The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Toru asks Cinnamon to bring him newspapers, but Toru is overstimulated by the ink and news. He wonders what has changed about himself. Toru learns that Noboru has become a famous and well-respected politician.

Toru also asks Cinnamon for books on Manchukuo. He researches the stories of Lieutenant Mamiya and Nutmeg Akasaka. In the 1920s, Japan had begun research and development for a war with the Soviets. The Japanese would need an enormous amount of wool to outfit their soldiers for the cold climate in Soviet territory. The nation didn’t have enough sheep for this, so a proposed solution was to secure a stable supply of wool from the Manchuria-Mongolia region. The man sent to investigate the plausibility of the solution was Yoshitaka Wataya, Noboru’s uncle.

Yoshitaka met with Lieutenant General Kanji Ishiwara, a man famous for starting the war with Manchuria. Ishiwara suggested to Yoshitaka that establishing an economy in Manchukuo controlled by the Japanese would help strengthen Japan’s position against the Soviets. Instead of making Manchukuo a colony, however, Ishiwara proposed that Japan create an entirely new Asian nation out of Manchukuo. Yoshitaka found this proposal illogical but admired Ishiwara’s classic nationalism and military power.