Shintoism, as a native Japanese religion, plays an important role in Japanese history, and shrines are the sacred places of Shintoism and the materialized embodiment of religious ideas. Throughout the war of aggression against China, , Japan built about 600 shrines in China, which became a tool to promote the war and a spiritual mobilization tool for the war.
Specifically, Japan needs to mobilize three forces in China, namely, Japanese overseas Chinese in China, Japanese invaders, and the Chinese puppet government and puppet army controlled by Japan. The role of shrines in these three forces is different but interconnected.
Qingdao Shrine
First of all, the shrine serves as a place to incite national sentiments for Japanese overseas Chinese in China.
Maintaining the Shinto beliefs of Japanese overseas Chinese in China, inciting their national sentiments, and winning support for the war of aggression against China are obviously the main functions of the shrine. The shrine is also very particular about its location. There was a shrine built by Japan on the top of Mount Wutai, the commanding height in the west of Nanjing, so that Japanese expatriates could look up to the shrine and feel the emperor's "magnificent grace".
The worshipers of the shrine are all Japanese, and there are strict regulations on clothing: the royal family wears formal clothes when visiting and major sacrifices, formal clothes for mid-level sacrifices, and casual clothes for small sacrifices and peacetime. If any Chinese enter the shrine, they must bow in salute, otherwise they will be beaten. Sometimes, the shrine is also used to display the results of the war and the weapons captured by the Japanese army from the Chinese army, which makes the visiting Japanese overseas Chinese have a strong sense of national honor. In addition, there are also detailed regulations on the use of shrines, all of which are intended to create a sacrosanct atmosphere and stimulate the sense of superiority among Japanese overseas Chinese.
Taiwan Taoyuan Shrine
Secondly, when the shrine served the Japanese invaders, it was a place where the ashes of the Japanese soldiers who died in battle were temporarily stored.
As the war expanded, the number of newly built shrines increased day by day. The main reason should be that the number of Japanese soldiers killed in the war was increasing. At this time, the shrine is no longer only used to enshrine characters in Japanese mythology and successive emperors. Japanese soldiers who died in battle can also be enshrined in the shrine as "heroic spirits". Later, the shrine also became a place to worship so-called "heroic spirits".
Japanese soldiers who died in the war of aggression against China were generally cremated on the spot, put into urns, and temporarily placed in shrines. Shanghai Shrine is the earliest Japanese shrine in the south of the Yangtze River. It was used to worship the Japanese soldiers who died in the two battles of Songhu. In 1942, the Japanese army built China's largest Japanese shrine in Nanjing. After being cremated at Qingliangshan, the bodies of Japanese soldiers who died in battle will be escorted by the Japanese military police and honor guards to the shrine for temporary storage. At the end of December of that year, a grand sacrificial ceremony was held at the shrine. Among those cremated this time were Lieutenant General Soda Attack, commander of the Japanese Eleventh Army, and 19 other Japanese soldiers with rank of general and assistant. It is said that thousands of Japanese overseas Chinese came to participate in the sacrifice.
Shanghai Shrine
Whenever the shrine holds such sacrifices, local Japanese and Chinese pseudo-officials and students will be forced to participate. Through a series of ritual activities, they will create a "sense of holiness", promote "peace after death", and guide them Be willing to sacrifice your life for your country and die calmly.
Finally, when the shrine acts on the puppet government and army, it strengthens the self-positioning of these traitors as accomplices of the Japanese army, and it is also a spiritual war to change their beliefs. At that time, even the emperor of the puppet Manchukuo Puyi had to participate in various sacrificial activities to honor the fallen Japanese soldiers, and he would be present in person at major sacrifices.
At the beginning of the establishment of the puppet Manchuria, most of the puppet officials still had a strong Confucian flavor. However, with the forced promotion of Shintoism by the Japanese, the status of Confucianism gradually declined. In 1940, Puyi brought back " Amaterasu " from Japan to enshrine it in the temple. This move actually showed that the so-called Shintoism was the "state religion" of Manchukuo. Through long and repeated preaching, Japan allowed people in occupied areas to The Chinese people have formed habitual memories, forcing them to identify with Japan's Shinto ideology, "dedicate themselves wholeheartedly" to the Japanese Empire, and become obedient subjects of the Japanese Empire.
Shinzo Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine
In 1945, after Japan's defeat, MacArthur issued the "Shinto Directive", declaring the separation of politics and religion, marking the collapse of the country's Shinto religion. Some people believed that this move was to exonerate the Japanese emperor.At the same time, Japanese shrines in China have also been largely demolished or abandoned and forgotten. However, the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan still accepts visits from many Japanese prime ministers, which really makes people uneasy about whether militarism will make a comeback.
