Dai Hon'ei 大本営 (Imperial Military Headquarters) refers to the highest office organizing wartime military operations. This office was set up in the 1894 Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the War with China which extended into the Pacific War. This paper deals with Dai Hon'ei established at the beginning of the War with China in November, 1937. It has been said that the Dai Hon'ei was very much the same in function as its Russo-Japanese War counterpart, or that it was merely a kind of the General Staff Office whose function was reorganized to meet the demands the war. World War I, as the first total war in human history, however, must have greatly influenced Japanese military authorities and stimulated them to study seriously the war tactics and the wartime systems of the participating countories. We may therefore conclude that the Japanese military authorities took into consideration the results of this careful study when establishing the third Dai Hon'ei. Based on this assumption, this paper discusses the formation process and characteristics of the Dai Hon'ei during the Japan-China War. The first chapter discusses the great changes which took place in the Dai Hon'ei set up in the Japan-China War in comparison with its predecessors. At the time of establishment it increased the authority of such military administrative authorities as the army minister, the vice minister, the director and the chief of military affairs, and the military chief, vis-a-vis the supreme command authorities. The Dai Hon'ei's functional emphasis on the military administrative authorities theoretically should have caused the Prime Minister to be concerned with the Dai Hon'ei, since the army minister was also Minister of State. What leads us to believe that more emphasis was now being placed on the minltary administration is the recognition that in the case of total war the administration and the supreme command should not be separated, but unified in terms of policy and strategy. The second chapter examines the fact that the establishment of the Dai Hon'ei was not an isolated decision, but was made in relation with the Councillor System (Shangi-Sei 参議制), which was created by the government during roughly the same period, and was regarded as a cause of those government reforms which went as far as to totally revamp the cabinet system. Therefore it becomes clear that Konoe Fumimaro and the military authorities attemped to reform the government at the time of the establishment of the Dai Hon'ei, out of consideration that any dualism between state affiars and the military command would cause severe limitations on war mobilization efforts. While the move to the separate the Ministry of State from the Director of the Administrative Affairs was not realized, the successful establishment of the Sangi-Sei, was significant in empowering a minister without portfolio (Muninsho-Daijin-Sei 無任所大臣制). By including the unrealized cabinet reformation plan in the discussion, this paper emphsizes that the establishment of the Dai Hon'ei in the Japan-China War played a number of important roles not only in improving the capabilities for meeting the war demands, but also by being part of the reform plan for a wartime government system.

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The Konkomyoji-Shakyojo 金光明寺写経所 is the Sutra copying office which was managed by Kogogushiki 皇后宮職 from the 15th year of Tenpyo 天平 to the 19th year, and is famous for re-using the backs of official documents concerning local political and economic activities reported from local administrators. In this paper the author intends to make clear the total circumstances surrounding the Konkomyoji-Shakyojo, paying attention mainly to changes of its system, in order to contribute to better clarifying the Tenpyo era. The central mechanism of the Konkomyoji-Shakyojo was the office called Shasojo 写疏所. Its main duty was copying Gogatsu-tsuitachikyo 五月一日経, which was ordered by Komyokogo 光明皇后 and at this point in time it had already finished copying the Kyo 経 (the original Sutra) and had started on the So 疏 (the annotation of original Sutra). In April of the 15th year of Tenpyo the Shasojo resumed the copying of Gogatsu-tsuitachikyo, and at the same time it started copying Taikan-Issaikyo 大官一切経, but discontinued it before the end of the year. The office for the Taikan-Issaikyo was called Do 堂. In January of the 18th year of Tenpyo the Taikan-Issaikyo was resumed in the form of the Sensha-Issaikyo 先写一切経, and at the same time the office started another Issaikyo. It was called Kosha-Issaikyo 後写一切経 in contrast to the Sensha-Issaikyo. We can see Nando 南堂 as the office of Sensha-Issaikyo, and Hokudo 北堂 as the office of Kosha-Issaikyo. From that time on it became the custom to divide Kanshakyo 間写経 (the copyed Sutra by extra order) between Nando and Hokudo. Each office has an manager. The manager of the Shasojo actually had responsibility for the whole work of the Konkomyoji-Shakyojo, since the Shasojo had the wherewithal for integrating the whole office ; and incidentally in the 18th-19th year of Tenpyo the head of the office was Shihi Maro 志斐麻呂, who was famous for the Tsugime-Urahu insignia, "志," (the sign written on the back side of joined documents to justify the juncture). Shasojo was the secretariate of Konkomyoji-Shakyojo. In the winter of the 19th year of Tenpyo we can see Todo 東堂 and Seido 西堂 instead of Nando and Hokudo. Through this adjustment which included removals of Sutra copying structures, Kon-komyoji-Shakyojo had been dissolved for a better administrative setup, the Zotodaijishi-Shakyojo 造東大寺司写経所. The author thinks of that the studies of Shoso-in-Monjo 正倉院文書 (one of the document collections of the Nara 奈良 period held in Shoso-in) have been prevented from progressing on account of the fact that, first, for the most part Shoso-in-Monjo had lost its original organization due to a number of re-arrangements beginning with Hoida Tadatomo 穂井田忠友 ; secondly, the collection should not be called munuscript but essntially account books ; and thirdly, the collection is apt to be kept at a distance as very exceptional historical materials because it was put together in a peculiar ancient government office -the Shakyojo. Since it is impossible to ignore the unique history of Shoso-in-Monjo as a material to be utilized in the study of ancient history, we should make every effort to clarify the true value of it by detailed. inspection. This paper is one attempt to do just that.

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In the author's previous article entitled "Rebuilding the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) 1945-1947," in 1983. (『歴史学研究』 No 519), his analysis was focused on the theory and praxis of Kurt Schumacher, the first chairman of the SPD after WWII, and also discussed the process of rebuilding of the party in Hannover. In this article, with the help of better documentation he analyzes the rebuilding process on the regional level. It is said that there were three urban cores for the rebuilding : Hannover, Berlin, and London ; and that the SPD was rebuilt rapidly and homogeneously under the strong leadership of Schumacher. However, the process of regional rebuilding has for the most part been ignored. By examining some examples of the regional rebuilding process in this article, the author finds it very difficult to endorse the image of rapid and homogeneous rebuilding. In other words, regional diversity should not be ignored if we are to truly understand the total image of the SPD's rebuilding.

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