著者

大瀧 真俊

出版者

日本農業史学会

雑誌

農業史研究 (ISSN:13475614)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, pp.23-33, 2015 (Released:2017-03-23)

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This paper focuses on the horse as the stockbreeding directly connected with military demand in modern Japan, and describes how the requisition and replenishment of horses were carried out in wartime. Through the analysis, this study makes clear following four points: 1) Military horses mobilized by the Japanese Army during World War II amounted to 500-600 thousands. It was not practiced suddenly, but had been prepared elaborately by improving Japanese horse's blood for thirty years over, with abundant investment of state capital and economical patience of farmers breeding or keeping horses. 2) When the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937, the Army requisitioned about 220 thousands of horses. It caused many problems especially in horse-using area such as Kanto region, the steep rise in price of buying and borrowing horses, hard work of left ones, and substitution of cattle, and so on. 3) The government carried out the horse-replenishing project immediately, which encouraged to import colts of isolated islands to horse-requisitioned areas with brokerage and subsidy for transportation. Its scale was insufficient to cover the shortage of farming horses, but it had an effect to modernize and rationalize the conventional distribution of horses on the other hand. 4) According to a horse-breeding research at that time, the farmers replenishing either colt or cattle for requisitioned horses were forced to work harder than before, but they couldn't avoid their cash flow became worse in the next year. It showed that horse requisition was impossible without bad influence for farming managements.