1. Kenji Doihara was a Japanese army officer and war criminal.
24 Facts About Kenji Doihara
1. 2.
Kenji Doihara became the mastermind of the Manchurian drug trade and the sponsor behind many underworld activities in Japanese-occupied China.
3.
Kenji Doihara was found guilty, sentenced to death, and hanged in December 1948.
4.
Kenji Doihara attended military preparatory schools as a youth, and graduated from the 16th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1904.
5.
Kenji Doihara was assigned to various infantry regiments as a junior officer, and returned to school to graduate from the 24th class of the Army Staff College in 1912.
6.
Kenji Doihara had learned to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and other Chinese dialects, and due to this he would often be given positions in military intelligence.
7.
Kenji Doihara secured their loyalty by providing them with a steady supply of opium.
8.
Kenji Doihara was attached to the IJA 2nd Infantry Regiment from 1926 to 1927 and the IJA 3rd Infantry Regiment in 1927.
9.
Kenji Doihara continued to serve as a military advisor to Zhang Xueliang, the son and successor of Zhang Zuolin, but Xueliang disliked him.
10.
In early 1932, Kenji Doihara was sent to head the Harbin Special Agency of the Kwantung Army, where he began negotiations with General Ma Zhanshan after he had been driven from Qiqihar by the Japanese.
11.
When Kenji Doihara realized his negotiations were not going anywhere, he requested that Manchurian warlord Xi Qia advance with his forces to take Harbin from General Ding Chao.
12.
However, General Ding Chao was able to defeat Xi Qia's forces, and Kenji Doihara realized he would need Japanese forces to succeed.
13.
Kenji Doihara engineered a riot in Harbin to justify their intervention.
14.
Kenji Doihara then arranged for the puppet government to ask Tokyo to supply "military advice".
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Kenji Doihara used them as an occupying army, imposing slave labour and spreading terror to force the 30 million Chinese inhabitants into abject submission.
16.
Ma's fame as an uncompromising fighter against the Japanese invaders survived after his defeat and so Kenji Doihara made contact with him offering a huge sum of money and the command of the puppet state's army if he would defect to the new Manchurian government.
17.
From 1932 to 1933, the newly promoted Major General Kenji Doihara commanded IJA 9th Infantry Brigade of IJA 5th Division.
18.
Kenji Doihara was then attached to IJA 12th Division until 1936.
19.
From 1936 to 1937, Kenji Doihara was the commander of the 1st Depot Division in Japan until the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, when he was given command of the IJA 14th Division under the Japanese First Army in North China.
20.
In 1940, Kenji Doihara became a member of the Supreme War Council.
21.
Kenji Doihara then became head of the Army Aeronautical Department of the Ministry of War, and Inspector-General of Army Aviation until 1943.
22.
In 1943, Kenji Doihara was made Commander in Chief of the Eastern District Army.
23.
At the time of the surrender of Japan in 1945, Kenji Doihara was commander in chief of the 1st General Army.
24.
Kenji Doihara was found guilty on counts 1,27,29,31,32,35,36, and 54 and was sentenced to death, while his close colleague Naoki Hoshino, financial expert and director of the Japanese State Opium Monopoly Bureau in Manchuria, was sentenced to life imprisonment.