16. Lunatics Impose Their Will On Japan
The ultimate aim of Nissho Inoue’s targeted assassinations was to dismantle Japan’s secular government, and restore supreme power to the emperor. So he and his disciples drew up a list of twenty leading liberal politicians and rich industrialists – pro-Western types whom they viewed as evil obstacles, standing in the way of Japan’s nationalist rebirth. Then, with the slogan “one person, one kill“, the League of Blood’s killers fanned out to remake Japan.
In February, 1932, they killed a former Finance Minister, and a wealthy industrialist the following month. Inoue turned himself in to the police, who treated him with respect as a “patriot”. In May 1932, Japanese Navy officers associated with the League of Blood assassinated the Prime Minister, Inukaye Tsuyoshi. Indicative of Japan’s weakening democracy, many sympathized with the killers, and all got off with light sentences. Inoue was sentenced to prison in 1934, but was amnestied in 1940, and spent the rest of his life a free man until his death in 1967.