. Uchida is responsible for making bombs, Otaki assists Suzuki, Takeda and Yoshikura in drafting "battles", and Okubo is responsible for patrolling with knives.

It took me a day to wait for someone, and I drafted twelve articles of God Blessed. Among them, it maliciously provoked the friendly relations between China and the DPRK and declared: "I am willing to serve the public as a leader. As long as I persist in the ambition of comforting the people and rejuvenating the country, I will spare no effort and do my best." "If you listen to his words, you will gladly be the pioneer of the public, take an arrow to cut the sword, enter Beijing through an approach, and go all out to die."

In mid-July, God bless Xia Tuan and his party came to Changchun and were received by the headquarters of the Rebel Army. They declared a campaign against the rebels. At the same time, Uchida performed his judo skills, tested bombs in water to show their power, and treated the wounded to please the rebels. In the evening, Suzuki, Tanaka, Takeda and the rebel leaders in Dongxue Party all had a written conversation. At that time, although the insurgents didn't know the purpose of God save the Chivalrous Regiment, the grim reality of North Korea at that time made the insurgents wary and suspicious of Japan. Except for a few pro-Japanese elements, Japan suddenly invaded North Korea for no reason and stationed troops in Seoul, and North Korea was greatly shocked and uneasy. It turned out that the Eastern Learning Party Uprising Army put forward the battle slogan of "driving away the Japanese" from the beginning. When Quan Zhun Zhun learned that Japan was sending troops to Korea, he said, "The Japanese army will come to China one after another and will certainly annex China." Therefore, at that time, the insurgents reached a compromise with the North Korean government forces and signed the Quanzhou Peace Treaty under the condition of winning certain concessions from the North Korean government. From June 1 1, we quickly withdrew from Quanzhou and continued to retreat to wait and see the evolution of the situation, especially the movements of the Japanese army. Therefore, as a result of the talks, the rebels refused the help of the so-called God Blessed Summer Mission. Make it clear that the rebels will continue to retreat in order to accumulate strength and prepare for a comeback in the future. The next day, the insurgents retreated in the direction of Yunfeng and parted ways with them. God bless Xia Tuan's evil plot to provoke and expand the war by using the uprising army of the Eastern Learning Party, especially the plot to provoke the military conflict between China and North Korea, and finally suffered a shameful failure.

2. "Leshan Hall" and "Nissin Trade Research Institute"

Japan's espionage against China began at 1872. At that time, the Japanese ruling class was arguing endlessly about "recruiting Korea." In September, Saigō Takamori, the acting minister of the Japanese left-behind cabinet, sent his subordinates Ikebukuro, Takemasa and Peng Chengping to northeast China to collect intelligence after obtaining the consent of Sakahara, a deputy foreign minister and a member of the Senate. In more than half a year, they disguised themselves as Japanese businessmen, took a boat from Shanghai to Yingkou via Yantai, and then "traveled" to Fengtian. At that time, the Qing government was suspicious of their whereabouts, and always sent people to follow and monitor them, and repeatedly questioned their purpose of coming here. They always answer "Let's see what industry they are interested in, here they come". When it comes to political issues, yes, we will use "we are businessmen and know nothing" to prevaricate. Although the Qing government still monitored him, they still got a lot of important information, such as when the Liaohe River began to freeze, when people could travel on the river, when to thaw and so on. In addition, Fengtian's topography, politics, armaments, industry, transportation, customs and habits, and Russian activities in Manchuria are all collected. In their report on returning home, they said: "The Manchurian Standing Army has a long history of abuses", "The soldiers are timid", "The Standing Army almost exists in name only", "zhina will surely fall apart in a few years" and "this is the best opportunity to solve the North Korean issue". This shows that after the Meiji Restoration, Japanese aggression was directed at China and North Korea from the beginning.

1873, Japanese navy sergeant Uji Huashan (1894- 1895 naval general when Taiwan Province Province was occupied in the Sino-Japanese War) and army sergeant Fukushima Jiucheng went deep into South China to conduct reconnaissance activities respectively, but they failed because the Qing government was very vigilant at that time. Fukushima soon became a civilian and was stationed in Fuzhou as a consul. I met the famous Japanese painter An Tian Laoshan by chance. So Fukushima pretended to be a disciple of the painter, and under the cover of An Tian, he sneaked into Taiwan Province Province, made a field survey and drew an accurate map of Taiwan. 1in may, 874, the Japanese army invaded Taiwan Province province with this map.

1In July, 874, after the Japanese invaders withdrew from Taiwan Province Province, the Japanese Saga ronin Yamaguchi Goro who came to Taiwan sneaked into Fujian Province under the pseudonym of Xue, and soon established contact with the local folk secret organization Gerontology. In 1980s, Japanese military attaché s in China Jiro Ozawa and Hu Jun Zeng Genjun held activities in Fuzhou and Shanghai respectively. Yamaguchi and Ozawa operated Lushan Xuan, a Fuzhou photo studio in Fuzhou, Fujian, as a stronghold of Japanese espionage, which was the so-called "Fuzhou Group" circulated in Japanese society at that time.

1886, the Japanese General Staff Headquarters sent active-duty army lieutenant Kenji wilderness to China. Huang Wei took off his military uniform, disguised himself as a civilian and went to Shanghai by boat.

Here, he first visited kishida fumio, a famous Japanese businessman, who is the owner of the Shanghai branch of Leshantang, which deals in eye drops and groceries. With the help of Kishida, Arao opened a Leshantang branch in Hankou. Since then, the first Japanese spy agency-Hankou Leshan Party Branch appeared in Chinese mainland. Attending this activity were Inoue Shenyansaburo and Gao Qiao Qian. At the request of Japanese military attaché s in China, Japanese ronin and Chinese mainland people with lofty ideals were invited to Hankou. So Japanese ronins from Tianjin and Shanghai came to Hankou to join the Leshan Hall secret service organization. Among them are Takehiko Fujishima, Takehiko Fujishima, Jiro Nakano, Masaki Nakai, Shintaro Shirai, Takeichi Ishikawa, Toshihiko Katayama, Tomoko Eelsen, Saburo Inoue, Seinosuke Tanoka, Matsuzaburo Kitano, Hiroyuki Kawaguchi, etc. 1888, and Kotaro Hiraoka and Jiro Nakano, the leaders of the Japanese Yang Xuan Association, agreed to send a group of young people to join Hankou Lok. They first studied Mandarin in China with Feng Xiangru, a China native (Cantonese, once served as vice consul in Yokohama, Japan, who knew both Japanese and English), and then joined Leshan Hall in Hankou. In this way, Luoshantang often keeps seven or eight Japanese shop assistants and five China shop assistants. On the surface, the six-person department store is a two-story building that combines Chinese and western styles, but inside it is a secret organization that nervously collects and studies China's intelligence. Huang Wei is the general manager and puts forward the general requirements for Leshan Hall. Members are divided into two parts: internal personnel and external personnel. If foreigners want to visit China provinces, explore people (including gentlemen, heroes, the elderly, the rich, etc. ), and explore China's secret societies, such as Gelve Society, Kowloon Society, Bailian Society and Horse Thief. Land, clothing, transportation, salary, military system, manufacturing industry, mountain geography, population, customs, good and evil of the rich and the poor are all among the explorations of foreign workers.

With the Japanese ruling class's strong demand for China's intelligence, the intelligence network gradually expanded. Taking Hanshan Hall in Hankou as the center, a branch was set up in Hunan Province, which was in charge of Yamauchi. Subsequently, Sichuan Branch (headed by Gao Qiao Qian) and Beijing Branch (headed by Fang Kotaro) were established. In order to facilitate reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, they imitated China in dress, braid and language, appeared as a China native, and wandered around various provinces in Chinese mainland until Xinjiang and Tibet under the cover of various professions in the Jianghu. For example, Ishikawa May 1st and Matsuda Xiong Man once entered Tibet and went deep into Miao residential areas. Yamazaki Takasaburo has been wearing a braid, dressed in Qing Dynasty costumes, using the word Zilang, claiming to be from Fujian or Guangdong. In the past two years, he pretended to be a drug dealer, a doctor and sometimes a fortune teller. He walked in several provinces, even in Yunnan and Guizhou. It is said that among his peers, his mastery of Chinese and local customs are second to none. Take Kotaro Zongfang, the backbone of Leshantang and the head of Beijing Branch, as an example. Born as a ronin, he came to Shanghai in 1884 and studied Chinese at Oriental Academy. From then on, he sneaked into North China and Manchuria alone with braids and flags, and collected a lot of information in three years. After the establishment of Hanshan Party in Hankou, he joined this organization and was appointed as the head of Beijing Branch of Leshan Hall, based in Beijing. His task is to pay attention to the military and political developments and liaison work between the Qing government and Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi and Fengtian. Sometimes, in order to raise funds for activities, I once set up a stall on the street outside Chongwenmen, China, selling books and medicines provided by Shanghai Leshan Hall. Because he has been engaged in espionage for a long time, especially in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Japanese government awarded him the honor of Class V and Class III after his death.

Tetsuya Kotaro in Qing Dynasty costume.

With Japan's preparations for the war against China stepping up day by day, Japan's imperial mainland policy is by no means recognized by a few people. It is necessary to cultivate and train a large number of talents who are keen to run Chinese mainland well. After their extensive activities and lobbying in Japan, coupled with the mediation, support and enthusiastic persuasion of the army's undersecretary of staff, Thoreau Kawakami, and the army's undersecretary Keitaro, they were actively sponsored by then Prime Minister Yamagata Aritomo and Finance Minister Masaji Matsuzawa, and allocated 40,000 yen as a subsidy. Yang Xuan Society also sent Saburo Yuji, Kuangu Taitaro and others to participate, and recruited more than 200 students from Japan. 1On September 20th, 890, the Nissin Trade Research Institute was formally established by Mudeng Bridge in Shanghai British Concession, with Shiraishi Seiji as its director. In June 1893, 89 people graduated in the first session. Lieutenant General Kawakami Solo, the second chief of staff who was in China to inspect the actual situation of the Qing army at that time, also attended the graduation ceremony.

Graduation photo, a student of Nissin Trade Research Institute, is sitting in the middle of the third row.

Nissin Trade Research Institute has trained a large number of famous spies, such as Saburo Nakazaki, Kenichi Ye Xiang, Peng Xiong and Masayoshi Inoda. Japanese spy agencies have paid attention to Shanghai for a long time. Lu Haijun's military attache in Shanghai is not only responsible for reconnaissance and collection of China's military intelligence in the Yangtze River valley, but also for communication and information transmission. Therefore, Shanghai has become an important base for Japanese espionage. At that time, Japanese consuls in Shanghai included Navy Captain Kurai Dijiro (alias Dongyousan) and Army Captain Tsukawa Chihiro. Tianjin has always been the military and diplomatic center of China and the official residence of Beiyang Minister. To this end, the Japanese Embassy in China has Lin Xiya Mixiong in the army and Inoue Toshio in the navy. None of them are in Beijing, but they have been stationed in the Tianjin Consulate for many years. In Tianjin, there is also the so-called resident naval captain Takakawa Takahashi. The attache of the Japanese Consulate in Yantai near ahava, Beiyang Naval Base, is Captain Serada. Under the guidance of these military attaché s, there are spies who have been lurking in China for many years, such as Ishikawa Takeichi, Tomtaro Zongfang, and Saburo Nakazaki, who just graduated from Nissin Trade Research Institute and assumed the alias of Zhong Shiwu or Li Zhongsan.

As early as 1882, the junior assistant of the army, Linxiya Hirohiko, was sent to Shanghai as soon as she was promoted to lieutenant, and later to Tianlong. Navy Major Mineo Inoue has been the military attache of the embassy in Qing Dynasty since September 1892, and 10 came to the Japanese Consulate in Tianjin in June. He has entered Lushunkou, Dalian Bay, Ahava and other military sites three times. In particular, in May of 1893, he and his right-hand man Ishikawa bought a Chinese sailboat, hired China boatmen, made friends in Yantai, Shandong Province, carefully observed the records at sea, and went out to the islands in the Zhili Strait. They arrived at the mouth of Yalu River along the east coast of Liaodong Peninsula via Lushun, and then arrived at Datong River along the west coast of Korea. In June, they returned to Yantai by Japanese ship. Reconnaissance under the cover of Chinese sailboats was never expected by Beiyang Navy authorities. In August, Shenwei, Inoue and Ishikawa boarded Japanese warships again, entered the naval stations in Lushunkou, Shang He Island and Ahava, and collected a large amount of naval military information.

Takukawa Takukawa is one of the few China experts in the Japanese Navy. He came to Tianjin on 1892 under the order of the general staff of the navy. He took off his military uniform, assumed the pseudonym of Di Huji, lived in the French Concession in Tianjin, sometimes disguised as a Chinese businessman, and sometimes worked as a coolie, working as a stevedore in Tianjin or Tanggu Wharf, and went all out to scout the Beiyang town in Tianjin, especially beiyang fleet. 1893, he set out from Tanggu in a small sailboat and went north along the Bohai Sea coast to find a place suitable for the landing of large corps. After exploration, Yanghekou, south of Beidaihe, was selected.

1894 In the spring, on the eve of the increasingly tense Sino-Japanese relations and the approaching war, at the behest of the secret service in Tokyo, Japan, and under the command of the military attaché of a small country's embassy, a handful of traitors, such as Shenwei Shaozuo, Inoue Shaozuo, Shoichi Oikawa, Takeichi Ishikawa and Saburo Nakazaki, launched more intense espionage activities. Shenwei was ordered to spy on the behavior of Beiyang Minister Li Hongzhang, closely watch and spy on the detailed mobilization of Beiyang Lu Haijun, and report to the Japanese base camp in time and accurately. In order to study and prepare for the war against China,1in April, 894, Captain Longchuan cooperated with the head of the highest intelligence agency of the Japanese Navy Department and the second director of the Japanese Navy Department, and set off from Tianjin and went to Shanhaiguan by land to explore the geographical situation along the way. Longchuan collected a lot of important confidential information through his subordinates, which made preparations for Japan to launch a war of aggression.