This article reexamines, with the help of contemporary Chinese and European sources, the plan by Kato Kiyomasa, the lord of Northern Higo Domain, to initiate trade with Luzon during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea, which Kiyomasa led in 1592. In a letter written to his retainers at home in late 1593, Kiyomasa ordered a Chinese junk loaded with wheat and silver to be dispatched to what the author argues was Luzon, since 1) junks were maritime, rather than coastal, trading vessels, and 2) wheat, the major cargo on board, was the main commodity in Japan's trade with the Philippines at that time. The author argues that Kiyomasa, fearing a long campaign in Korea, planned to used the profits from the Luzon venture to procure sorely needed arms and ammunition. For Japan during the last years of the 16^<th> century, its supply of munitions, like lead and saltpeter, were supplied by three routes, all terminating in Kyushu: 1) the Macao-Nagasaki route, 2) the Chinese route linking Fukien with Kyushu and 3) the entrepot trade from China and Southeast Asia through such points as Luzon. However, given the fact that around the time of Hideyoshi's invasion, the Philippines was suffering from a lack of munitions due to decreasing Chinese imports, Kiyomasa planned to trade for such highly sought after commodities as gold, for the purpose of procuring munitions within Japan. Furthermore, it is a fact that Kiyomasa ordered another junk to sail to Luzon in 1576, which succeeded in arriving at Manila in the summer of the following year, despite worsening diplomatic relations between Japan and the Philippines. Finally, the author confirms that during the 1590s, Japanese vessels began to venture out on the high seas, to not only Luzon, but such Southeast Asian continental locations as Cochin China, Siam, Cambodia and Malacca. The activities of the vermillion seal ship's voyages to the region, which began at the beginning of the 17^<th> century, were hardly spontaneous events, since their routes and trade activities had already been pioneered during last decades of the previous century.

View full abstract

Ancient Rome had a special type of succession, i.e. succession on condicio nominis ferendi (the condition that the heir takes the testator's name). While scholars have paid little attention to the custom until now, its importance in Roman society should not be overlooked. Although the origin of succession on condicio nominis ferendi is unclear, one can certainly trace its existence to the Late Republic, contrary to Th. Mommsen and his followers. The cases of the testamentary adoptions of Dolabella, Tiberius, Drusus Libo, and Salvitto attest to this. Cicero's testimony suggests, moreover, that succession of this kind was not rare in his time. In the Principate, emperors were inclined to secure their successor to the throne by normal adoption. However, senators and other elites often used succession on condicio nominis ferendi instead of adoption, according to the prosopographical data of O. Salomies. This tendency among elites grew remarkably after the age of Augustus. Succession on condicio nominis ferendi probably replaced adoption, notwithstanding their essential differences, because contemporaries recognized the differences less and less. In the literary works of the Principate, they are both written in the same way, e.g. adoptare/adoptio, and in nomen adsciscere; the testator and the successor to his name are called father and son. Appearing as early as in the Late Republic, Caesar's famous adoption of Octavius illustrates this. Octavius at first was no more than the successor to Caesar's name, only becoming his son when the lex curiata authorized the adoption post mortem in August 43 B.C. Nevertheless, even before the event, everyone saw Octavius as Caesar's son. Contemporaries must have then identified succession on condicio nominis ferendi with adoption.

View full abstract

This article examines the Japanese national socialist movement during the early 1930s (launched by Takabatake Motoyuki during the 1910s and led by Tsukui Tatsuo, Ishikawa Junjuro and Beppu Shunsuke following his death) and in what way it tried to influence social movements and the realignment of proletarian political parties, in order to expand its own agenda. The author reaches the following three conclusions. First, while taking the initiative early on in showing solidarity with the Nazi Party and introducing its propaganda in an attempt to discredit the communist movement, the national socialist movement gradually went on to criticize "blind nationalism" from the Nazi Party position that the state is merely a "means" that should be abolished when it has outlasted its usefulness. Secondly, while criticizing the ideas about "fascism" held by their "communist comrades" in Japan, the national socialists attempted to unfold a fascist ideology linked to a pragmatic program of action. The concept of "fascism" played an important role in the reorganization of Japan's proletarian parties during the early 1930s. By placing anti-fascism alongside anti-capitalism and anti-communism in its ideological agenda, the Socialist People's Party showed its intent to eliminate national socialism from the proletarian movement altogether. Under such conditions, the national socialists agreed that "anti-fascism" also necessitated "anti-capitalism," in an attempt to take the initiative in the realignment of the proletarian parties. Although eventually failing to do so, the national socialists were again faced with the challenge of incorporating their ideas into a political movement. Finally, the author makes clear for the first time that the Japanese national socialist movement refuted "fascism." Not only did Beppu criticize fascism as state capitalism, he raised the problem of dependency on the "nation" and the "state," arguing in favor of the realization of socialism based on class (namely, the working class). Beppu also warned about the expansion of the state's "integrative, regulatory" function from the economic sphere into the social sphere and the concomitant expansion of "state authority."

View full abstract