The paper employs the case of Hong Kong to illuminate how individual decisions and cross-border capital mobility eroded the financial stability, and ultimately war capacity, of a belligerent empire. As with Japan’s other wartime colonies, the occupation authorities utilised unbacked credit to extract civilian wealth and resources. In his 1981 book chapter, Shibata Yoshimasa observed that in around mid-1943 the Japanese in occupied China began transferring their hyperinflated savings back home in order to leverage their profits and subsidise their families who were struggling with soaring living costs. Shibata further elaborated in his 1996 book that when currency controls were introduced between China and Japan’s home islands in early 1944, the Japanese circumvented them by first transferring the money to Hong Kong and then back home. This eventually intensified Japan’s domestic inflation. Drawing on the unpublished financial data of the Yokohama Specie Bank (YSB) Hong Kong branch, which were opened in 2003, this chapter expands on Shibata’s observation and provides insights into how and why substantial remittances could be effectuated between occupied China, Hong Kong, and Japan. It contends that the cross-border payment infrastructure across the empire, including the branch networks of colonial banks, imperial business entities, and telegraph stations, facilitated people’s desires whilst compounding their disruptions to Japan’s meticulous wartime control economics. This illuminates the importance of a borderless empire in regulating capital mobility and its agents’ behaviour whilst pursuing economic autonomy.

The economic and business activities in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong (1941-1945) remained largely uncharted, particularly those of local Chinese companies. This paper draws on the company registration records compiled by the Japanese occupation authorities to examine the financing of Chinese businesses in Hong Kong in the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that these companies maintained close linkages with the Pearl River Delta through marriage and kinship networks. Furthermore, as many of these corporations were family holding companies that invested in land and shares, the paper compares the financing and organisational structures of these Chinese firms with that of Japanese family holding companies at the time. When the occupation began in December 1941, many zaibatsu-related Japanese companies started to open branches in Hong Kong, and many of them, like their Chinese counterparts, were financed by the family holding companies. In short, this paper explores how family wealth was transformed by wars, state direction, family and kinship networks, and also by the increasing demand for capital.

Japan’s colonial economy during WWII has often been characterised as haphazard, mismanaged, dysfunctional, and a violent exploitation and depredation of capital and resources. The latter was evident in its money creation schemes in the occupied territories, including Hong Kong. Drawing on financial and banking archives, in particular those of the Yokohama Specie Bank, this paper explores the monetary history of occupied Hong Kong from two perspectives: the circulation of unbacked credit and the subsequent money-printing inflation; and how Hong Kong became a currency exchange centre to divert the colonial hyperinflationary pressures to Japan’s home islands. The military scrip circulating in Hong Kong was predominantly brought in by the occupation authorities from Japan and occupied China, and some was printed locally. Using unpublished financial data, this paper examines the severity of inflation in Hong Kong and compares it with other commercial centres occupied by Japan, such as Beijing and Shanghai. In the later stages of WWII, due to the Japanese government’s loose and incomplete currency controls, Hong Kong had become an exchange hub for Japanese in the occupied territories to transfer their hyperinflated savings back home, exacerbating shortage-induced inflation in Japan. By detailing this process, this paper will show how Japan’s domestic economy was affected, damaged, and gradually encroached upon by its own exploitative colonial economy. The monetary history of wartime Hong Kong thus illustrates the city’s critical role in the yen bloc and offers a comparative perspective for examining monetary policy in different Japanese wartime colonies.

As with other major powers in WWII, the Japanese government employed debt financing to mobilise the nation’s wealth in order to cover the ever-increasing demand for military and war production expenditures. The government continuously issued an immense amount of unsecured credit, including government bonds and unbacked paper currency (such as Bank of Japan banknotes, as well as military scrip and scrip-like currencies in the colonies). What were the consequences of this expansionary fiscal and monetary policy? This paper uses the role of Hong Kong in the wartime Japanese Empire to illustrate the adverse effects of debt financing, namely: the diversion of colonial hyperinflationary pressures back to Japan’s home islands, and also the collapse of the yen bloc soon after the implementation of rigorous currency controls between Japan and its colonies. Parliamentary records and other official documents demonstrate that officials in Tokyo were cognizant of the inflationary risks associated with the significant budgetary increases. Thus, the government opted to transfer inflationary pressures to its colonies by remunerating military expenditures in local currencies, particularly those issued by the Wang Jingwei regime. However, due to the lack of robust and comprehensive currency controls between the home islands and its colonies, these unbacked and worthless colonial currencies were transferred back to Japan through the colonial banks in Hong Kong, notably the Yokohama Specie Bank. Hong Kong became the empire’s currency exchange hub, particularly for the Japanese in occupied China, as almost half of all business organisations in wartime Hong Kong had branches in Guangdong or other major cities under Wang’s regime. As late as January 1945, the Japanese government finally introduced stringent currency controls that effectively prevented the influx of colonial currencies into Japan, as well as all financial transactions. This resulted in the collapse of the yen bloc. The case of wartime Hong Kong shows the interconnectedness of different polities in the yen bloc, but also the fragility of the empire’s economic order and monetary system.

In November 1944, Ikeda Shigeaki told Hosokawa Morisada that the financing of Emergency Armaments Expenditure (rinji gunjihi), which accounted for 94 percent (165.4 billion yen) of total military expenditure from 1937 to 1945, had become the main task of the Ministry of Finance. This paper, however, argues that the Ministry of Finance or the Japanese government would not be able to finance military expenditure without systematically exploiting and mobilising civilian wealth. This exploitation was based on various tactics, including the printing of paper money, the issuance of military scrip (gunpyō) and ‘military scrip-like currencies’ (gunpyō ruiji no tsūka) in the colonies, and the persistent lowering of interest rates on bank savings and national bonds. The first two tactics dramatically aggrandised the size of the monetary base and money supply in Japan’s homeland and colonies. Other than creating inflationary pressures in the Empire, the expansionary fiscal policy had eroded people’s savings through seigniorage. The Japanese authorities in occupied China and the newly-occupied colonies in Southeast Asia also forced the civilians to exchange their money for the unbacked military scrip and military scrip-like currencies, which were akin to trash paper in terms of their monetary value. Although inflation in the Japanese homeland was suppressed by price controls, the low interest rates on bank savings and national bonds, which averaged 4 and 3.5 percent respectively, had become negative in real terms, meaning that the banks and the Japanese government could earn on every yen they borrowed from civilians. The mechanism of war finance is a key to understanding Japanese military violence during the Asia-Pacific War. Apart from military scrip, the Army and Navy had little to do with financing the war. However, their military operations or atrocities required the methodical exploitation of civilian wealth; indeed, involuntary economic and financial exploitation should be seen as abuse and violence against the civilian population.

Soon after the occupation of Hong Kong in December 1941, the Japanese military authorities decided to turn Hong Kong into a major entrepôt of the Japanese Empire. A 1944 publication even described Hong Kong as the nucleus (chūkaku) of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’. This paper will show that Japanese researchers, geographers, and economists in the early twentieth century had noted the geographical characteristics of Hong Kong, and thus emphasised its economic importance as a major entrepôt in East and Southeast Asia. Based on their research, the Japanese occupation authorities prepared to develop Hong Kong into an imperial entrepôt for, in Jeremy A. Yellen’s words, their envisioned ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’. To this end, several major trading companies were operated in Hong Kong, including Asano Bussan, Mitsui Bussan, Mitsubishi Corporation, and the Ōmi merchant-related Gōshū Company, together with financial intermediaries such as the Yokohama Specie Bank and Yasuda Life Insurance. Hong Kong was geographically close to Guangxi, and the Japanese army may have used it as one of their supply depots during Operation Ichi-Gō (Ichi-gō sakusen) in 1944. It is also worth noting that the Yokohama Specie Bank made a profit by exchanging military scrip issued in Hong Kong for yen in Japan. This, along with similar practices in other Japanese colonies, probably contributed to inflation in Japan, cheapened the yen currency, and eventually shifted the cost of the war to civilians as the Japanese government was able to pay lower returns to national bondholders. The case of Hong Kong therefore illustrates the economic structure of the Empire, the activities of Japanese corporations in the newly occupied colonies during the Pacific War, and the financial relations between the Empire’s metropole and its peripheries.

Japan’s wartime (hyper-)inflationary crisis is well-known to historians, yet it did not take root until 1943, during the last 18 months of the war. Despite the Japanese government had continued to issue paper currency since the early 1930s, and had also printed large amounts of unbacked military scrip in the colonies, its ‘internal financing mechanism’ worked as planned and did not lead to (hyper-)inflation in the Japanese homeland until the final stages of WWII. Why did the mechanism collapse in the mid-1940s and not before? This paper argues that this is partly due to the mechanism itself, and partly due to exogenous factors such as shipping capacity and raw material shortages. In the early 1930s, the Japanese government stimulated the economy by increasing government spending and lowering interest rates. To do this, the government began printing money and issuing national debt to increase the money supply and cover budget deficits. The increase in money supply also accelerated industrial development by providing financial institutions with sufficient capital to lend and invest in the stock market. When Japan became embroiled in total war in 1937, it continued the practice of issuing bonds and paper money to meet military needs. Much of the national debt was placed directly with financial institutions. The government controlled inflation by encouraging people to save, and financial institutions could thus absorb civilian savings and use them to purchase national bonds or lend to munitions companies. The practice was known as the ‘internal financing mechanism’ of the wartime Japanese empire. Until the armistice, the amount of savings rose steadily, never falling below the government’s savings targets. Although the financing mechanism worked as planned, it failed to control (hyper-)inflation in Japan and its colonies, unlike in the early 1930s. This paper therefore argues that the failure of the mechanism was due to two factors: 1) meeting military expenditures with ‘borrowed money’ (kari’irekin), and 2) the severe shortage of food and other commodities, partly due to the deterioration of the Japanese Empire’s shipping capacity. The so-called ‘borrowed money’ refers to the currencies and unbacked military scrip issued by the collaborationist regimes. Billions of military scrip led to hyperinflation in Japanese-occupied coastal China and Southeast Asia. It also contributed to inflation in the Japanese homeland, as military scrip was also used to pay for military expenses such as munitions orders. The decline of the Empire’s shipping capacity led to a shortage of commodities, which further exacerbated (hyper-)inflation. In October 1944, the total tonnage of Japan’s ships was only 41.3 percent of the December 1941 figure, meaning that even if there were enough commodities in a colony, they could not be shipped to the homeland or to other colonies. The case of Japan shows that for a polity at war, (hyper-)inflation was difficult to control or prevent under conditions of over-issuance of unbacked currency and shortages of raw materials, even if there were sophisticated and sufficient financial and monetary countermeasures. 

Government debt was the lever used to finance Japan’s major expansions during WWII. It covered the cost of state arsenals, and spending on weapons, colonial and government investment, and railways and communications. The debt was either absorbed by financial institutions on the government’s instructions or came from government reserves, whilst the capital of financial institutions and government reserves are heavily dependent on bank savings, insurance premiums, and postal savings and premiums. In other words, Japan’s war machine was financed by civilian capital. Drawing on Japanese newspapers, advertisements, propaganda, popular science magazines, and joint-stock company yearbooks, this paper explores why civilians were willing to contribute their savings to support the Japanese war machine. When a ‘total empire’ was built on the homefront in a total war, it involved the mass and multidimensional mobilisation of domestic society. The Japanese government strategically used a variety of propaganda materials to link the homefront with the battlefront, and subsequently used them to mobilise civilian capital. This paper therefore argues that civilians who deposited their savings with the government or financial institutions could imagine how they were being used, even if they were only attracted by the high interest rates promised by the advertisements. By examining Japan’s wartime economic, financial, and scientific mobilisation from a cultural perspective, it hopes to deepen understanding of the financing structure of Japan’s imperial expansion.

During WWII, Japan infamously established Unit 731, Unit 100, and Unit 516 in its puppet state Manchukuo to conduct research into and produce weapons for epizootic and bacteriological warfare. Less well known is Japan’s use of chemical warfare in coastal China and Southeast Asia from the late 1930s to the armistices. Drawing on Japanese, American, British, and Chinese archives, this paper argues that, as with germ warfare, Japan did extensive research on the climate, weather, and geography of East and Southeast Asia, and the effects on chemicals to humans and animals decades before utilising chemical weapons. Other than detailing Japan’s pre-war research on chemical warfare, this paper traces the wartime manufacturing of chemical weapons and chemical warfare-related equipment, such as (toxic) smoke generators, chemicals for producing toxic smoke, and gas masks and leggings for humans and horses. The declassified documents provide the names of the companies involved in the production, the locations of the factories, and the origins of the raw materials for these weapons and equipment. Many of these materials, like rubber, came from Japan’s (wartime) colonies, including Taiwan, Chōsen, Malaya and Indonesia. This paper thus suggests that Japan’s preparation for chemical warfare and its manufacturing of related weapons and equipment exemplify an assemblage of the production and application of biomedical and environmental knowledge as well as the exploitation of natural resources. 

Inspired by Kimberly Kay Hoang’s recent publication Spiderweb Capitalism, this paper utilises the non-ferrous metals industry to illustrate structures of capital networks within wartime Japanese Empire’s dual-use items industries. Non-ferrous metals are essential for producing dual-use items, which are vital to maintain a flexible wartime economy. During WWII, Japan operated numerous mines to manufacture non-ferrous metals, and the production reached its zenith in the twilight of the Empire. Drawing on Japanese, American, British, and Chinese military, intelligence, and governmental archives, this paper surveys the business operators of the Japanese non-ferrous metals production-related mines at its homeland, colonial Taiwan, Chōsen, Manchuria, coastal China, and its wartime colonies in Southeast Asia, and reconstructs the capital networks of these operators by utilising yearbooks of share companies published by the securities companies. Similar to the contemporary Spiderweb Capitalism, a majority of these mines were controlled by the zaibatsu’s subordinate companies (agents/subordinate spiders), whilst the major stockholders (dominant spiders) like zaibatsu families, aristocrats, imperial household-related bureaucrats and national policy companies hidden behind the ‘star network’, which were formed through cross ownerships and intermarriages (spider silk). This research uses Gephi, a network analysis and visualisation tool to analyse and present the networks involving more than a thousand individuals and organisations; and to calculate and measure who the central figures are, the intermediaries between the networks, and the influence of each figure. It shows how the wartime Japanese political-military-economic clique used the capital networks to collectively fund and thereby sustain the exploitation of colonial resources and the production of the non-ferrous metals and other dual-use items industries. Through Gephi’s visualisation and computation, this paper further explores the personnel and organisations that acted as the capital resources of Japan’s wartime dual-use items industries, opening a window to explore the patterns of how the power elites of the Japanese empire financed their war machine.

Non-ferrous metals, including lead, zinc, copper, aluminium and magnesium, are essential for producing dual-use items, which were vital to maintain a flexible wartime economy. During WWII, Japan operated numerous mines to manufacture non-ferrous metals, and the production reached its zenith in the twilight of the Empire, for instance, lead yields consecutively increased from 25,832 tonnes in 1942 to 32,031 tonnes in 1943 and 33,670 tonnes in 1944. Yet, how did these mines operate, and more importantly, how was the operation shaped by and cooperated with the war economy and mobilisation? This paper uses Japanese, American, and British military, intelligence and governmental archives to survey the business operators of the Japanese non-ferrous metals production-related mines at its homeland, its occupied Taiwan, Chōsen, Manchuria, coastal China, and its wartime colonies in Southeast Asia during the early 1940s, and reconstructs the capital networks of these operators by utilising yearbooks of share companies published by the securities companies at that time. This paper suggests that a majority of mines were controlled by zaibatsu and its subordinate companies, whilst the major stockholders were other zaibatsu, aristocrats, imperial household-related bureaucrats, and national policy companies, and they together formed and consolidated a ‘star network’ (the centre and the periphery parts of the network, and the networks in these two parts, were well-connected) through cross ownerships and intermarriages. Intriguingly, the zaibatsu who operated or invested in non-ferrous metals industry, its subordinate companies and affiliated laboratories were also engaged in researching, developing and producing dual-use items, which was funded by other zaibatsu, aristocrats, imperial household-related bureaucrats, and national policy companies. This paper therefore utilises the non-ferrous metals industry as an example, illustrating the patterns of the capital networks of the wartime Japanese Empire’s dual-use items industries.  

Rare-earth elements (ki genso or kiyū genso) are soft heavy metals extracted from minerals. For example titanium can be extracted from rutile and sphene, zirconium from zircon and naegite, and cerium, neodymium, yttrium, scandium and thorium from monazite. It can be used for manufacturing war-related materiel, like ballistic steel, radioactive weaponry, carbon rods for searchlights and vacuum tubes for wireless telegraphy. Japan launched at least three expeditions between 1942 and 1944 in unearthing rare-earth and chemical elements in Northeast China (Manchuria and Mongolia) and Southeast Asia (Burma, Jawa, Sumatra, Banda Island, Belitung Island, North Borneo and the East Coast of Malaya). Unlike the wartime scientific, ethnographic and geographical research conducted by other research institutions like the Ministry of Education’s Research Institute for Natural Resources, this paper argues that the expeditions on rare-earth and chemical elements were driven by the needs of manufacturing war-related technologies.

Japan’s research on rare-earths can be traced back to the 1900s. They started to search for rare-earths in their colonies and neighbouring countries after realising that their country only stored a few of it. For example the survey conducted by Iimori Laboratory in Chōsen in 1934; and Okada Ietake, a researcher at the Shanghai Research Institute for Natural Sciences, explored the rare-earth and chemical elements in Southwest China in 1935 and 1936. Before 1941, Japan imported most of the rare-earths used in its industry, but was forced to self-supply it after the outbreak of the Pacific War; and thus they launched the aforementioned expeditions. According to the wartime newspapers, publications and military archives, these expeditions were supported by the army, and conducted by scientists and geographers from zaibatsu like Riken and the Science Mobilisation Council. Also, the rare-earth and chemical elements that they aimed to explore were indispensable for producing war-related technologies, such as beryllium for high speed steel, neodymium for optical filter, tantalum for the vacuum tubes for wireless telegraphy, strontium and zirconium for the carbon rods of searchlights and thorium as the catalyst for liquifying coal. This paper examines Japan’s research on rare-earth and chemical elements in the early twentieth century; and how these “academic-military-industrial” expeditions were motivated by the needs of manufacturing war-related technologies.

This research consists of two parts. The first is an article that examines Liang Yen’s relations with the American global propaganda campaigns in the first phase of the Cold War. It offers preliminary research on Liang’s early life in mainland China and her family and attempt to explain why she probably lied about her age and other contradictions in her autobiography. It also examines how her autobiographies were used for American propaganda, and how their publications were possibly related to Lattimore’s research and the competition of book distribution with the Soviet Union. The second part surveys the social networks of Liang and other five Chinese intellectuals who have a similar background with Liang and also worked for American propaganda campaigns-related organisations. By examining the networks, this research identified several prominent figures and families in late imperial and modern Chinese history intermediaries between Liang and other Chinese intellectuals. This suggests that there was continuity between the elite/intellectual networks of the late Qing and those of the 1950s. 

The term renzao rou is the equivalent of ‘artificial meat’ in English. It first appeared in China in 1928 and referred to a new type of food yeast invented by Toki Akira. Indeed, it was a neologism borrowed from a Japanese kanji translation. Japanese translators coined a term jinzou niku in the 1910s to describe two kinds of ‘fake meat’ reported by American media, which was made by malt grains and nitrified sugar respectively. It should be therefore regarded as the Japanese rendition of artificial meat. This paper explores the roles of translators, global media and telecommunications networks in transmitting, reproducing and localising knowledge in semicolonial China through the example of renzao rou.

From 1928 to 1949, eighteen pieces of knowledge were introduced to China in the name of renzao rou, and subsequently became a category of alternative food which can cure diseases and provide as much nutrition as meat, which can be roughly categorised into four groups: food yeast, concentrated cod liver oil, dietary supplements made from yeast, and Hitlerszalonna, a dense fruit jam. They originated from Japan, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the United States, and then disseminated to China through telegraph and mass media. 

The political environment in Republican China provided soils for the transmission of knowledge. China resembled a semi-colony at that time, the weakness of the Central Government and the fragmentation of colonial powers have catalysed a relatively free-flow of information. No cartel or power can monopolise the media and telecommunications networks, and thus local media can receive foreign news from numerous news agencies’ branches in Shanghai. Consequently, the knowledge of renzao rou has been translated, transmitted, reproduced and localised throughout the country.

The knowledge of renzao rou mainly transmitted through newspapers and periodicals articles. Yet, it is hard to find any original authorial voice behind these pieces per se, as they were often composed with modular texts and images; or even plagiarised other articles or copied from monographs. Therefore, misspellings, misprints and other errors on factual information always occurred in these articles. Meanwhile, Chinese media and translators have contributed to the localisation and reproduction of renzao rou. For example, translators categorising alternative food which can cure diseases and provide as much nutrition as meat as renzao rou; and some translators adopted traditional Chinese medical terms in the advertisements of a Western medicine named renzao rou to attract Chinese customers.

In 1955, the New York-based publishing house W. W. Norton & Company issued an autobiography of a sinicised Mongolian female writer Liang Yen, who was also known as Margaret Yang Briggs and born as Yang Chiao-Chu. It was translated into German in 1959 and re-issued in the United Kingdom with a new title in 1961, and the contents are generally the same. Considering she was closely associated with the American propaganda campaigns, this research explores how her unusual life was used as propaganda and how she was entangled with the American ideological campaigns in the first phase of the Cold War. 

Liang was born in an eminent and traditional Mongolian family, and she portrayed herself as an independent woman who is against Communism and some Chinese customs, values and practices, like men can have concubines, women should not work for living, and the rigorous class hierarchy in family and society in her autobiographies. However, her autobiography should not only be considered as critiques of old Chinese society, but also propaganda of the American ideological campaigns, as she and her husband worked for the Free Radio Asia respectively at that time. Similar to the Free Radio Europe, it was supported by Crusade of Freedom and competed with the Communist propaganda campaigns on a global scale. 

This paper offers a preliminary survey of Liang’s lives and family by using her autobiographies, CIA archives, and Republican China, Hong Kong, Singapore and American newspapers and periodicals; and examines how her writings on China and her life were used for propaganda by promoting values like individualism, freedom and also race, class and gender equality.

In March 1944, the 15th Army under the command of General Mutaguchi Renya and the Free Indian troops launched the Operation U Gō, in order to occupy Imphal, a city in Northeast India. The fight between the Axis and the British at the borderlands of Burma and India continued until Japan was forced to withdraw to Burma in July 1944. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest losses of Japan in the Pacific and India War, and Mutaguchi was blamed for employing more than 50000 livestock and other animals, including horses, sheep, goats, elephants, water buffalos, etc. for transporting resources, which rendered Japanese military columns easy targets for British bombers. Yet, this paper argues that Mutaguchi’s troops employed animals for logistics usage based on Japanese research on jungle warfare, and the geography as well as meteorology of Burma and India. Likewise, the British Army also utilised pack animals, encompassing mule, bullock and elephants in carrying resources in the mid-1944. In other words, both camps regarded animals as indispensable parts of jungle warfare in South and Southeast Asia. Japan conducted surveys on the importance of using animals in jungle warfare since the 1930s. Several institutions and troops, such as the Research Department of the Taiwan Army of Japan, the Japanese Army’s Veterinary School, the Fifteenth Army and the 31st Division published reports on military usage related to, diseases of animals, and even a guide of making cow saddles. Meanwhile, Britain began to train military officers for managing animals at the Animal Transport School at Jullundur after they were driven out of Burma in 1942. This paper re-evaluates the roles of animals in South and Southeast Asia jungle warfare during World War II by revisiting the Battle of Imphal, and the prewar and wartime research conducted by the Japanese and British military institutions respectively.

昭和天皇在1945年8月15日宣布日本無條件投降，故一般認為東亞地區的戰事亦在當天結束。不過，近年如顧若鵬（Barak Kushner）等學者則指出，不少與二次大戰相關的後續事宜，如在亞洲各地展開對日本戰犯的審判，以及日籍戰俘和移民遣送回國等，直到1960年代仍持續發生。故日本的「戰後」在何時展開是可爭議的。另一方面，中村隆英、小林英夫等學者則指出，二戰後日本的經濟政策，以及升味準之輔提出的「五五年體制」（由自由黨和日本民主黨合併而成的自由民主黨從該年一直執政至1989年），皆可溯源至戰時日本國內和滿洲國的政治和經濟政策。

事實上，大日本帝國雖在1947年5月3日伴隨《日本國憲法》的簽署而在法律上覆亡。但同盟國在軍事佔領日本時（1945-1952）所實行的一系列瓦解日本帝國主義的措施，如把財閥解體，以及針對軍人、官僚和財閥等群組的公職追放令等，在多大程度上能瓦解戰時的政商網絡？早在1953年，木下半治已指出因追放令是為掃除天皇制的基礎而推行，故當天皇制以「象徵」之名被保留，追放令亦隨之失敗（被下令追放的210,282人中，有201,577人的追放令在1952年獲得解除），而此亦導致二戰後日本的發展趨勢未有與戰前的有根本性的改變。

日本的政治網絡在二戰後未有遭受瓦解已是公論，如曾在滿洲國和東條英機內閣出任要職的岸信介在1957年至1960年擔任日本首相。但筆者則想從另一角度考察日本戰時政商網絡在二戰後的延續性。《朝日新聞》在戰爭末期仍有刊載的145間公司的每周股票價格，筆者發現此148間公司中不少是戰時的國策和軍需會社，其大股東亦多是財閥（三井、三菱、鮎川等）和皇族（東久邇宮、竹田宮等）。雖財閥和皇族均在二戰後分別遭到解散和取消皇族資格，但這些公司則得到保留（部分經改組後保留）。它們的社長部分雖在戰後遭到公職追放，但追放令解除後，或繼續活躍商界，如北海道炭礦汽船社長島田勝之助；又或加入政界，如後來擔任岸信介內閣通商產業大臣的滿洲重工發開發株式會社總裁高碕達之助。筆者冀從考察該145間公司及其管理層在二戰後的發展來窺探戰時大日本帝國的政商網絡在二戰後的延續。

本文討論 1928 年至 1945 年日本民航業在中國的發展，及其與「帝國航空圈」和大東亞共榮圈的關係。首間開辦中國航線的日本航空公司——日本航空輸送會社在 1928 年成立，在 1937 年改稱大日本帝國航空株式會社，翌年在官方出資下成為「國策會社」，並與 1932 年成立的滿洲航空株式會社，1938 年由中華民國臨時政府和蒙疆聯 合委員會等合資成立的中華航空公司，營運北至滿洲國，南至河內、曼谷，和往來日本、汪政權轄區、臺灣和朝鮮的航班。上述飛行範圍即「帝國航空圈」。事實上，除老撾、緬甸、馬來亞、印尼和香港外，「航空圈」幾乎就是大東亞共榮圈的範圍。筆者以為日本民航業、「帝國航空圈」和大東亞共榮圈相互繫連的原因為：（一）日本藉營運航線加強在區內的影響力，如同 1920 年代起在中國各地開辦航線的歐美諸國；（二）此時日本民用和軍用航空的界線含糊，民用航空常被徵作運送軍需；（三）飛機有助地圖繪製和氣象測量，兩技術亦能應用在軍事上，大日本航空公司就曾於 1940 年發行《産業開発と航空測量》。筆者將利用近人論著、1920 至 1940 年代中國和香港的報章，以及由日本航空局、滿鐵、東亞研究所等機構編纂的檔案，論述 1928 年至 1945 年日本民航業在中國的發展，及其與「帝國航空圈」和大東亞共榮圈的關係。

同光四年具注曆日由法國國家圖書館藏 P.3247v°和羅振玉舊藏殘曆綴合而成，文首題為歸義軍隨軍參謀翟奉達所撰。曆前載有記錄每月人神所在身體部位的《人神流注》殘卷。綜合前賢著述，此曆價值有四：（一）此為現最古的敦煌通用曆日；（二）撰者翟奉達是著名曆家，雖為儒生，但對佛教和占筮頗有興趣；（三）具注曆日中每隔六日即見注有密是受西域的七曜星術影響，因「密」是音譯自粟特語 Mir；事實上，七曜是波斯印度等地星占學傳入中國的例證之一，而此又可上溯至古希臘巴比倫，更重要是星占盛行於巴比倫是因其人深信星體運行會繫上禍福吉凶，猶具注曆日云：「密廿日戊寅土（星）破⋯⋯服藥吉。」故此曆可謂混融折中的星占學見於中古東亞的例證；（四）七曜本與吉凶無關，是佛教徒雜以華俗而成；而《人神流注》本為道家所創，與曆日無關；故將七曜和《人神流注》合置於具注曆日可見敦煌曆日世俗化傾向。本文將闡述上述四點價值從而論述歸義軍時期敦煌具注曆日的發展。