Nagayama Yoshida (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Minsei Nagayama Yoshida (ナガヤマ　ヨシダ; Fuchu, Musashi Province, April 8, 1871 – Tokyo, July 25, 1952) was a Japanese philosopher, writer, journalist, and political theorist. He was the leader of Nationalist Party of Japan (1919–1949) and the first President of the Republic of Japan (1931–1951).

Nagayama played an instrumental role in the Japanese Revolution of 1919 that overthrown the eight-century old Japanese Empire and established a new republican Japanese government under the leadership of Nationalist Party in Japan. Under his leadership, Japan went through a series of nationalization of key industrial and agricultural sectors, extensive industrialization, military conflict with China in Korea and Manchuria in 1931, and victory over the Axis Powers during World War II in 1945. He was granted the honorific Minsei (民聖, literally, "People's Sage") by the National Congress of Japan in 1946 for his state, party, and war leadership. His sociopolitical philosophies are collectively known as Social Nationalism.

Childhood
Nagayama Yoshida was born in Fuchu, Musashi Province on April 8, 1871, the only son of Nagayama Yoshimasa (永山昌優) and his wife, Ri Seiko (季征子). Yoshida is part of Nagayama clan, one of the prominent gakke families during the Era of Seclusion. His great-grandfather, Nagayama Masahisha (1761–1828), was a disciple of famous kokugaku scholar, Motoori Norinaga, and later serving as the one of elders within the Council of the State in 1811 following the rise of Motoori clan. Yoshida's grandfather, Nagayama Masano (1800–1862), who also a rōju and a leading figure of Kyoto clique, was killed by an assassin sent by the Edo clique during the political crisis in 1860s.

Yoshida's father, Yoshimasa (1838–1900), was the soldier for Kyoto clique forces during the First Japanese Civil War (1865–1867). After the abolition of ancient political institutions in 1868, Yoshimasa was stripped from his bureaucratic post by the new Japanese government and his family estates were expropriated. Yoshimasa moved from his family residence in Kyoto and then lived in Fuchu where he later married his own maid, Seiko, in 1869.

Yoshida's mother, Seiko (1840–1928), was a Korean. Her real name is Yi Jung-hwan (季程桓). She was born in Busan, but spent most of her early years in Tsushima. She then moved to Kyoto, followed his uncle to work in Nagayama family residences. Despite being a family maid, Seiko was already very close with Yoshimasa since their childhood and was treated by Masano as his own daughter. After Nagayama family estates being taken over by the government, Seiko decided to follow Yoshimasa instead to return to Tsushima with her family.

Yoshimasa then lived a quiet life in Fuchu and purchased a small piece of land to work as a farmer. Despite this, Yoshimasa and his family lived in a comfortable modest life. During his childhood, Yoshimasa privately tried to pass gakke family heritage to Yoshida by teaching him classical kokugaku texts as well as classical Confucian texts that previously owned by his grandfather started at the age of nine. Yoshida also attended a local (寺子屋 terakoya) at the age of ten.

University years
Although his father desired to continue Nagayama's education, he instead entered the first Imperial Military Academy in Osaka at the age of 15 and formally joined the Imperial Navy of Japan in 1890 at the age of 19. However, he contracted tuberculosis, making him discharged from the Navy and returned to his home town in 1891. Followed his father’s advice, Nagayama began to study law and politics in Keio University in 1892, and later literary in Shōheikō University in 1895 while also worked as a part-time editor in Asahi Shimbun.

During his university years, he became interested in works of Western philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Leo Tolstoy and started his interest with the ideas of social justice and republicanism. Nagayama joined a Fabianist think-tank, Society for the Social Study, in 1896 and being one of its active contributors as an editor for the organization weekly journal.

His article that commemorated the first anniversary of the Society showed his sympathy toward the cause of working people and the social and economic reform in Japan.

- "On the First Anniversary of Society for the Social Study" (1897)
 * Our Empire had step toward an new era of imperialism: the era of international capitalism. We must prepares our working men, either the industrial laborers, the peasants, or the intellectuals in a great effort to bring this Empire as a one of world powers. Both the prosperity of our people and the glory of our Empire alike are our primary priority today.

Nagayama also befriended a Chinese revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen, the future first president of the Republic of China when the latter exiled himself after the failure of a revolutionary uprising against the Qing government in 1895. The two quickly became close friends as a result of their common fondness of discussing recent political and social issues at the time and remained on it for the rest of their lives. Later when he became president, Nagayama wrote a deeply emotional eulogy in Daiwa Shimbun following Sun's death in 1925.

Spanish-Japanese War
In 1898, Nagayama joined the Imperial Navy again through the conscription following the Spanish-Japanese War. He was first assigned on the ironclad  and participated in the Battle of Luzon. In 1899, Nagayama was commissioned as an ensign and then served on the cruisers ' and newly launched '. Later, he was promoted to lieutenant and stationed at the naval infantry where he would serve for the rest of the war. Nagayama participated in the Battle of Cebu (1899) and the Battle of Mindanao (1900), commanded a group of local recruits that would be called as the "Philippine Legion". He was also assigned as the Japanese military attache to the Philippine rebel army under General Emilio Aguinaldo where he became a communique between Aguinaldo and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

When the war began more unfavorable toward the Japanese forces and the Philippine rebels, Nagayama orchestrated an escape for General Aguinaldo to Japan in January 29, 1901. The war finally ended on May 2, 1901 following the Treaty of Brussels after a three-year prolonged conflict. The treaty formally ended the hostilities between two parties and returned to the status quo ante bellum without any territorial gains for Japan. Nagayama returned to Japan on May 31, 1901, but was only discharged from the Navy effectively on January 1, 1902.

Political activism
After being discharged from the Navy, Nagayama became as a full-time columnist for Tokyo Asahi Shimbun. Nagayama, however, became more critical toward the Imperial government and one of his article on Asahi Shimbun criticized the Emperor system and Japan's military policy that overspending the national budget. He also criticized the parliamentary system of government that he considered dividing the nation the most. Due to his articles, Nagayama was arrested by the Imperial government in accordance with the Public Order and Police Law of 1900. He was imprisoned for one year before finally released in 1902 with an amnesty from Emperor Keishin.

Shortly after released, Nagayama co-founded the non-political National Cultural Movement (コ ク カ ブンク ワ ウンド ウ ; Kanji: 國家文化運動, Kokka Bunkwa Undō) that promoted the "Japaneseness" culture and traditional values over Confucianism, while tried to mix the Japanese values with modern Western ideologies in an effort to strengthen the nation position among other nations in the world. In 1904, Nagayama published his first book, The Renaissance of the Japanese Nation, in which he tried to explain his theory of the struggle of civilization and his view on Japan's then situation according to his theory.

Nagayama raised his voice again in 1905 in the aftermath of Russo-Japanese War where he wrote an article for the left-leaning Shinkigen Monthly that criticized government's overspending on the expansionist military projects and failure to achieve its own military objectives in the American-sponsored Portsmouth Peace Conference. On the same year, Nagayama met with Kita Ikki, a fellow nationalist thinker. Sharing a same political view, the two then became close friends and working colleagues for the rest of their lives. Nagayama and Kita collaborated for the first time in the writing of On the Russo-Japanese War (1906). The book itself considered unique since it brought two contrasting opinions ('for', representing by Kita and 'against', by Nagayama) on the Russo-Japanese War to produce an objective conclusion regarding the issue.

Nagayama attended the founding conference of Socialist Party of Japan in 1906 and joined the newly founded party before it banned by the government shortly afterward. He and Kita then co-founded a nationalist party, Blue Flag Society (青旗會 Shōkikai). The party's name referred to the old flag of the Japanese Empire as well as its membership that comprised of low-born intellectuals with gakke family background. In 1910, Shōkikai then merged with Kensei Hontō, the loyalists of Ōkuma Shigenobu (ironically one of leading figures in the anti-gakke movement in 1860s) to form the Constitutional Nationalist Party (立憲國民黨 Rikken Kokumintō), led by Inukai Tsuyoshi.

Member of Imperial Diet
In 1912, Nagayama was elected as the member of Imperial Diet, representing the constituency of Western Tokyo, his hometown. As a legislator, he was actively campaigning for the recognition of the Republic of China and frequently requested the Imperial Japanese government to give financial and military aid to the Republican government of China. In 1913, Nagayama, Inukai, and Kita (who already joined the Chinese revolutionaries four years earlier) later assisted Sun Yat-sen when Sun had to flee to Japan after his attempt to overthrow Yuan Shikai failed.

In January 1913, about half of the Constitutional Nationalist Party defected to join the ruling Constitutional Party (憲政黨 Kenseitō). Nagayama was tasked by Inukai in charge for the re-organization of the party. Under Nagayama, the Constitutional Nationalist Party started to associate themselves with several secret nationalist groups, such as Ryōhei Uchida's Black Dragon Society and advocated political programs that more popular with the commoners, including universal male suffrage, lower agrarian tax, and improvement of national agricultural policies. Thanks to its popular programs, the party drew a broad support from the urban working class, rural population, intellectual workers, and middle-class business owners.

In 1914, at the wake of World War I, the party divided into two political factions. One faction, led by Inukai Tsuyoshi and Kita Ikki, supported Japan to join the Allies and declared war to Spain in order to gain the Phillipines Islands. Meanwhile, another faction, led by Ryōhei Uchida, supported Japan to join the Central Powers and declared war to Russia in order to gain all Korean Peninsula. Nagayama himself stayed neutral between those division of opinions and chose not to support any faction within the party. He even abstained during the voting on the Diet regarding the declaration of war against the Spanish on August 5, 1914, a step that heavily criticized by his colleagues on the Diet and the Nationalist Party.

Kibi Revolution and the Civil War
Following the end of war, Japan’s economy also already suffered and the country was succumbed into deep economic crisis. On August 1918, rice riots caused by this inflation erupted in towns and cities throughout Japan. Following the resignation of all Constitutional-Nationalist senators from the Senate, Emperor Keishin dissolved the Senate and announced a new general election to be scheduled in September 1918.

The Constitutional Nationalists then gained a narrow victory with more than 95 seats in the Senate, making it the second largest party in the Senate. But, the coalition between the Constitutional Party and the Liberal Party able to form a government under Iwasaki Hisaya, much to the Constitutional Nationalists' dismay. The death of Emperor Keishin in March 27, 1919 signaled the start of era of political turbulence in Japan.

The nation-wide demonstrations and strikes against the government sparked throughout the country, especially in major cities such Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima. This events later climaxed on November 13, 1919 where more than 5,200 peoples gathered in Hibiya Park, Tokyo, denounced the imperial rule. When the demonstrators marched from the park and approached toward the Imperial Palace, the Imperial Guards opened fire on the masses, killed 50 individuals and injured 327 others.

The Revolution soon swept the city, and then the entire country, by December 1919.