Russia's Attempts to Open Japanстатья из журнала
Аннотация: SIXTY men in half a dozen rowboats seem no serious menace to the stability of an empire yet, in August 1711, Japan trembled at their coming. At the northernmost tip of Shimusu island, remotest of the Kuriles, the invaders were at least I300 miles distant from the capital, but Japan was panicky with fear. Strong words, these, but they are true. When fifty Russian adventurers and eleven Kamchadals, guided by a shipwrecked Japanese who did not know the region, crossed the ten mile wide Kuril strait between Cape Lopatka in Kamchatka and Shimusu island, Nippon went through ecstasies of terror. For more than seventy years gullible Japanese had swallowed wild rumors that the Russians were giant Red Hairs who fed on human flesh. Ever since the arrival of the Muscovites at the Sea of Okhotsk in I638, the Japanese had expected a descent upon Japan. Then, as now, Japan craved sensation; in Nippon rumor always reigns supreme. The coming of the sixty Russians in their rowboat flotilla was magnified into the report that an irresistible armada had come to conquer. Indeed, to this day, Japanese historians report the enterprise as a Russian naval expedition seeking to annex Japan. Not that Ivan Petrovich Kozyrevsky, leader of the oarsmenadventurers and first Russian to set foot on Japan's soil, would have disclaimed such intention. Russified grandson of a Polish prisoner of war, he entertained delusions of grandeur; he shared the Japanese delusion that his sixty associates were a mighty force. Our purpose, he told his men, is to investigate Kamchatka and the nearby islands, to inquire into what government the people owe allegiance and to force tribute from those who have no sovereign, to inform ourselves as fully as may be possible about Japan and the way thither, what weapons the people have and how they wage war, whether they might be willing to enter into friendly and commercial relations with Russia and, if so, what kind of merchandise they might be induced to buy. Commercial and political reconnaissance, however, took secondary place in Kozyrevsky's mind to military conquest. Upon arrival on Shimusu he opened fire upon the unarmed Kurile natives, killed ten
Год издания: 1945
Авторы: Harry Emerson Wildes
Издательство: Wiley
Источник: The Russian Review
Ключевые слова: Intelligence, Security, War Strategy, Russia and Soviet political economy, Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 5
Выпуск: 1
Страницы: 70–70