Imperial Grand Marshal of Yamatai

The Imperial Grand Marshal of Yamatai (帝国大元帥大将) was the of Yamatai during the period of military rule between 1839 to 1957. A military dictator, the Imperial Grand Marshal was the head of the Imperial High Council and was personally selected by the Empress of Yamatai from a pool of candidates selected by the higher leaderships of both the Yamatai Imperial Army and the Yamatai Imperial Navy.

In 1838, with the approval of Empress Kayako, the Yamataian military leadership launched the April 13 Coup. Instigated by Grand Admiral Sakamoto Masayuki, the military arrested the Imperial Court and formed a new government staffed by military officers, the Imperial High Council. Grand Admiral Sakamoto was placed as the head of government, promoted to the new rank of Imperial Grand Marshal, with authority over the government as well as both branches of the armed forces.

As the candidates for the Imperial Grand Marshal were selected personally by the Empress, it was believed that the Imperial Grand Marshal would remain impartial to the Army or the Navy and that this would prevent the government from coming under the control of a single faction, with the Imperial High Council also able to call for an immediate impeachment and re-selection via a vote of simple majority. However, there were several times in history when the Imperial Grand Marshal was indeed under the control of one of the service branches, with the most egregious case, Imperial Grand Marshal Ikuta Shiro, managing to maintain Imperial Army control over the government between 1876 to 1883 before being ousted.

In the turmoil following the sudden death of Imperial Grand Marshal Tsukiyama Tomoko and the subsequent chaotic end of the Yamataian involvement in the Second Escar-Varunan War, the stratocratic structure of the government began to fall apart. With several of the ideal candidates dead or unwilling to take the post, the position of Imperial Grand Marshal changed hands multiple times between the end of the war and 1949, when a succession crisis ensued and a coup attempt was carried out by Imperial Army Field Marshal Kanazawa Kensho. From this chaos, General Okabe Nariakira was able to seize control and was appointed the Imperial Grand Marshal by Empress Kiyono.

Endeavouring to end the military rule over Yamatai and introduce civilian leadership in order to break the inefficiencies and deadlocks caused by the stratocratic system, which he saw as unsustainable in the post-war world order, Imperial Grand Marshal Okabe began dismantling the military control over the government and began introducing civilians into the Imperial High Council, using heavy-handed methods to keep the military and populace in line and lifting the long-standing ban on political parties. In early 1957, Okabe announced that he would be dissolving the Imperial High Council, he would be stepping down from his post as the Imperial Grand Marshal, and that he would be retiring from the military. He subsequently nominated himself as the first civilian Prime Minister of Yamatai in a largely uncontested election. On 1 July 1957, Empress Kiyono appointed Okabe as the first Prime Minister of Yamatai, and with the appointment of the first Cabinet of Yamatai by Okabe on the same day, military rule over Yamatai came to an end.

Administratively, the position of Imperial Grand Marshal of Yamatai still de jure exists under Article 9 of the Yamataian Constitution, which states that the Empress retains her supreme authority over the Imperial Grand Marshal and the Imperial High Council. This system keeps the Empress out of the government, ensuring a purely civilian government, while still allowing the Empress to theoretically retain her absolute powers for the sake of tradition and religion. In 1991, Article 9 came under scrutiny when a group of disgruntled Imperial Army and Air Defence Force officers attempted to launch a coup, with ringleader Major-General Tsuge Yukihito attempting to convince the Empress to appoint him as the Imperial Grand Marshal. Following the incident, it became illegal for any individual to attempt to be appointed as the Imperial Grand Marshal, while still not officially abolishing the position.

Post-war power struggles
Following the conclusion of the 2nd Escar-Varunan War, the power of the Imperial Grand Marshal fluctuated as various factions competed for control of Yamatai in the post-war chaos. Takagi's suicide caused a power vacuum to develop amongst the pro-war faction, enabling the pro-peace camp to convince the Empress to appoint Admiral Arasaka Eijiro as an interim Imperial Grand Marshal until a proper selection could be carried out. Arasaka leveraged his wartime reputation and high prestige in order to maintain support, and was able to enact several reconstruction and resource redistribution edicts. Arasaka was also able to negotiate a ceasefire with Arshavat at the Treaty of Haifong, and made some attempts to normalise relations with the mainland Allies. However, the pro-peace camp also began to face internal divisions between those who sought a temporary peace with Chisei to regroup and those who intended for the peace to be permanent.

On 22 December 1945, a violent putsch was executed in Heian, with several high-ranking officials assassinated and the 1st Imperial Guards Infantry Division entered and secured Heian under the leadership of General Kuroda Shizuka. Several other personnel around the country were killed as well. Arasaka was also killed in the chaos when Awara Naval Base was bombarded by artillery. As the government collapsed without any leadership, Admiral Yamauchi Jiro of the Naval Intelligence Department declared Kuroda a traitor and rallied several officers to his side, launching a counter-offensive towards Heian. Later termed the Heian Bloodbath, this violence strongly concerned Chisei and plans were created by the Royal Navy to blockade the Imperial Navy in their ports and to potentially bombard Heian to end the violence before Yamatai collapsed entirely. Two days later, General Kuroda was herself assassinated when she attempted to meet with Chisei for unknown purposes. Almost immediately after, Yamauchi was suddenly arrested for treason by the Tokkeitai, and was accused of orchestrating the entire incident in a bold power grab.

The aftermath of the Heian Bloodbath left a massive power vacuum in both the Army and Navy leaderships, and the Tokkeitai stepped in to restore order. Admiral Tanaka Sanae was appointed as the next interim Imperial Grand Marshal and declared a state of emergency due to the turmoil within the military branches, granting the Tokkeitai even wider enforcement powers and allowing them to police even the Army and Navy, which they previously could not. During Tanaka's term, Interior Minister and Tokkeitai head General Nishioka Shunroku effectively became the de facto leader of Yamatai through Tanaka, rapidly restoring order throughout Yamatai, ending wartime conscription policies and beginning demobilisation in earnest, expanding the National Police Agency, and pushing for several economic reforms that included privatising the large corporations that were owned by the Army and Navy. These corporations and industrial concerns had become the primary revenue stream for the Army and Navy due to the heavily depleted national budget, and had expanded over time in the wartime nationalisations to encompass various key industries necessary for the livelihoods of the Yamataian people.

A shift in the factions within the military leadership occurred as the former pro-peace and pro-war factions began to coalesce into new factions opposed to the Tokkeitai's amassing of governmental power, particularly the stripping of the Army and Navy of the key corporations. This led to the collapse of the national taxation system as individual officers attempted to replace lost revenue by unilaterally increasing taxes within their military districts, causing vastly differing tax rates across the country and widespread public discontent. When Nishioka launched a crackdown on this behaviour to prevent a collapse into warlordism, a faction including Army General Iijima Raiden attempted to launch a coup, but Iijima was arrested by the Niihama Tokkeitai chief, Lieutenant-General Matsushita Takao. An assassin was also sent after Nishioka, but he managed to survive the attempt by killing the assassin.

However, Nishioka was shortly after poisoned and died on 16 May 1946, and was replaced as Tokkeitai head and Minister of the Interior by his trusted right-hand man Shimoda Norio. Tanaka Sanae attempted to continue his policies, but she was also quickly assassinated by a car bomb on 15 June 1946, and Admiral Nagai Tetsuya, the Minister for the National Economy, was appointed as the new interim Imperial Grand Marshal. Nagai was initially believed to be a moderate who belonged to no faction, but Shimoda began to get suspicious of Nagai when he froze the privatisation plans and requested that the Army and Navy prepare plans for a rearmament and reconquest of Hinomoto. Lieutenant-General Matsushita's independent investigation into Iijima Raiden resulted in the discovery that Nagai and Raiden were connected, and Nagai was rapidly arrested on the 29th of August for the murder of Nishioka. Nagai had the shortest term as Imperial Grand Marshal throughout the history of the post, at just under three months in the position. Matsushita was promoted to General and placed as the Chief of Operations of the Tokkeitai, essentially at Shimoda's right-hand.

Replacing Nagai was General Enomoto Daichi, a decorated hero of the 2nd Escar-Varunan War and beloved by the people as the "Viper of Nanyokuni" and for his heroic actions during the evacuation of Mikawa. Despite this, Enomoto was highly weak politically due to his non-committal stand on the "peace question", and faced numerous opponents especially within the Army who mainly backed for Inaba Youji to take the position. Enomoto mainly relied on his closest ally, Army Kenpeitai chief Hayakawa Natsumi, to hold off rivals from within the Army. Despite Enomoto's occasional attempts to assert his authority, Shimoda followed Nishioka's example and managed to position himself as the shadow leader of Yamatai by ingratiating himself with Enomoto and assisting him with maintaining staving off the Navy and other opponents using the wide reach and influence of the Tokkeitai. Unlike Nishioka, Shimoda had a particular long-term vision for a peacetime Yamatai and aimed to end the inefficiencies caused by the constant rivalries between the Army and Navy, and strong trends of factionalism.

During Enomoto's term, the privatisation process of the military-owned businesses was temporarily halted. In August 1946, Enomoto carried out a groundbreaking move by rescinding the National Resource Mobilisation Act, which had been in place since 1895 and was the base upon which the national military district system was built. Elected civilian provincial governors finally regained control of their provinces, albeit with strong government oversight, a system which remains to the modern day. With the military districts removed, the privatisation process was recommenced with less impediments in early 1947. Shimoda convinced Enomoto to allow increased civilian political activities, lifting the ban on political parties that had been in place since 1860 and several laws prohibiting certain types of public expression and free speech. These moves proved to be unpopular amongst the more conservative military leadership, but Enomoto's alliances with Hayakawa and Shimoda initially protected him from his rivals.

However, Hayakawa and Shimoda openly despised each other and Hayakawa was strongly opposed to Shimoda's increasing informal powers and control over the government. At some point in early 1948, he switched his loyalties to General Matsushita Takao, who was also privately opposed to the radical liberalising plan that Shimoda was enacting. Enomoto realised this at some point and attempted to convince Shimoda to get rid of Matsushita, but Shimoda refused. Hayakawa and Matsushita revealed evidence to the Imperial High Council that Enomoto was involved in a corruption operation, which was suppressed from the public to maintain Enomoto's propaganda value.

These charges, which some historians believe to have been fabricated by Matsushita and Hayakawa, were largely unknown until records were unsealed in 1998. Enomoto was removed from office on 6 October 1948 and assumed the newly-created position as the Minister of National Revitalisation to continue overseeing the privatisation process. Shimoda was highly displeased by this turn of events, and quickly had Matsushita placed as the next interim Imperial Grand Marshal officially as an emergency measure to prevent a power struggle, and he was the first Imperial Grand Marshal to be from the Tokkeitai. At this point, the Chief of Operations of the Tokkeitai replacing Matsushita was the little-known General Okabe Nariakira, who was also close to Shimoda and agreed with many of his views.

Matsushita initially allowed Shimoda to believe he was still in control, but plotted to eventually get rid of him. Enomoto was suddenly killed two months later in an automobile accident, and Matsushita began to consolidate his power as the Imperial Grand Marshal. Under the guise of combating the spread of communism, several newly-formed left-leaning political parties were banned and many political activists empowered by the earlier reforms were imprisoned. Several peaceful demonstrators in Yamato were also killed by the Kenpeitai.

When the Escaric Allies proposed a formal end to the 2nd Escar-Varunan War with a peace treaty at the impending Treaty of Eito, Matsushita was opposed to the idea as he supported a future continuation of the war, while Shimoda was supportive of the peace treaty. Shimoda attempted to dispatch Minister of Foreign Affairs Admiral Sonoda Manami to negotiate with the Allies, but in May 1949 he was assassinated by Matsushita, who prohibited Sonoda from contacting the Allies. With few rivals remaining, Matsushita consolidated his power by also assuming the position as head of the Tokkeitai, and commissioned the development of the five-year plan to rebuild Yamatai's economy and military power, alongside an expanded civil and military conscription plan.

Fearing for his life, Hayakawa again switched loyalties to Okabe Nariakira, who was previously under Shimoda in the Wanshu Tokkeitai and was not well-known in the political circles. Both agreed that Matsushita should be removed due to his vast accumulation of power and his abuses, and managed to gain the support of several members of the Imperial High Council. Hayakawa gathered evidence that Matsushita was behind the murders of Enomoto and Shimoda, but was then arrested for breaching the military confidentiality by the Tokkeitai under Matsushita. However, Okabe then presented the evidence to the Imperial High Council and arrested Matsushita on 27 June 1949 for treason and and murder.

On the same day, Okabe was selected as the next Imperial Grand Marshal by the Imperial High Council. He immediately pardoned Hayakawa and offered him the position as Minister of the Interior, the first time since the Tokkeitai was formed that the position was held by someone other than the head of the Tokkeitai. Okabe also allowed Sonoda to contact the Allies, and later that year he would sign the Treaty of Eito, formally ending the war between Yamatai and Chisei.