After the outbreak of the "September 18 Incident," international public opinion began to favor Japan, and the Japanese Government also deeply felt the necessity of widely publicizing Japan's mainland policy. In such a situation, the role of the media, as a tool of public opinion, has been increasingly valued by the government and the military ministry. In order to achieve the established national policy, the government and the military department have adopted a series of measures to strengthen the control of the media's speech.

Censorship of the press during wartime is an international practice to prevent false information from swaying people's minds and to prevent important political and military information from leaking to finance the enemy. This kind of thing is going on in every country, including China.

In November 1932, the Kuomintang Central Committee. The Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee also promulgated the "Standards for the Censorship of Propaganda Materials," and at the same time also promulgated a large number of laws and regulations aimed at censoring news and public opinion.

In December 1930, the Kuomintang enacted the "Publication Law", which mainly restricted the application for registration and the content of published materials. From a legal point of view, it belongs to the registration system. Subsequently, the Nationalist Government promulgated the "Measures for the Examination of Books and Magazines", stipulating that all books and magazines should send the manuscript to the Books and Magazines Examination Committee of the Central Propaganda Commission for examination before going to press. On July 15, 1935, the Legislative Yuan of the Nationalist Government promulgated the Amendment to the Publication Law, stipulating that newspapers and periodicals should "fill out an application for registration before their first publication." It can only be issued after it is approved by the local competent government office where the issuance is located. These two regulations have actually changed the registration system stipulated in the original "Publication Law" to a review and approval system that interferes with the freedom of public opinion.

However, this does not mean that speech restrictions are fundamentally imposed, let alone that there is no such severe suppression of public opinion as in Japan. In order to ensure that the government is in line with propaganda and public opinion, the Japanese government and the military department have adopted a series of media fascist measures, the most important of which are four steps. The first was a large-scale ideological and personnel purge, and from 1932 onwards, the Japanese government imposed an unprecedentedly severe censorship and ban on all kinds of publications (including newspapers and periodicals), with 5,000 cases in that year alone. In a normal year, there are usually dozens of such incidents.

Very few of them are truly outspoken against the war. The main thing is to prohibit news reports and remarks that may be detrimental to the direct control of the military department. From 1932 to 1933, the Japanese government arrested as many as 34,000 cultural people, and on October 30, 1932 alone, more than 1,400 people were arrested. The military department is still uneasy about the media, which are already quite supportive of the war, and demands that the "national policy" and the "national theory" of launching an all-out war of aggression must be completely identical. It is also not permissible to keep a distance between national theory and national policy. Masaharu Honma, head of the Ministry of War Affairs, said, "The period when national policy had nothing to do with national theory lasted for quite a long time. Recently. Although public opinion is constantly growing, it has a valuable power. But it has not yet been as powerful as the Japan-China incident. Once our press agencies have clarified the concept of justice, unified domestic public opinion, and pointed out the way forward, we will unite the people closely and burn with a burning patriotic fervor, even if the entire world is the enemy. That is, it has made a great contribution to the country, and no matter who is in front of it, he cannot but take off his hat and salute. This basically reflects the stance and starting point of the military department in further restricting the media in the future.

In order to further fascize public opinion, the Japanese government launched the "National System Movement in 1935", which means "clear", with the aim of completely eliminating the liberal and democratic ideas introduced during the Meiji Restoration and completely returning to the theocratic emperor absolutist "theory of national power".

Under this movement, education and national education were once again "refreshed", opposing the emphasis on intellectual education, prohibiting high-class pleasures, and there were only scenes of marching, shooting, and shouting long live in the films, and even some books that had always been regarded as touting the imperial system were also expelled from the universities because the military extremists thought that they were not thorough enough, and they expelled the professors concerned from the universities on charges of undermining the concept of the national system, advocating pluralism, and advocating freedom of thought.

Then, in 1938, the "National General Mobilization Movement" was launched, and the economic, national and spiritual control were fully implemented. Political parties were completely banned, and parliamentarians were not political parties, but were included in the leadership of the "Great Political Wing Praise Society" conference bureau. All the speeches on the administration, the military war report, the resolution of thanks to the soldiers on the expedition, and the telegram from the front line were all passed by warm applause. The various social organizations that had been previously dissolved were dissolved, and according to occupation, age, and gender, they were incorporated into a single national association under the direct control of the government, such as the Dai-Nippon Newspaper Parliament, the Dai-Nippon Youth League, the Dai-Nippon Women's Association, the Nippon Literary Newspaper Parliament, and the Dai-Nippon Sangyo Newspaper Parliament. The repressive policy also spread to religions, with many religions, including Christianity, persecuted and thousands arrested. Under this kind of spiritual control, it is even more impossible to exert further control over the dissemination of the news.

In March and June 1925, Japan established the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya radio stations. The following year, however, the government issued instructions to merge the three radio stations into the NHK, a monopoly on broadcasting under the direct control of the government. The government scrutinizes all messages and speeches, as well as who will make them.

"IX. In the "18 Incident", the role of radio in inciting war was far more extensive than that of newspapers, which greatly stimulated radio sales. In 1934, in order to strengthen control over broadcasting, a reorganization of the Broadcasting Association was carried out, with the participation of the heads of the Radio Section of the Ministry of Posts and Posts, the Security Police Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Social Education Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, Education and Culture. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, more and more instigation speeches by the prime minister, military and other heads of official circles, as well as speeches by well-known figures of the imperial government and the private sector who had been specially screened, were broadcast on topics such as "Japan as the Instructor of Greater East Asia" and "History of US Aggression in East Asia."

Finally, the Japanese government has enacted draconian speech laws to control people's speech. Long before the government expanded and improved its speech control institutions, it began to formulate regulations to regulate speech. As the basic statute of newspapers, there was the Newsprint Act of 6 May 1909, which provided that the Secretary of State had the power to prohibit the sale and distribution of newspapers and periodicals, and to close down newspapers and magazines; The Ministers of Army, Navy, and Foreign Affairs shall have the right to prohibit the publication of articles in newspapers containing articles relating to the affairs of their own provinces. Shortly after the February 26 Incident in 1936, the Ministry of Internal Affairs set out to establish a publishing police network in order to maintain law and order in the armed forces. On March 7, 1941, the National Defense and Security Act was enacted to protect political secrets. All kinds of intelligence are subject to double and triple restrictions. Immediately after the outbreak of the Pacific War, a provisional law was enacted for the administration of speech, publication, and association. The enactment of these speech laws basically has two goals: one is to punish those who "spread gossip" and "demagogues" who are in response to the current situation, and the other is to change the activities of political associations and assemblies from a reporting system to a permit system.

Through the above measures, the Japanese Government and the Ministry of Military have completely ruled over the newspaper industry, news agencies, and intelligence agencies, and have realized the so-called system of "unified guidance of national theory." Under the tight control of speech, coupled with the deterrence of militarism, the Japanese media gradually fell into the abyss of fascism.

The irresponsible remarks of the Japanese Government and the media have triggered a great discussion on the war in the world, and with the exception of some people in Japan and a few extreme countries, the overwhelming majority of people with a conscience believe that the behavior of the Japanese army lieutenant general on the battlefield in China violates the minimum humanitarianism of the military personnel and damages the honor of the military personnel even more. Such people are simply war criminals and do not deserve to be heroes at all.

On November 19, Chen Feng held a press conference in Datong, in which he warned the Japanese government and the military headquarters in front of hundreds of Chinese and foreign reporters that if Kimura Hyotaro had not released the captured Chinese civilians before the 20th, he would give the same order to the army, and there would be no distinction between Japanese soldiers and civilians in future battles.

Although Chen Feng's warning caused a panic among the Japanese diaspora in China, it had no impact on the people in Japan, and it cannot be said that there was no impact. When Chen Feng's speech at the press conference was released in Japan, all the Japanese were furious.

Although the living standards of the Japanese people have plummeted due to the endless wars, poverty has also become rapidly superficial, and even many Japanese people can only eat those low-quality coarse grain rice balls every day to satisfy their hunger, and even families with good living conditions can only eat one rice a day.

Despite this, the spirit of the Japanese was extremely high, and they firmly believed that they would win the war. Due to the successive victories of the Japanese army on the battlefield in China, and the deliberate propaganda of the fascist media in Japan, the idea that the Japanese Empire was an extremely powerful empire and that the Imperial Japanese Army was invincible and invincible had been deeply rooted in the minds of the Japanese people.

Therefore, they could not tolerate the provocation of a small Shina officer, and in the eyes of the Japanese people, Chen Feng's remarks at the press conference were not just a warning, but more like a ultimatum. So, the Japanese were furious. Soon, at the deliberate instigation of well-intentioned people, large-scale demonstrations broke out in Tokyo, Osaka, Kumamoto, Yokohama, Nagasaki, Hiroshima and other places, demanding that the government and the military department severely punish the hateful Shina officer and never allow the Japanese Empire to bow down to the hateful Shina officer! (To be continued......)