COAT HANGER EMPIRE

By James McDonald

When factory workers fall victim to horrifying accidents in Japan's oldest coat hanger factory, all fingers point at Hiroki Hiroto, the company's owner, and corporate pariah.
Behind closed doors, his board stages an illegal coup to take over his business while factory workers call for his blood.
His incredible wealth and powerful family connections will not save him from this fait accompli.
While his company is under investigation for sabotage and on the verge of collapse, he suffers a major heart attack, and his wife and family abandon him while he fights for his life.
After a heart transplant operation in a Hawaiian hospital, the donor's troublesome spirit begins taking over his life and down a slippery path; he does not want to go.
Coat Hanger Empire is a tale of absolute power, blind greed, and a cry for justice with more hooks and turns than the coat hangers it makes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685834265

Book preview

Family Ties

In the decade that saw Britain become the workshop of the world, a fleet of Japanese iron-clad merchant ships arrived in Portsmouth harbor, England.

The Sun-disc fleet, cleared by British customs, had previously visited European ports, unloading its precious cargo of Chinese silver, Japanese silk, and cotton; they’d anchored to resupply and return Hiroki to the land of the rising sun.

Hiroki was given an official send-off by colleagues of the Royal Society of Engineering at a pub near the port; a night of wine, women, and song took its toll on him before he was carted off to his hotel to sleep it off.

Hiroki barely made it out of bed before the departing ‘Hinomaru’ blew its final whistle. He staggered up the gangplank, disheveled with bloodshot eyes, trying to focus on the attractive merchant officer standing at the open weathertight door to greet him. She extended an invitation to dine with the Captain.

Hiroki grimaced while taking a deep bow; he would need a few hours’ sleep before the first gourd-shaped sake bottles were opened in his honor.

Captain Haruto Iwasaki was of the Tosa clan, well-educated and part of the ruling class, born to be at sea.

As a Mikawa Shokai shipping family member, Japan’s largest export and import company, he was in command of his vessel.

Iwasaki’s daughter Yukiko, 15 years Hiroki’s junior, saw more ports in her short life than Christopher Columbus had sailed the ocean blue.

She was the company’s translator, fluent in European and Asian languages, and a vital agent for her father’s business.

During the 3-month voyage that followed China’s old silver trade route, Hiroki and Yukiko’s constant dinner engagements with the Captain forged a friendship that led to sightseeing trips in the exotic ports of Mozambique, Goa, and Macau.

By the time they’d reached the Japanese port of Nagasaki, their adventures in Hiroki’s stateroom would finally end his social stigma of Bachelorhood.

In the year of the fire dragon, Hiroki stepped onto the docks of Tokyo bay; armed with advanced engineering knowledge, steam train designs, and a golf bag full of clubs, his Government was eager to speak with him.

The following June, Hiroki wed his ocean-going bride. Yukiko wore a white kimono and matching outer robe with a white floss silk headdress to cover her horns, a symbolic pledge to become an obedient wife.

After the ritual drinking of sake, the bride changed into another Kimono. Gifts wrapped in more auspicious symbols of deep red, five-color gold, and silver represented longevity and good fortune. Her entrance into the strictly controlled life of a daimyo wife had begun.

During the reign of Emperor Meiji, Hiroki was commissioned by Japan’s new ministry of railways to oversee parts of a project generously funded by British bankers to build Japan’s first railway.

Hiroki was part of a welcoming committee that greeted expert European technical advisors and civil engineers at Yokohama port.

Japan’s first daily newspaper, the Yokohama Mainichi Shinbun, photographed Hiroki bowing to American, British, and Scottish engineers disembarked while a Japanese military brass band played God save the King.

Hiroki had met most of these people in Great Britain, co-designing trains with the brightest minds from the west, who had come to build the nation’s first stage of national carriers.

An article published in the Japanese Herald satisfied Japanese curiosity about the new railway line. It dismissed public fears that these government-funded foreigners would stay in their country. The only reminder of their western occupation left behind at the project’s end was a bronze bust of British engineer Edmond Morel, the railways chief supervisor in Yokohama.

With more than 26 km’s of track laid, Hiroki stood amongst the fanfare on the newly built Shinbashi train station awaiting The Emperor of Japan and his entourage to arrive by horse-drawn carriage.

It was reported that the Emperor Mutsuhito had been eagerly awaiting his first ride in a steam train and, after being seated in the compartment of the royal carriage, produced a pocket watch, initially owned by Commodore Mathew Perry, a gift given to his father, Emperor Komei.

The Emperor held the timepiece, poised to synchronize the departure time.

When the king-class locomotive and its single axle boogie carriages cleared the station and clouds of steam and coal exhaust had dissipated, Hiroki lay dying on the platform in the arms of his pregnant wife.

Thirty-six minutes later, the train reached its destination, setting a new land speed record.

The driver and his stokers reported seeing the engineer’s face in the boilers blazing firebox as it thundered down the track.

Newspaper reports about Japan’s first ghost train and the death of its architect were quickly derailed; no negative coverage about the Government’s new commuter service was going to keep it off track.

When the Emperor heard of the untimely demise of the engineer, he sent his pocket watch to the man’s widow with his condolences.

Yukiko had a son the following winter and named him Yuuto, after Hiroki’s father.

According to the distinct values of the Japanese patrilineal system, Yuuto would inherit his father’s property, social standing, rights, duties, and obligations associated with that kinship system; it would also see his mother become his servant.

Foreign business trading influenced other social Japanese norms after the Emperor opened his border to western countries.

Traditional formal clothing for school children, kimonos for girls, and hakama’s for boys slowly replaced Western-style uniforms.

Yukiko was ahead of the trend, dressing Yuuto in a black brass button school uniform and black cap for his first school day. His bag contained textbooks, lead pencils, and a specially made lunch box of smoked fish, cooked rice, and steamed vegetables lovingly prepared by her.

At lunchtime, little Yuuto would sit quietly at his desk and eat his lunch with all the other O bento kids, a daily ritual, year in and year out, until he graduated.

Under the newly mandated Imperial Rescript on Education, Yuuto found himself a student at the Faculty of Engineering at a brand-new exclusive school known as Tokyo University.

Yuuto would become part of its future alumni of Nobel prize laureates, Prime Ministers, Engineers, and Owada Masako, a law graduate and future Crown Princess of Japan.

When Japan converted to the Gregorian calendar, the Government continued expanding its trade routes in pursuit of its own industrial revolution.

Yuuto followed in his father’s footsteps, working with British, German, and American engineers, blazing train routes in Japan’s four islands.

After Yuuto designed Japan’s first trains for an established rail line in Hokkaido, Japan’s most northern island, he was honored like his late father at a state ceremony and promoted as the Government’s new chief engineer.

At a party to celebrate his new position, he was introduced to notable guests, politicians, bankers, and key investors and the handsome daughter Mineko, the daughter of a shipping magnate Yanosuke, Iwasaki, the son of Captain Haruto Iwasaki’s eldest son, and Yukiko Hiroto’s brother. his late grandfather.

Yanosuke was a visionary whose nontraditional business practices were never challenged by the establishment.

He had amalgamated the Mikawa Shokai shipping company to form Japan’s most powerful company, The Mitsubishi corporate family.

Yuuto’s train of thought to develop a double bogie carriage that would offer more stability to passenger trains cornering at faster speeds was being affected by a face he found impossible to rid from his mind.

In desperation, he summonsed his servants to buy gifts and whisked them to the house of Iwasaki in Osaka with a letter, earnestly requesting Yanosuke’s permission for his daughter’s hand in marriage, despite Yuuto and Mineko being first-degree cousins, his request was granted.

A daguerreotype, a late 1800s version of a selfie, was included, the object of his obsession, captured in living iodine-silver.

Yuuto compared the portrait to those he’d drawn from memory; he’d not missed a single detail of her face, the potency of her brown eyes and symmetrical facial features.

Iwasaki had agreed to their union because both men were of equal social standing. As a result, Yuuto could avoid the greatest taboo a man could commit in Japan: being single.

Despite Yanosuke Iwasaki being the 4th Governor of the Bank of Japan, ‘Hiroto,’ a name of nobility, outranked this member of the powerful house of Mitsubishi for the time being.

Through the means of an intermediary or connector, a formal courtship was avoided. Yuuto and Mineko Iwasaki attended a Shinto wedding, a relatively modern invention for its time, at the prestigious Ueno Shimotani Shrine.

Their ceremony was a small affair, limited only to immediate family. Mineko would take Yuuto’s last name Hiroto, not for reasons of love but to fortify unions between their respective households.

In those days, any signs of romantic connection were looked upon as a sign of mental and moral weakness. Moreover, the old family lineage system and patriarchal authority would never tolerate the futility of love.

Mineko arrived at the wedding ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage, garbed like an alabaster porcelain doll, a sign of purity before the gods.

Her hand-made kimono a testament to precision Japanese weavers.

Yuuto wore a black kimono made from Mitsubishi’s finest exported habutae silk, bearing the horns of his family name.

A Shinto priest read vows, and sake was poured; Yuuto, Mineko, and their families were finally united.

The wedding banquet was held at the home of Iwasaki. Their guests included the prime minister of Japan, financiers, and other corporate family members, toasting to their collective success and the promise of their first son.

Passengers onboard the Kiyomasa Maru, a ship owned by Mineko’s father, reported only seeing glimpses of the celebrity honeymoon couple, who stowed away in their stateroom as the boat steamed towards Britain.

They would break from their love marathons to dine with the Captain and other notable passengers before retiring to their love nest; during a ferocious orgasm, passengers reported Yuuto screaming out his undying love for his new bride; social taboos were broken.

After docking at Portsmouth Harbor, they continued their honeymoon on England’s fair shores, wining and dining with politicians and notable industrial peers.

Yuuto spent the rest of his vacation playing golf at Saint Andrew’s, becoming an honoree member of the prestigious club in honor of his late father.

During a press interview, Mineko shocked a reporter from the Scottish Herald by asking him why women were barred from becoming members of the elite golf club?

Her controversial question echoed throughout Great Britain, ruffling the feathers of high society and outraging women like Emmeline Pankhurst, who would later energize the suffrage movement.

Their marriage was unlike other unions in an era where husbands were extended an unwritten marriage caveat. As a result, married men could engage concubines or comfort women to unleash their sexual frustrations.

These affairs didn’t carry the stigma of infidelity if they were absent of emotions.

Marriages in those days never ended in divorce due to minor indiscretions.

Yuuto would remain faithful to his bride all the days of his life, a match made in heaven.

Mineko was his right-hand man, confidant, and best friend, every decision made, was a decision made together.

Yanosuke Iwasaki, Mineko’s father, considered their relationship unnatural and questioned his son-in-law’s masculinity in private after refusing the luxury extended to men of his status.

Superpowers

During the Satsuma Rebellion, a revolt against military reforms that would disenfranchise the Samurai, Mineko Hiroto gave birth to a son.

The infant was blessed by a priest at a religious rite of passage and presented to the deities as ‘Hiroki,’ sake named after his famous grandfather.

When Hiroki commenced schooling, the Government introduced military-style uniforms for boys of imperial families and nobles to mimic the attire worn by royal European school children.

Hiroki walked to school daily in his black high collared brass button school uniform and black cap. His black leather randoseru bag slung over his shoulders, worn like a quasi-children's infantry backpack, filled with textbooks and lead pencils.

His mother had included a specially prepared meal of smoked fish, cooked rice, and steamed vegetables. Hiroki sat silently at his desk at lunchtime and ate his meal with the other O bento kids.

Progress reports about Hiroki's performance showed that he was excelling academically above his peers and demonstrating athletic prowess on the courts of a growing sport that had arrived with western visitors, 'Tennis.'

His high school was the first to adopt the sport, building a tennis court in the middle of the school's quadrangle.

Matches were held to the delights of teachers and students.

Other Tokyo schools of that era were adopting another sport that would take over the hearts and minds of a nation; after a war, they wouldn't win, 'Baseball.'

Yuuto never missed a match his son played, building a trophy cabinet in the family room of his giyōfū architecturally designed home to showcase his puta.

After graduation, Yuuto enlisted his elitist connections to help his son become an alumnus of the prestigious Tokyo University.

Hiroki wanted to go to Keio University, another blue-ribbon institution, to join their Tennis club, a club that would produce future Wimbledon and U.S. Open Champions.

Yuuto wouldn't allow his son to break with tradition, Hiroto men went to Tokyo University! He trumped; no amount of protesting would change the course of his son's destiny.

After passing the University entrance exam, Hiroki followed an old pre-grad tradition, taking a 2-week vacation to Kyoto with a friend, Banko Tatsuno, whose father was Dean of the Architecture Department at Tokyo Imperial University.

They stayed in typical Onsen hotels in the crowded city of Gion. They dined nightly in Izakayas. In the morning, they'd nurse their hangers in Geisha tea houses along the Hanami-Koji Dori drinking Gyokuro - Japanese green tea and prayed at the Yasaka Shrine to the kami for Japan to become a mighty nation.

Hiroki studied mechanical engineering, exposed to western learning and its language.

During his rigorous flight of study, he found salvation in a sport that would later dominate his life, the most treasured game of all, Golf.

In 1903 he joined The Kobe Golf Club, Japan's first established golf club. A year later, he shocked the dominant European club membership by winning the Mount Rokko Cup, the outsider's name blazoned in gold leaf lettering on the club's honor board.

In 1905, after Japan's swift victory over Russia, an army considered an unbeatable superpower, Hiroki graduated with honors from Tokyo University.

He looked eagerly towards his glorious Government for employment.

He landed a dream job at the headquarters of the newly formed South Manchuria Railway Company in Dalian, China.

Even though he'd studied to be a civil engineer, his skills rather than his degree would be the thing most capitalized on.

His ability to negotiate foreign business deals in English, winning the Railway Company a large contract with an American steel company for rail and signaling equipment, was well noted by the company's President, Akio Nitor.

Nitor's Grandfather, Prince Akira, who'd orchestrated the terms of The Kanagawa convention between the Tokugawa shogunate and the United States in 1854, had positioned his grandson in the upper echelons of the newly formed Zaibatsu family as head of the railway.

The Zaibatsu family was a collection of large corporate families that controlled vertical monopolies and dominated industrial and financial conglomerates in specific market sectors and national politics.

In the same year that Japan instituted universal male suffrage, The Zaibatsu were paying a quarter of all Japanese government tax revenues; as a result, political power was changing hands.

Like Nitor, Hiroki's famous family connections to Japan's Industrial revolution would play their part in his own corporate success.

In quick concession, Hiroki rose from the ranks of chief clerk, a general employee, to a Senior Executive Managing Director.

Although essential family connections played a critical role in corporate advancement, Hiroki had charmed President Nitor after successfully brokering another deal with the Americans to build Japanese-made locomotives for a railway line linking the north to the south.

His fast track to the position of Vice President of the company and a newly elected board member was based more on a game that drew Nitor and Hiroto together socially, their love for Golf.

Nitor respected Hiroki because he didn't brown-nose him like other employees when they played around; Hiroki never let his boss win, which took a lot of balls.

By 1910 the South Manchurian Rail Company employed over 35,000 men and heavily traded for U.S. steel and British-made locomotives.

Because of this lucrative partnership, America and Britain did nothing to stop Japan from annexing Korea, nor did they stand in the way of Japan's growing empire in Asia.

Japan's political sphere of influence over Taiwan, Manchuria, and northern China had put Japan on the world's political stage.

Japan was not only a leading world power in her own right but looked unstoppable.

The masters of the universe had genuine reasons to be concerned.

In 1914, Japan allied with Britain, France, and Russian forces to fight against Germany. As a result, China became part of a semi-autonomous state outside Japan.

During China's spring, the burst of cherry blossoms attracted more than just tourists.

Delegates from Japan's Imperial Government arrived in Dalian to express their gratitude for the great work conducted by the railway company; behind the scenes, Nitor knew they'd come to conduct an internal audit of his company.

A lavish function held at his residence for his honored guests, dressed in western clothing to mimic the freedom of British influence in the city, were greeted with French champagne. At the same time, an American jazz band played on the grounds of his manicured Japanese gardens.

Hiroki took his place with diners at a 60-seat chestnut dining table, unable to take his eyes off the dreamy dessert sitting opposite him.

After the party, his research on hunting oscillation for railway wheelsets to reduce the swaying motion of a railway carriage at high speed was distracted by a face he found impossible to rid from his mind.

During their weekly game of Golf, Nitor beat Hiroki, going from a scrap golfer to a bogey golfer, destroying his handicap by 18 strokes during the day's competition.

Hiroki and Nitor went for a drink at the 19th Hole, a member's only bar nestled among the deciduous Katsura trees at the fairway's last flag.

Hiroki licked his wounds over a round of cold Chinese beer, apologizing for his poor game.

Nitor read his mind while licking the foam from his pencil mustache, Would you consider accompanying my daughter on a shopping excursion?

I'm sure she'd like a strong young man to carry her bags.

Despite his loss, Hiroki had hit a hole in one after all.

Nitor organized a golf day for the visiting delegates; Hiroki played like a man possessed, blitzing his opponents, playing three under par, and breaking a course record.

His win was not celebrated well by members of Japan's Imperial Government.

At the 19th Hole, Nitor apologized for Hiroki's' dramatic win, massaging their fragile egos as they sulked in their Chinese beers.

Their bad moods deepened after Hiroki's name was added to the club's championship board, brazen in bold gold script.

After copious rounds of sake, Hiroki stunned his boss and the delegates by stumbling to his feet, looking directly at him, I would like your daughters' hand in marriage, he declared.

Nitor responded with a vital question. Do you love my daughter?

Hiroki bowed low, not being able to look him in the eye, I consider it to be a sign of mental and moral weakness to fall in love, but I do believe in mutual consent, he stated.

In an unexpected show of approval, the delegates rose from their seats and saluted Hiroki.

Nitor breathed a sigh of relief; it appeared that his rouge president was both the poison and the cure for his visitor's foul mood.

The old, I.E. system, and patriarchal authority would be celebrated again.

In June, Hiroki Hiroto and Hinata Nitor married.

During the ceremony, Hiroki's expression betrayed his underlying affections for his new bride, his arc-welding love for her was blinding.

Before leaving for Japan, the departing delegates expressed their concerns about Nitor's chief railway advisor, stating that his weak behavior and moral instability would need to be addressed before returning.

As Nitor bid them farewell at the port, he considered a reward for his young son-in-law rather than a punishment.

Hiroki's next move up the corporate ladder would be monumental.

Dogfighter Diplomacy

The year Japan withdrew from the League of Nations, Hiroki and Hinata Hiroto welcomed a son into the world.

Yuuto was born into an unplugged and unconnected generation, not yet bombarded by the World Wide Web, but by a fast-approaching World-Wide War.

Yuuto attended a private school for gifted boys, walking to school in his black, five brass-buttoned school uniform and cap, wearing a black leather backpack over his shoulders. A gift from his proud grandfather Nitor for his first year of school.

His backpack was filled with textbooks, lead pencils, and a specially prepared meal of smoked fish, cooked rice, and steamed vegetables lovingly prepared by his mother. He would sit silently at his desk and eat lunch with the other O bento kids.

Nitor gave his son-in-law a wedding gift that only someone high up in the Government could afford, the opportunity to become a rare recipient of the Governments new 'Entrepreneurs scheme' that promoted National industrialization.

In 1935, government-built factories and shipyards were sold to favored 'Entrepreneurs' at a fraction of their value. Hiroki became a recipient of the scheme.

Enormous resources were devoted to the private sector. A series of pro-business policies, including low corporate taxes, new railways, improved roads, and land reform programs, were provided so businesses could flourish and stimulate economic growth.

In 1936, Yuuto's Motherland aligned itself with a foreign Fatherland.

The nation's new foster parents nurturing their children, 'In a crèche were great light dawns.'

Their partnership an economic necessity to prevent foreign states from blocking  Japan's access to raw materials and crucial shipping lanes.

The Japanese Emperor and the German Fuhrer embarked on a new political frontier.

Japanese imperial forces swelled to 51 divisions, totaling 1,700,000 men, which would swell to over 6,000,000 men in the following three years. Thousands of business owners from Osaka marched to Tokyo to set up shops and factories. Japan was preparing for world domination.

The Government approached Hiroki with a military contract, inviting him to join the lucrative defense industrial base for national security that embedded the Noble Hiroto into bourgeoisie supremacy.

He opened his first steel factory in the shadow of the mega Showa steelworks, employing 300 workers to make military-grade barbed wire.

After school, Hiroki's driver would bring his son to the factory, where he'd teach him the facts of life, lifting Yuuto, so he could see out his office window to the factory floor below, showing him how to be master of all and servant to none.

In time he would inherit these workers along with his father's empire.

In 1939, Hiroki opened two more factories in the seaport cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His contribution to the war effort was extensively recognized.

In 1940, He and Hinata were invited to a private Zaibatsu family function at Mitsubishi H.Q.

War profiteers, Politician's and high-ranking military personnel stood together in rank, drinking French champagne from British crystal as the chief engineer showcased the company's flagship long-distance fighter.

The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a murderous bird of prey, fast and maneuverable, equipped with two 7.7-millimeter machine guns, two 20-millimeter cannons, and two 60kg bombs strapped to its wings.

After a moving speech from the ‘Shacho,’ The President of Mitsubishi promised that their ‘Dog Fighter’ would gain a reputation as the most feared plane in the world; a call for investors saw investors flocking to his feet. A night of dancing and celebration followed.

Although America had not yet entered the war, their political interest in oil fields in the Dutch East Indies was a growing concern.

After Germany invaded Russia, Japan's mobilization kept the U.S. government up at night, notably after she marched into southern Indochina.

Roosevelt responded with an oil embargo to suppress any further advancements; he predicted that Japan's oil bunker would run dry in less than two years, driving them to starvation and crippling their encroachment.

After U.S. and Japanese trade talks collapsed, Japanese forces marched on the southern resource areas of South East Asia, striking the Philippian islands, an American-controlled territory. F.D.R. began looking for countermeasures.

In 1941 Japan repaid the U.S. with a long and overdue visit; instead of coming to their shores in iron-hauled ships, as the Americans did in 1854, the Japanese flew their newly designed fighter planes into Pearl Harbor.

Japanese Newspaper reports of their successful raids saw village bells across Keiko bay toll again in celebration.

Japan had single-handedly crippled the entire U.S. naval fleet with their new superweapon, 'Dogfighter Diplomacy.' 

On December 7, 1941, a date of infamy, where U.S. naval policy had been breached. A U.S. Congress mandate to engage the enemy would follow.

Newspaper reports in the New York Post questioned why F.D.R. had the bulk of his entire Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor during a time of known aggression. Commentators began accusing the U.S Government of staging a catastrophic event to drive an unwilling American public into another unwanted war.

A political conspiracy that continues to this day.

Yuuto’s War

When Yuuto turned 15, he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army and given the Samurai's privilege to bear arms. Hiroki's powerful family connections could have intervened in his son's desire to join Japan's Imperial Army. Still, Yuuto was desperate to honor his Emperor, particularly after their success at Pearl Harbor.

Hiroki had already mapped out his son's future; he would receive an ivory league education at Tokyo University in mechanical engineering.

He would then work for the family business.

Despite Hiroki’s threats, the war would outrank Hiroto's family tradition.

Hinata reassured him about his son's military ambitions, telling him about a family associate on the Bank of Japan board. Their son had joined the Army and was given the immediate rank of an officer, with guarantees that he'd sit out the war behind a desk, out of harm's way.

Comforted by his wife's advice and the belief that it would be a short-fought war, Hiroki considered victory best celebrated if one of his family members was a decorated imperial officer. Tokyo’s Imperial University would be there on his return.

Yuuto was battle-dressed in his army-issued khaki. A standard single-breasted tunic with five brass buttons that ran down the front, furnished with a field cap and a Takashi backpack known as the Octopus, because of its many straps, resembled something of his old school uniforms.

He scanned the pier for his father's face among the fanfare of cheering parents bidding sad farewells and blowing kisses filled with the promise of sweet victory to their boys as they walked the gangplank. 'The Hinomaru' now refitted as a naval transport ship once commanded by Yuuto’s Grandfather, Captain Haruto Iwasaki, blowing its departing whistle in Yokohama Port.

Hinata had come to see Yuuto off without Hiroki. Yuuto assumed his father was too busy at his factory manufacturing miles and miles of barb wire reinforcements to slow down enemy advancements to bid him farewell.

Secretly, Hiroki hadn't come to his passing out parade because he feared he'd never see his son again. Rumors of the bankers' son missing in action had deeply troubled him.

After the crowds had left and the military band had marched away. Hinata stood alone on the dock, watching his ship grow small on the horizon until it became a black splinter embedded in the skin of a waning sun, fervently praying that she would see her son again.

At war's peak, Hiroki's factories operated around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Hiroki's workforce consisted primarily of women and schoolchildren subscripted under Japan's compulsory civilian Act to support the war effort. A necessary backstop to supplement the dwindling supply of able men. His factory's barbed wire was shipped by the Mikawa Shokai shipping family, along with more Japanese soldiers, to different theatres of war.

By 1943, Hiroki was a multi-millionaire and a celebrated member of the Zaibatsu family.

Japanese forces quickly took the city of Rabaul from Australian and U.S. forces, and the struggle for New Guinea began. As an Imperial officer, Yuuto was put to work, designing and building strategic air and naval bases for the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago. The presence of Japanese military forces was overwhelming, even for General MacArthur.

Japan's next offensive was the taking of Port Moresby, occupied by Australian army intelligence offices. As a result, Japanese soldiers had to hump heavy ordnance over a high range of the Stanley Mountains along a desperate and muddy track known as the Kokoda Trail.

Australian and U.S. armies who dared to engage the enemy along this treacherous jungle pass were met by a well-equipped Japanese stronghold.

Yuuto sent letters home to his parents about Japan's continued success; his telegrams made Hiroki feel more secure about their son's