Yoshio Kodama

Yoshio Kodama (児玉 誉士夫) was a Japanese right-wing ultranationalist and a prominent figure in the rise of organized crime in Japan.

Yoshio Kodama was born on February 18, 1911, in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima, Japan to a family formerly of samurai status.

Kodama was the fifth son of a bankrupt Nihonmatsu businessman.

Due to his family's straitened circumstances, in 1920 Kodama was sent to live with a married older sister in Chōsen and lived there for three years.

He was treated badly, suffered from isolation and had to do child labor in a steel mill.

Returning to Japan as a teenager, Kodama joined a variety of right-wing nationalist groups.

At the end of the 1920s he joined the secret society Gen'yōsha.

In 1929, he joined Bin Akao's "National Foundation Society" (建国会, Kenkokukai).

In 1929, during a parade, he tried to give Emperor Hirohito a self-written appeal for increased patriotism.

However, he was intercepted by the security forces and arrested for his role in the "Direct Appeal to the Emperor Incident" (天皇直訴事件, Tennō Jikiso Jiken).

He was imprisoned for six months.

During this time in prison, he wrote his first book, a primer for Japanese nationalists.

After his release from prison, he joined Tatsuo Tsukui's Radical Patriotic Party (急進愛国党, Kyūshin Aikokutō).

The most famous kuromaku, or behind-the-scenes power broker, of the 20th century, he was active in Japan's political arena and criminal underworld from the 1930s to the 1970s, and became enormously wealthy through his involvement in smuggling operations.

In 1931, Kodama was imprisoned again for his role in the "Diet Pamphlet Distribution Case" (国会ビラ撒き事件, Kokkai Biramaki Jiken).

He was released in 1932.

In 1933, Kodama formed his own ultranationalist group called the Independent Youth Society (独立青年社, Dokuritsu Seinensha), which planned to assassinate various Japanese politicians.

Its main activity was opium export from Japan to Korea and Manchuria to break the resistance of the local population against the Japanese rule.

His group, in collaboration with the group Tenkōkai (天行会, "Society for Heavenly Action") was responsible for the murder of three Japanese politicians who advocated the peaceful coexistence of Japan, Korea and China.

In 1934, Kodama was involved in the planning of an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Saitō Makoto.

Kodama's plot was uncovered, the attack was prevented by the Japanese police and Kodama was arrested.

He served a prison term of three and half years.

He was released from Fuchū prison at the instigation of Doihara, by this time promoted to major general, just prior to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in April 1937.

In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out following a clash between Japanese and Chinese troops in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which precipitated a full-scale invasion of China Proper by Japanese forces.

After the conquest of Shanghai by Japanese troops, Kodama was summoned there by his old mentor Doihara.

Among other things, he served in 1939 as a bodyguard for the Chinese collaborator Wang Jingwei.

During his work he met the vice admiral and later founder of the Kamikaze units Takijirō Ōnishi, with whom he became friends.

From 1939 to 1941 he traveled through China as a Japanese spy and built up a network that included various triads collaborating with the Japanese.

Like other Japanese secret service agents, he founded his own "Kodama Organization" (Kodama Kikan), which, thanks to his relationship with Admiral Ōnishi, had an exclusive contract as a purchasing agent in China for the aviation forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

With these resources, Kodama was able to use what he described as "self-sacrificing youth" to engage in large-scale plunder in Manchuria and China and sell the stolen goods at a high profit in Japan.

He is also said to have distributed opium and narcotics.

Kodama publicly regarded this activity as purely idealistic and patriotic.

By 1945, Kodama had become one of the richest men in Asia with assets equivalent to $175 million US dollars.

Towards the end of the Pacific War, Kodama was promoted to Rear Admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

At the end of World War II, the defeat of Japan initially represented an enormous setback for Kodama.

Shortly after the announcement of the unconditional surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945, he witnessed the ritual suicide of Admiral Ōnishi, but was subsequently unable to bring himself to commit seppuku.

A little later he acted as an advisor to the Japanese interim government of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni.

Tōyama Mitsuru from the Gen'yōsha (Dark Ocean Society), a secret society founded in the late 19th century that first grouped extreme rightists and yakuza together, sent him to Manchuria.

There he was involved in the suppression of the anti-Japanese resistance working under the chief of Japanese military intelligence in the region, Colonel Kenji Doihara.

A few months later, Kodama returned to Japan.