ABSTRACT
At noon on 15 August 1945 the emperor broadcast by radio to his people across the empire, conceding defeat at the hands of the Allied forces. Without directly mentioning surrender, he declared that it was his aim to ‘pave the way for a grand peace for all generations to come’ (Bix 2000: 526). Matsumoto’s first reaction was to order a large batch of rice to be made into onigiri (rice balls), which he took in his three-wheeled truck to be distributed among the hungry and homeless gathered in front of Hakata Station. He was reported to have said, ‘If I didn’t do this, do you know what they would do? They would commit crime. I cannot allow that’ (Takayama 2005: 536). Whether this was simple benevolence or a more calculated start for his postwar political career is hard to say. Certainly it will have done his reputation no harm. There is, in any case, said to have been a rumour going round in the immediate post-war days that Kyushu would be made an independent country with Matsumoto its first president (Naramoto 1976: 118). After distributing the rice balls he left for Tokyo, probably wanting to get back to the political centre at this time of change.
