Kōkyo Incident

The Kōkyo Incident (皇居事件) was a coup d'état in Imperial Yamatai towards the end of the Second Escar-Varunan War, leading directly to the signing of the Oyashima Armistice between Yamatai and the Escaric Allies, and the eventual end of the war. A direct confrontation between military factions in Heian, the Kokyo Incident occurred between 10 to 15 July 1944, and was the culmination of a long period of political infighting between pro-peace and pro-war factions within the Imperial High Council.

During the incident, pro-peace elements in the Yamataian government led by Field Marshal Inaba Youji and Fleet Admiral Arasaka Eijiro managed to outmaneuver the pro-war faction, attaining the Empress's approval to sign a ceasefire with the Allies. The pro-peace leaders then fled Yamatai on the battleship Senbonzakura, commanded by Fleet Admiral Arasaka, and rendezvoused with the Chiseian Royal Navy in international waters, where the Treaty of Senbonzakura was signed on 15 July. After the signing was completed, the Empress was informed and issued an official proclamation across the Empire that Yamatai had signed a ceasefire with the Allies, officially ending the fighting between Yamatai and the Escaric Allies.

Cloistering of the Empress
Prior to the start of the Second Escar-Varunan War, Empress Kiyono did not openly declare any support neither for the opening of hostilities with Chisei nor for continued peace. Though the Empress did nominally hold absolute power over the ruling Imperial High Council, after the reign of preceding Empress Hinata, much of the Empress's authority and political powers had been concentrated on the Imperial Grand Marshal. The Imperial Grand Marshal was thus granted almost free reign with the presumed authority of the Imperial Palace.

However, since around 1941, Empress Kiyono had begun desiring an end to the Second Escar-Varunan War. This was partly due to her close personal relationship with General Takamoto Yutaka, the Minister of Trade on the Imperial High Council and a First Escar-Varunan War hero who was one of the more outspoken critics of the Second Escar-Varunan War. As the war developed, Takamoto and the peace faction within the High Council began attempting to convince the Empress to order Imperial Grand Marshal Tsukiyama Tomoko to seek an end to the fighting. Post-war historical discoveries also suggest that Takamoto was communicating with high-level Chiseian leaders at the time who were personal friends from before the First Escar-Varunan War, and attempting to negotiate an end to the war, though these efforts were cut short by his death.

In order to stop Takamoto's influence over the Empress, in June 1943 Takamoto was assassinated by an agent of General Takagi Hidenori, commander of the elite 1st Imperial Guards Division which protected Heian. Considered a fervent student and trusted ally of Imperial Grand Marshal Tsukiyama, records discovered in 1972 reveal Takagi as the undisputed culprit of the assassination but are unclear on if Tsukiyama had ordered the assassination or if Takagi had been acting independently. Subsequently, Takagi deployed the 11th Imperial Guards Infantry Regiment to secure the Imperial Palace, ostensibly for heightened security, essentially imprisoning the Empress within the Palace. Member of the pro-war faction and former Grand Admiral Katase Megumi was also placed as a special advisor to Empress Kiyono in an attempt to influence her opinion of the war.

During this period, the Imperial Royal Guards did not act against the Imperial Army forces containing the palace as they were not a threat to the Empress, though the higher Royal Guard leadership were also conflicted over the ramifications of this action. Royal Guard Commander Yamada Kaede initially refused to allow the Royal Guards to intervene due to their vow to be impartial to politics and entirely loyal to the Empress.

Death of Tsukiyama
On 9 February 1944, Imperial Grand Marshal Tsukiyama suddenly died of a stroke. A power struggle quickly ensued in the Imperial High Council between the peace and war factions, as well as the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy in general. The Imperial Navy leadership attempted to place Fleet Admiral Arasaka Eijiro, head of the Imperial Navy Doctrines Department, as Tsukiyama's successor, while the Imperial Army leadership was split between General Takagi Hidenori and Field Marshal Inaba Youji. Arasaka was a vocal leader of the pro-peace faction, along with Inaba, while Takagi was firmly pro-war.

Arasaka was suddenly arrested by the Heian Kenpeitai under Takagi's fellow Tsukiyama loyalist General Iha Teruo under charges of treason on 17 February. Iha sentenced Arasaka to death immediately and unilaterally, apparently under orders from Marshal of the Imperial Army Watanabe Kentaro. Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy Fukunaga Toshiaki and the Imperial Navy leadership were angered by this and claimed the Army was attempting to unfairly seize the position of Imperial Grand Marshal, and Fukunaga delayed the execution through various means. However, it must be noted that much of the Imperial Navy's leadership, including Fukunaga, were pro-war and were mainly concerned with the political struggle for control over the Imperial Grand Marshal.

Subsequently, General Yamagishi Kageaki was able to free Arasaka on 26 February. Sent by his mentor Inaba, Yamagishi delivered forged orders from the Commander of the Kenpeitai and Minister of Internal Security, Field Marshal Shimoda Norio, minutes before Arasaka's execution. Arasaka was delivered to the Navy stronghold at the Awara Naval Base, where he resumed command of the battleship Senbonzakura and largely remained on board for the subsequent months to avoid the Kenpeitai.

A close vote eventually resulted in General Takagi being instated as the Imperial Grand Marshal on 1st March, winning by two votes in the Imperial High Council.

Fracturing of the Yamataian government
Following the death of Tsukiyama, the Yamataian government split into various factions. Regional governors aligned with these factions and the country was on the brink of collapse, with the only thing keeping the country intact being the war.

The country was divided largely into the Satsuma Government, Hinomoto Military Region, Okayama Government, and the Heian Government. After the ceasefire was signed, the country threatened to collapse due to the end of the war, and parts of Yamatai refused to recognise the armistice. However these were forcefully disarmed and disbanded in the Yamataian Post-War Crisis, which was when Okabe really emerged to do his thing.

Amaya Katsuro deals with Chisei
As the situation on Hinomoto deteriorated and Chisei's punitive long-range bombings became more frequent, several pro-war and neutral officials began to join the peace faction as fears of an invasion of the Naichi archipelago became a greater reality. Following Takagi's appointment as the Imperial Grand Marshal and clear goal of continuing the war indefinitely, the peace faction decided to resort to extreme measures to force an end to the war. Meetings regularly occurred on the battleship Senbonzakura itself to avoid Iha's Heian Kenpeitai, which had begun hunting down political opponents of Takagi under charges of treason.

On 15 March, Colonel Amaya Katsuro was sent on a secret mission to fly to Chisei under a flag of truce in order to work out a ceasefire deal. Amaya departed Shinagawa at night and flew directly to Amagishi, where he was imprisoned by the Chiseian authorities upon landing. After some deliberation, Amaya eventually made contact with Chiseian pro-peace leaders and began to formulate a plan for a proper ceasefire deal between Yamatai and the Escaric Allies. Declared a traitor to Yamatai by Takagi, Amaya became the main liaison between the peace faction of the Yamataian government and the Escaric Allies, and is recognised as a hero of Yamatai to this day, though he was assassinated in 1949 by ultranationalists.

The peace faction finally made a breakthrough with the Escaric Allies in mid-June, and formal agreements for a ceasefire and post-war arrangements of Western Escar were made, with particular emphasis on the need to contain socialist Arshavat. With the agreement of the Escaric Allies, the peace faction now only needed to take action to make the agreement legitimate, which would only be possible through the ascent of the Empress. A plot was thus hatched in order to obtain the authority of the Empress, who was known to be supportive of an end to the war.

14 July
The Kōkyo Incident began in the early morning of 14 July. Several pro-war members of the Imperial High Council were assassinated or kidnapped throughout the morning in order to confuse the Kenpeitai response. Arasaka immediately locked down the Awara Naval Base and the battleship Senbonzakura, resulting in a tense standoff between the Special Naval Landing Force troops in the base and the Heian Kenpeitai and Imperial Army troops deployed to seize the base. In Heian, Field Marshal Inaba, General Yamagishi, and several other high-ranking peace faction members approached the Imperial Palace escorted by the 37th Imperial Army Armoured Brigade, under the command of Colonel Noda Ayano. After a tense standoff with the 11th Imperial Guards Infantry Regiment, the 37th Armoured were able to penetrate the 11th Imperial Guards Infantry's lines and entered the Imperial Palace grounds, where the 37th Armoured immediately surrendered to the Imperial Royal Guards.

The 11th Imperial Guards Infantry began to take up offensive positions against the Imperial Palace itself, which was met with a defensive response from the Imperial Royal Guards, beginning yet another standoff. Meanwhile, Field Marshal Inaba entered the Imperial Palace and met with Empress Kiyono. Inaba discussed at length with Empress Kiyono the state of the war situation, and presented the terms of the prepared Treaty of Ceasefire Between Yamatai and the Escaric Allies. At some point in the late afternoon, Empress Kiyono accepted the terms and affixed the Imperial Seal as a mark of legitimacy.

As the standoff was still ongoing, including the introduction of gunboats on Lake Tsuru, it became impossible for the peace faction leaders to leave the Imperial Palace. Noda proposed her regiment cause a commotion to enable the leaders to escape from the palace, and despite his fears that fighting would erupt, Inaba approved the plan. Upon nightfall, the peace faction leaders managed to stage a breakout from the Imperial Palace after the 37th Armoured sent an unarmed convoy to harass the weakest point of the 11th Imperial Guards Infantry's lines.

Along the way, the peace faction leaders picked up Admiral Tsutsui Tamotsu, the formerly neutral but newly pro-peace Minister of Foreign Affairs, as a representative of the Imperial High Council in the treaty signing to come. Awara Naval Base was similarly under siege by the Heian Kenpeitai and forces from the 127th Infantry Battalion, and so the peace faction leaders entered the base via the Senbonzakura's captain's launch, which picked them up from a fishing wharf in Suginami. A few minutes past 11 PM, the battleship Senbonzakura began to leave port. The choice of the Senbonzakura as the vessel to escape Yamatai was deliberate, firstly as Fleet Admiral Arasaka was in command of the ship, and secondly as an iconic symbol of Yamatai the pro-war faction would not likely attack the vessel.

As the Senbonzakura was sighted leaving port, the Heian Kenpeitai units and the 127th Infantry Battalion immediately stormed into Awara Naval Base, clashing with the SNLF troops in hand-to-hand combat.

15 July
In the early morning of 15th July, the Senbonzakura spotted the Chiseian cruiser Akamachi at the rendezvous point close to Shojin, as previously planned. The area was under heavy air cover by land-based fighters from mainland Chisei as well as the Chiseian aircraft carrier Bakekujira. At around 5 AM, Chiseian representative Hironaka Inakano, Shenxian representative XXX, and Yeongseonin representative XXX boarded the Senbonzakura. Deliberations occurred for much of the day, and at around 1700 the Treaty of Senbonzakura was signed between the Yamataian and Allied representatives.

Upon the signing of the Treaty, news of the signing and a copy of the Treaty were carried back to the Imperial Palace by Lieutenant Miyafuji Sadao and Seaman 2nd Class Arakawa Isamu on a floatplane launched from the Senbonzakura. As the Imperial Palace was still under siege by the 11th Imperial Guards Infantry, Lieutenant Miyafuji made the decision to land in Lake Tsuru, barely avoiding detection from the gunboats deployed in the lake. The actual aircraft used by Lieutenant Miyafuji and Seaman Arakawa is currently preserved in the Imperial Palace Peace Museum. At around 12 AM, Lieutenant Miyafuji handed the signed documents to Colonel Noda, who presented the documents to the Empress.

Post-Incident
At 7 AM on the 16th of July, Empress Kiyono addressed the nation from the Imperial Palace, using radio equipment brought in by the 37th Armoured Division and transmitted throughout the nation and beyond via pro-peace loyalists that had seized and secured the Heian Radio Broadcasting Centre. In her speech, the Empress declared that a ceasefire had been signed with the Escaric Allies and that hostilities with the Escaric Allies was to cease immediately. Subsequently, the Empress presented her orders personally to the Imperial High Council. Later that day, Takagi Hidenori committed ritual suicide, along with several other high-ranking pro-war personnel.

At roughly noon, the battleship Senbonzakura arrived at Wanshu under a white flag in order to keep the treaty safe from the remaining pro-war personnel, as well as to enable the pro-peace leaders to meet the Chiseian Grand Queen.