About this ebook
Born into the royal family of Prince Su and a relative of Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China, Yoshiko was a princess. How, one might ask, did a Chinese Princess from the royal house of the Qing Dynasty become a spy for the Japanese Secret Service Unit? This book sets out to put all the disjointed pieces of a huge puzzle together to answer that question!
This book also looks at the fascinating covert activities of Yoshiko as a spy, planning and engineering some of the most famous Japanese incursions into China that made her a historical figure never to be forgotten.
But in the midst of so much hardness, angst and high living were two poignant moments in Yoshiko’s life when she loved and lost first Yamaga, a Japanese military officer and in the final years of her heydays, Jack Stone, an American journalist.
In 1945, when Japan lost the war, Yoshiko was betrayed by her bodyguards and captured by Chiang Kai Shek’s men and sentenced to death for treason and espionage. History has it that she was executed on 25th March, 1948 but as in life, her “death” was shrouded
in mystery and intrigue. Was she executed or did she cheat death in a daring swap with a dying girl paid to take her place?
This is the true story of Yoshiko Kawashima and her spectacular life as a princess and a spy. We travel with her through the breath taking maze of her early years in Manchuria evolving to her turbulent life in Japan as the adopted daughter of Naniwa Kawashima and his cold, disdainful wife, Natsuko. The trail then takes us on a whirlwind arranged marriage to a Mongolian prince which lasted just one year and on to a glittering life in Shanghai where Yoshiko was recruited by the Japanese Intelligence as a spy for Japan and finally to Peking where she ended up in Prison No. 1 with an execution order on her head.
It remains a mystery whether Yoshiko Kawashima was actually executed on 25th March, 1948, the official stand of China is that she was executed.
About the author
Rei Kimura is a lawyer with a passion for writing about unique events and personalities. She has adopted an interesting style of creating stories around true events and the lives of real people in a number of her books, believing that is the best way of making hidden historical events and people come alive for 21st century readers. With this objective in mind, Rei has touched on historical events like the horrific sinking of the Awa Maru and the Kamikaze pilots of World War II and woven them into touching stories of the people who lived and died through these events. Then there are stories of courage, love and rejection beautifully portrayed in “Butterfly In the Wind” a story of the concubine of Townsend Harris, first American consul to Japan, set against the colorful and turbulent era of the Black Ships. This book has touched the hearts of many and been translated into languages from Spanish, Polish, Russian, Dutch to Thai, Hindi, Indonesian, Marathi. Rei's writing also touches on interesting issues like that raised in “Japanese Magnolia” a book based on the true story of two men, a samurai and a peasant who dared to cross two forbidden areas in feudal Japan, that of homosexuality and a class society “so sharply defined it cut like a knife.” Other controversial stories she has written include “Japanese Rose” a book which asked the question was there ever a Japanese female kamikaze pilot in the Second World War? But it's not all history and culture, she also writes on contemporary events like “Aum Shinrikyo-Japan’s Unholy Sect” an expose of the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Occasionally, her love for animals and sense of humor surfaces in this very heart warming and delightful story of a rogue Pomeranian dog, “My Name is Eric,” a complete departure from Rei’s normal story lines but nevertheless, a refreshing one! Kimura considers her writing as part of the perennial quest for truth, challenge and fulfillment. Her books have been translated into various Asian and European languages and widely read all over the world. Apart from being a lawyer, Rei Kimura is also a qualified freelance journalist and is associated with the Australian News Syndicate
