Kibi Revolution | |||||||
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Part of Second Japanese Civil War | |||||||
Demonstrators burning a rice store building as a protest over government regulation of high rice prices | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Empire of Japan | Council of National Salvation | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Fushimi Sadanaru |
Nagayama Yoshida
Kita Ikki |
The Kibi Revolution (Japanese: キビ カクメイ (黍革命) Kibi Kakumei, "Millet Revolution"), also known as the Japanese Revolution of 1919, was a series of civil conflicts and disturbances in Japan between 1919 and 1920. It first took place as a protest against the government policy that resulted to the country-wide economy crisis in Tokyo on November 13, 1919 which bloodily suppressed by the Imperial Guards. The civil disturbance soon became widespread throughout Japan where included worker strikes, peasant unrests, and military mutinies.
The revolution was named Kibi because it occurred in 1919, the year of the Jiwei stem-branch (己未 kibi, "Year of Yin Earth Goat") in the traditional sexagenary cycle of the Chinese calendar. The word is a homonym for the Japanese word for common millet (黍 kibi), thus giving its popular name which reflecting its initial origin as a peasant unrest. Millet is also the main ingredient for kibi dango, a traditional dessert associated with folktale-hero Momotarō, associating the heroic nature of revolutionaries as "new Momotarō" in official narratives in modern-day Japan.
The revolution mainly arose due to popular dissatisfaction of country's expansionist policies from 1898 to 1905 which resulted Japan being hampered by a deep economic crisis and also partially as an extension of the 1865–67 Japanese Civil War, where the revolution is viewed as a continuation of conflicts between the nationalist and reformist political elements in Japan over the control of state.