Emperor Jinmu’s Eastward Conquest and I

This week, my colleagues and I successfully launched our institute’s new project to revitalize Japan’s local economy in Sendai/Miyagi, after having paid a three days visit to Natsui coast in Shibushi/Kagoshima. In my thought, there are closely combined with each other, even though you might wonder why I took this route.

It’s not economy but the Japanese ancient history that matters: At the very beginning of the Japanese imperial house’s history, Emperor Jinmu, the first legendary emperor of Japan, tried to conquer eastward from Shibushi to reach where his empire’s capital had to be settled down. To totally change the social and political order at that time in Japan, Emperor Jinmu made up his mind to expand his political influence all over Japan. The point was where he started this project and to which direction he stepped forward.

Historians after the WWII have been denying what was written in the ancient time in terms of Emperor Jinmu’s eastward conquest. There might have some specific reasons why they have been doing so, but teachers in Japanese schools just tell their boys and girls that this legend is a fake story and they shouldn’t believe in such a historical fabrication for the Japanese type of “imperial fascism”.

BUT, as you know, “Seeing is believing”. In spite of tight schedule in my office, I managed to visit where Emperor Jinmu’s legend was and is still told publicly. That’s the City of SHIBUSHI, the eastern coastal part of Kagoshima prefecture. My elder friend, who’s working on US-Japan alliance in terms of intelligence and financial transfer behind the door, advised me to be there, while he supported the current mayor of SHIBUSHI during his first election. “If you really want to know what Emperor Jinmu has done for his imperial successors, you may not miss visiting SHIBUSHI”, he said.

Staying there, I spontaneously understood what he meant by saying that. Not political ambition but climate change that could have motivated the first Japanese emperor to move eastwards. Of course, I don’t have any “objective” and “scientific” proofs for such a theory, nevertheless, the significant difference between SHIBUSHI and TOKYO (or East Japan) on climate automatically leads you to understand what causes persuaded Emperor Jinmu to launch his audacious project to the east.

Having said that, I now see you finally understand why our institute just launched its own project to renew Japan’s local economy right now. Obviously, climate is beginning to change itself dramatically again in the northern hemisphere, and that is forcing us all to change the world order. If you want to make something new and innovative happen, you mustn’t take advantage of this periodical event. On-going dramatic climate change is making us be aware of the necessity to think outside the box for survival. If we’ll fail to do so, the western civilizations including the Japanese one won’t have any more opportunities to further exist.

Thanks to enthusiastic supports of some innovative local business leaders in SENDAI, we could take the on-going historical opportunity to launch our brand new project to awaken both innovators in SMEs and entrepreneurs to make a series of breakthrough for the future. For me as CEO of the institute, this is exactly based on what Emperor Jinmu felt at the very beginning of his legendary eastward conquer. Step by step, we’ll steadily attempt to expand this project to all the major local economies and societies in Japan to adapt her order to new surroundings. Stay tuned and don’s miss to join us.