JAPANESE OCCUPATION

Beginning in 1910, Japan won her fight to be the regional power in Northern Asia against first China and then Czarist Russia. After decades of expanding influence in Korea, Japan formally annexed "the land of the morning calm." Imperial forces structured every part of the Korean economy to strengthen an empire that stretched across Manchuria, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and part of China. Officials forced heavy industry on the northern part of Korea and took most of the profits. They corralled people into slave labor gangs to construct factories, mines, buildings, and roads. The army drafted men to serve as occupation troops all over Asia. Japan alternated brutal repression with divide and rule techniques, which pitted Korean against Korean.