(), known as Zhang Zongyuan ( in Chinese after changing his name and nationality, was a Japanese

mounted bandit A mounted bandit (, ) is a bandit who uses horseback for mobility. The term is particularly used for mounted bandits who were active in Manchuria and its surrounding region from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Manchukuo period. History Despit ...

and continental rōnin active in early 20th century China. He was a part of the Manchu-Mongol Independence Movement and the Shandong Autonomy Movement. He was a descendant of

Date Masamune was a Japanese ''daimyō'' during the Azuchi–Momoyama period through the early Edo period. Heir to a long line of powerful feudal lords in the Tōhoku region, he went on to found the modern-day city of Sendai. An outstanding tactician, he w ...

and a member of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date fam ...

Early life

Date Junnosuke was born to a

Kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

family, descended from the

Daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

of the

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of ...

, the

. His grandfather,

Date Munenari __NOTOC__ was the eighth head of the Uwajima Domain during the Late Tokugawa shogunate and a politician of the early Meiji era. Early life Munenari was born in Edo, the 4th son of the hatamoto Yamaguchi Naokatsu. Munenari, then known as Kamesab ...

, was a politician under

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

. His father, Date Muneatsu, was the governor of the Sendai Domain. He went to several schools, including Azabu Junior High School, Keio Junior High School, Gakushuin, and

Rikkyo Junior High School is private boys' junior and senior high school in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo. History Bishop Channing Moore Williams established Rikkyo Junior High School in Tsukiji, Tokyo in 1896. The original building was destroyed by the 1923 Great Kantō ear ...

. He finally graduated from Kaijo Junior High School in 1914 and was accepted into

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

to study at the Faculty of Literature. However, he later dropped out. Date was known for not being a well-behaved youth. As a student in Rikkyo Junior High School, on May 13, 1909, an argument with delinquent youths in Akashichō,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, escalated to the point where Date pulled out his gun and shot them, killing them. On October 15, 1909, the

Tokyo District Court is a district court located at 1-1-4 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. See also *Judicial system of Japan In the judicial system of Japan, the Constitution of Japan guarantees that "all judges shall be independent in the exercise of thei ...

sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The sentence was shortened to 6 years after an appeal ruling in June 1910, at the request of the Date family lawyers. Detective Saburo Iwai's investigation of the victim's behavior helped the Date family lawyers' defence that he was acting in self-defence. The

Supreme Court of Judicature of Japan The was the highest judicial body in the Empire of Japan. It existed from 1875 to 1947. Organized by the Ministry of Justice in 1875, the Japanese Supreme Court of Judicature was modeled after Court of Cassation in France. The court was compose ...

gave him probation and released him.

Political activities

Date was good friends with

Ikki Kita was a Japanese author, intellectual and political philosopher who was active in early Shōwa period Japan. Drawing from an eclectic range of influences, Kita was a self-described socialist who has also been described by detractors as the "i ...

, Shumei Okawa, and

Onisaburo Deguchi , born Kisaburō Ueda 上田喜三郎 (1871–1948) was a Japanese religious leader. Together with his mother-in-law Nao Deguchi, he was one of the two spiritual leaders of the Oomoto religious movement in Japan. While Nao Deguchi is the of ...

. He participated in a 1916 plot to assassinate

Zhang Zuolin Zhang Zuolin; courtesy name Yuting ( zh, c=雨亭, p=Yǔtíng, labels=no) and nicknamed Zhang Laogang ( zh, c=張老疙瘩, p=Zhāng Lǎo Gēda, labels=no) (March 19, 1875June 4, 1928) was a Chinese warlord who ruled Manchuria from 1916 to 1928 ...

and a 1919 plot to assassinate

Yamagata Aritomo Prince was a Japanese politician and general who served as prime minister of Japan from 1889 to 1891, and from 1898 to 1900. He was also a leading member of the '' genrō'', a group of senior courtiers and statesmen who dominated the politics ...

. In 1916,

Kawashima Naniwa Kawashima Naniwa (Japanese: 川島浪速; ''Kawashima Naniwa''; 1865–1949) was a Japanese adventurer in China, known for his activities supporting the Qing dynasty. He was the foster father of the Japanese spy Kawashima Yoshiko, who was the biol ...

and Aisin-Gioro Shanyu created the Second Manchu-Mongol Independence Movement, which Date joined. He traveled to China, where he became a continental ronin. After the movement's failure, he created the

Shandong Autonomy Allied Army Shandong is a coastal province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural and religious center ...

in 1938 under the orders of

Terauchi Hisaichi Count was a ''Gensui (Imperial Japanese Army), Gensui'' (or field marshal) in the Imperial Japanese Army, commander of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group during World War II. Biography Early military career Terauchi was born in Tokyo Prefec ...

. In 1929, he made a pact of brotherhood with

Fengtian clique The Fengtian clique () was the faction that supported warlord Zhang Zuolin during Republic of China (1912–1949), China's Warlord Era. It took its name from Fengtian Province, which served as its original base of support. However, the clique quic ...

warlord

Zhang Zongchang Zhang Zongchang (; also romanized as Chang Tsung-chang; 1881 – 3 September 1932), courtesy name Xiaokun, was a Chinese warlord who ruled Shandong from 1925 to 1928. A member of the Fengtian clique, Zhang was notorious for his brutal and ruthl ...

, leading to Date renaming himself Zhang Zongyuan and trying to integrate into Chinese society, changing his nationality to Chinese in 1931. He commanded the ''Kenkoku Dainigun''. On July 27, 1935, Date tried to support a coup in Beijing, but failed. In 1919, Date came under the

Governor-General of Korea Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

Saitō Makoto Viscount (27 October 1858 – 26 February 1936) was a Japanese naval officer and politician. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Saitō Makoto"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 809. Upon distinguishing himself during his command of two cruisers in t ...

. He traveled to Korea and became the chief of the border guard in

Uiju County Ŭiju is a kun, or county, in North Pyongan Province, North Korea. The county has an area of 420 km2, and a population of 110,018 (2008 data). Name Ŭiju appears as Uiju in South Korea's Revised Romanization and as Yizhou in Chinese sourc ...

. In 1923, he raided the base of armed Koreans.

Second Sino-Japanese War

He was a firm believer in the autonomy or independence of the Manchu, Mongol, and Lu (Han Chinese people from Shandong) peoples. He led 4,000 troops from Manchuria to Shandong in 1937, using his connections to transfer himself to Shandong. He took over

Jinan Jinan is the capital of the province of Shandong in East China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is one of the largest cities in Shandong in terms of population. The area of present-day Jinan has played an important role in the history of ...

and used it as his headquarters as the "King" of Shandong. He advised many bandit units in the Jehol campaign. In late January 1939, he led a massacre in Ye County (today known as

Laizhou Laizhou, Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized as Laichow, is a county-level city in the Prefecture-level city of Yantai, Shandong, Shandong Province, China. As of 2008, Laizhou had a population of 902,000, out of ...

), killing around 400 people. This was known as the ''Yexian (Ye County) Incident'', and led to the dissolution of Date's unit in 1940.Watanabe, Ryūsaku. ''Bazoku: Nichū Sensō Shi no Sokumen (Mounted Bandits: A Side History of the Second Sino-Japanese War)'', p. 174. In 1945, Date tried to organize a unit called the Zhang Zongyuan Unit, but his attempt was unsuccessful and the unit failed quickly. After the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was Hirohito surrender broadcast, announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally Japanese Instrument of Surrender, signed on 2 September 1945, End of World War II in Asia, ending ...

at the end of World War II, Date was arrested for war crimes. He was held in the

Qingdao Qingdao, Mandarin: , (Qingdao Mandarin: t͡ɕʰiŋ˧˩ tɒ˥) is a prefecture-level city in the eastern Shandong Province of China. Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, Qingdao was long an important fortress. In 1897, the city was ceded to G ...

Detention Center and moved to the

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

Temporary War Criminal Detention Center. He was sentenced to death, and Date was moved to Shanghai Prison, where he was executed by firing squad on September 9, 1948.

References

{{Authority control 1892 births 1948 deaths Japanese people convicted of murder Japanese people executed for war crimes Junnosuke People executed by the Republic of China by firearm 20th-century executions by China Japanese emigrants to China Chinese people of Japanese descent People convicted of murder by Japan Waseda University alumni Inmates of Tilanqiao Prison Continental rōnin