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Portrait of Tanaka Giichi. Photo By  Author –

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Tanaka Giichi

Baron Tanaka Giichi was born in June 1864 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. He preceded Wakatsuki Reijiro as the Prime Minister of Japan for 2 years and was the General for the Imperial Japanese Army, the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan.

Tanaka鈥檚 family served as samurai which was a low-rank military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early modern Japan from the late 12^th century. Giichi died in September 1929 and was buried in Tokyo. He gained fame after the exposure of the Japanese Master Plan of taking over Asia and The United States.

1. Tanaka Participated in His First Rebellion At The Tender Age of 13

Hagi Rebellion. Photo By Hayakawa Sh艒zan –

Giichi took part in the Hagi Rebellion of 1876. The rebellion was against the Meiji government of Japan. The Meiji government aimed to bring change to Japan by introducing modernization and adapting the Western Culture.

This meant that the Han system and the Tokugawa Shogunate society that promoted political stability would be done away with making the conservative members of the samurai lose their privileged social status. Tanaka being part of the samurai and having an interest in politics from an early age, participated in the rebellion.

2. Tanaka Learned Russian Through His Religion

Tanaka learned Russian while he attended the Sunday masses at the Russian Orthodox Church. He consistently practiced the language through social events in his church. His fluency made him an invaluable resource to the army.

Tanaka鈥檚 articulacy in the Russian language made him deploy to Russia after the end of the First Sino-Japanese War where he met Takeo Hirose, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. He also aided in planning the Russo-Japanese War (1904 鈥� 1905) and became the assistant to General Kodama Gentaro.

3. His Defense Plan Was Adopted As A Basic Policy in The Imperial Japanese Army

In 1906, the Army General Staff requested Tanaka to draft a policy for the Japanese Army. General Yamagata Aritomo regarded his work highly and officially included it as a policy to govern the army.

4. Tanaka鈥檚 Health Complications Led to His Early Resignation From the Army

Tanaka became major general and director of the Military Affairs Bureau in 1911.  He suffered from chest pains while he was still serving as General in Prime Minister Hara Takashi鈥檚 Army (1918-1921). The angina attack drew him to resign from the posts that he was holding in the army and headed for retirement in Oiso.

5. He Served As Minister And Prime Minister Simultaneously

After his retirement, Tanaka became party president of Rikken Seiyukai and a member of the House of Peers in January 1926. His appointment to field marshal did not come to pass after word came out that he was given a bonus of 3 million Yen on accepting the seat as party president.

Tanaka later became the Prime Minister during the Showa Financial Crisis of 1927. He also served as the Foreign Affairs Minister in the same year. He served as Colonial Affairs Minister in 1929 for a month and Home Minister for three weeks in 1928!

6. Tanaka Added The Death Penalty To The 1925 Peace Preservation Laws

Death by Hanging. Photo By kalhh –

In 1928, Japan held its general election. The Japan Communist Party which had been outlawed 6 years before, had gained a large following in support of labor-oriented and legal socialist political parties.

Tanaka, who was the Prime Minister then, felt threatened as his conservative government had only retained its majority in the Diet of Japan by one seat. He commanded the mass arrest of any known and suspected communists and prosecuted 500 of the 1600 people arrested.

The defendants that renounced their communist ideology were given reduced sentences and pardoned. This was the genesis of the Tenko policy and the introduction of the death penalty in Peace Preservation laws.

7. Tanaka Pursued A Military Approach To Solving Problems on Foreign Policies

Japanese troops enter Jinan, Shandong, China, during the First Shandong Expedition. Photo By Author –

Unlike his predecessor Shidehara who evacuated the local people of Japan during the conflict, Tanaka chose war as his strategic approach to governance. In one such case, Tanaka sent Japanese Troops to Shandong Province, China between 1927 and 1928 to protect the province from the Chinese reunion under Kuomintang government.

The dispute that arose between the Chinese and Japanese armies in Shandong Province killed 16 Japanese civilians and brought about thousands of Chinese causalities. The Chinese army left the area under Japanese rule until 1929. 

8. His Request for Zhang Zuolin鈥檚 Trial Was Declined By His Own Government

The Giichi Tanaka Cabinet. Photo Source

The Japanese Kwantung Army assassinated Zhang Zuolin, the Manchurian warlord, in 1928 because of his 1928 failure to stop the advancement of the Nationalist Kuomintang. The army also planned to seize Manchuria in the same year. Tanaka demanded the persons involved undergo trial for homicide but his military establishment was quick to hide the incident.

The assassination remained unknown to the public for 2 weeks before Zhang鈥檚 successor was announced. Tanaka鈥檚 proposal received criticism from Emperor Hirohito and the Diet of Japan. The lack of support from his government led to the resignation of his cabinet.

9. Tanaka Was Awarded The Highest Regularly Conferred Honour in The Japanese Honours System

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers. Photo By Cabinet Office –

Tanaka met his death after he resigned from the Japanese Government.  He was awarded the Order of the Paulownia Flowers in September 1929 posthumously since he served as Prime Minister in the Japanese Government. He was buried in Tama Cemetery, Tokyo, and is one of the 150 notable politicians laid to rest there.

10. His Existing Imperialist Strategic Conquest Plan Is Believed To Be A Forgery

After his death, Tanaka was accused of having authored a plan for Emperor Hirohito on how to conquer the whole of China and eventually the world during the Far East Conference of 1927. There have been claims that the Soviet Union forged the memorial so as to spark conflict between Japan and China. The Soviet Intelligence leaked the information through their US contacts to avoid any security compromise.

Though its authenticity is still questioned today, the Tanaka Memorial was accepted in 1930s and 1940s. The Mukden Incident (1931), Second Sino-Japanese War (1939), Battle of Khalkhin Gol (1939), Japanese Invasion of French Indochina (1940) and attack on Pearl Harbor were assumed to be part of the Japanese tactics adopted from Tanaka鈥檚 memorial.