Background
Born as Inoue Shirō in 1886 in Gunma Prefecture, he spent his young adult life as a drifter and adventurer, eventually ending up in China and Manchuria gathering information for the Japanese military. After a series of mystical experiences in 1923-24, Inoue became convinced that Japan required spiritual rebirth and that he was called to be its savior. He established a school in Ibaraki Prefecture to promote agrarianism and social reform, which gradually evolved into a training center for ultra-rightist radicals. He adopted the name Nissho ("Called by The Sun") along with ideas and symbols derived from Nichiren Buddhism.
After the October Incident, a failed coup d'état by rightist Army officers in the Sakurakai in 1931, Inoue became convinced that national reform could be achieved only through violent confrontation with what he saw as the forces of evil: pro-Western liberal politicians and zaibatsu business interests. He devised the slogan "ichinin issatsu" ("one person, one kill") and drew up a list of twenty politicians and business leaders whose assassination would be the first step toward restoring Emperor Showa to supreme political power in Japan.
Inoue's original group made contact with a group of extremist officers in the Imperial Japanese Navy, who strongly objected to Japan's acceptance of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, and a group of right-wing university students from Tokyo. Inoue distributed Browning automatic pistols to his followers; however, only two actually carried out their missions.
Read more about this topic: League Of Blood Incident
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