1894. A strange war broke out, the Sino-Japanese War. There is a reason I use the word strange. It was a war that neither Emperor Meiji, the head of the Japanese Empire, nor Empress Dowager Xi, the real ruler the Qing Dynasty, wanted. The war was led by military officers such as Oyama Iwao from Satsuma and cabinet ministers such as Mutsu Munemitsu, and on the Qing side by Han Chinese warlords such as Li Honzhang.
It is not main topic of this biology to go into detail about the Sino-Japanese War, but the impact of this war on public opinion was significant.
In particular, Japanese Nationalism reached its zenith when the father of Japanese capitalism, Shibusawa Eiichi and others in the business world, and intellectuals such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and Uchimura Kanzo, pushed for the war. Whether or not he was swept up in this public opinion, I do not know, but Shozo Tanaka also supported the war.
This fact was heavy effect. Large quantities of copper from Ashio and Besshi were used to pamy for warfare and to manufacturer bullets. In other words, the action was clearly inconsistent with the suspension of mining development that Shozo had been advocating until now. Because of this attitude, Shozo was losing the legitimacy of his editorials in the Imperial Diet and his credibility with the local community.
Then came the great flood of 1889, which caused the residents of the Watarase River basin to despair. The levee constructed by Ichibei Fukuzawa broke, and the resulting mineral poison that had accumulated in the dam lake covered the fields,causing catastrophe that was said to prevent crops from being grown for the next 50 years.
The victims's anger exploded, and they railed to Tokyo to sue for compensation for the poisoning.
During the fourth such campaign, the police and the local residents got into a dispute, and many arrests were made.
