Kazuo Kikuchi

Kazuo Kikuchi
Kikuchi during a visit to Teisui Cafe, 1976
Born	12 February, 1920 Takena, Dayashina
Died	25 August, 2006 Nakazara, Dayashina
Allegiance	Imperial Dayashina
Service/branch	Imperial Dayashinese Army
Years of service	1939-1946
Rank	Rikugun-Tai-i
Unit	3rd Mountaineer Regiment
Battles/wars	Pan-Septentrion War {Khalistan campaign)
Awards	Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st Class
Other work	Inazuma Group Founder and CEO Hasunohana Foundation Founder

Kazuo Kikuchi was a Dayashinese businessman and political activist who is best known for his role in the development and expansion of nationalist and anti-communist sentiment in Dayashina and Hanhae. He served in the Imperial Dayashinese Army, specifically in the Dayashinese Imperial Special Operations Group, within the period of 1939 and 1946, where he reached the rank of Rikugun-Tai-i (Captain) and experienced years of combat in the War in Khalistan. Returing to Dayashina following the end of the war, he completed his tertiary education in philosophy and economics at Shizuna University, where he came to develop his nationalist, libertarian, and anti-communist political views. Using his service history and connections with participants in the Hanhae War, Kikuchi was a leading figure in gathering support to form the East Hemithean Volunteers in the North Abyaalan War, which saw thousands of former Dayashinese and Hanhaean servicemembers departing to the Federated Fire Territories to assist them in their war against communist forces in Leoterra. From these volunteers, Kikuchi jointly founded the Inazuma Group, a private military company which would go on to become the largest of its kind in both Dayashina and Hanhae. In his later years, Kikuchi started and directed the Hasunohana Foundation, a venture capital establishment with a dedicated mission to providing sustained investment and capital to small businesses in underpriveleged or financially unstable rural and suburban Dayashinese communities.

Early life and military academy

Kazuo Kikuchi was born into an upper-class family of industrial magnates in Takena, Dayashina on 12 February, 1920. He completed his primary and secondary education in a prestigious independent school in Anglia and Lechernt as a legacy student, attending the same school that his father did in years past. In his time between Dayashina and Anglia, Kazuo picked up an interest in long-distance running and spent much of his free time doing this. Dayashina had declared war on Anglia in 1937 over the Divine Island Chain, but Kikuchi was able to remain in Anglia to complete his secondary education. When he reached the age of 18 in 1938, his parents demanded he remain in Anglia until the conflict passed, which by their estimation, would be quickly. Simultaneously, Kikuchi was in contact with Dayashinese authorities who were recommending that he return to Dayashina to enlist as an officer, with associates of Yutaka Ueda placing him on a list of high-interest recruits. At the dismay and horror of his parents, Kazuo was eventually convinced to return to Dayashina and joined the Takena Region Military Academy, where he would receive training as an officer and eventually be given his first command.

Military career

Early Khalistan offensives

Kikuchi posing for a photograph after the Siege of Lahore, 1939

Kikuchi had quickly risen the ranks to Rikugun-Tai-i (Captain) in 1939, being given command of a company by the time of his deployment to Khalistan in 1939. Here, Kikuchi distinguished himself in command during Yutaka Ueda's offensive campaign in Khalistan, especially during the Siege of Lahore, where his company (5th) repeatedly undertook high-intensity infiltrations inside the layered defenses of the city, successfully relaying precise locations of large hidden troop formations for Menghean and Dayashinese artillery and aircraft and drawing troops away from chokepoints to allow for more threatening overall posture. This, and a few noteworthy exploits by infantry under his command, would earn him recognition by Ueda, and subsequently would make his unit among the first ever selected to form the Dayashinese Imperial Special Operations Group, an irregular warfare detachment formed by Ueda with the intention of addressing and combating increasing raids by Anglian commandos in Khalistan.

The Mountain War

After official selection, the unit would be placed under the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment, in command of Colonel Yasuji Watanabe, which incorporated distinguished infantry units alongside trained Khalistani trackers and hunters. They deployed into the mountains of Khalistan in 1940 with the objective of locating Anglian commando units to force combat with them and interrupt raiding, and furthermore conduct raids of their own on enemy supply chains and logistics.

The 3rd Mountaineer Regiment would be one of the first Dayashinese units to make contact with Anglian commandos, engaging in consistent sporadic contact for months as they proceeded southward in their pursuit of the core of enemy irregular forces and supply lines. Initially tasked with minimising raids on Menghean supply lines, the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment advanced upon skilled and mobile enemy forces in heavily advantageous locations, initially sustaining heavy casualties, which led to a drastic slow-down in the pace of the operation as D/ISOG elements were forced to take a different and more careful approach. 5th Company, forming up one of the centerpiece front-line infantry units in the 3rd Mountaineer regiment, dispatched several small teams across dozens of kilometres led by Khalistani trackers and hunters with the objective of observing opposing units' movements to determine their general location, which allowed forces of the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment to close in on the positions of Anglian forces mostly undetected. Using this strategy, Dayashinese forces were able to inflict heavy casualties on Anglian forces navigating the mountains to raid Menghean supply lines in the north, eventually leading to significantly decreased activity in the area.

Kikuchi leads an assault on an enemy position during the Battle of Vindhaya Pass, 1942

In late 1941, the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment would be called off the front lines for a few months, but would eventually be re-tasked to the mountains of Khalistan in mid 1942 after the discovery of a large concentration of Anglian commando units around Vindhaya Pass that were inflicting voluminous casualties on Menghean supply lines, heavily detracting from the Menghean Army's ability to sustain its southbound offensive into Naseristan. The ensuing Battle at Vindhaya Pass would be the largest singular engagement of the Mountains War, which came to involve several thousand troop elements from both sides fighting over the course of three months and neither side being able to pull sustainable aerial coverage. Kazuo Kikuchi would receive the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st class for his actions in this battle, where he commanded 5th Company to great effect, seizing several key fixed positions on the left flank of Vindhaya Pass, which allowed other Dayashinese units to move safely along the left flank to punch into Anglian lines and proved to be the turning point of the battle. Having identified the issue, Anglian forces launched multiple counter-attacks on the position of Kikuchi's company for two weeks, and focused much of their explosive munitions on their location to weaken the defence. 5th Company held their position against withering explosive fire and regular offensives until elements of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Companies were able to finally break through Anglian lines to force them out of engagement range with 5th's position. Having lost 1/3rd of their men with more than half injured, they would be relieved by 8th Company and sent back to field hospitals to receive necessary medical attention.

After the Battle of Vindhaya Pass, Colonel Yasuji Watanabe, also an alumni of the Takena Region Military Academy, would commend Kikuchi for his selflessness and unwavering resolve in command of the 5th Company, recommending him for an Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st class for his critical actions in the battle. Kikuchi would also recommend seven of his company members for various classes of the Order of the Rising Sun, most notably Kanji Yoshizawa (depicted in the popular film Vindhaya), a field medic who managed to rescue six wounded members of 5th Company under extreme duress but paid with his own life. By the time 5th Company was returned to full strength, the war had turned against the Axis powers, with Anglian forces having repelled the Mengheans out of Naseristan and rapidly pushing northwards through Khalistan nearing the mountains. In late 1943, the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment would be rotated into the fray for the last time with the objective of raiding Anglian supply lines and preventing deep penetrations into Menghean lines via the mountains.

From 1944 to the end of the Pan-Septentrion War in 1946, Kikuchi's 5th Company navigated the mountains raiding on Anglian supply lines and sporadically engaging with opposing commando units, freshly into the area to pave ahead of the main Anglian advance. With dwindling supplies, increasingly less support, and less functional intelligence coming into the mountains as Menghean troops were forced back northward, the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment, like the rest of the D/ISOG forces in the mountains, eventually found themselves completely surrounded on all sides and completely unable to receive any support, including logistical. This led to combat taking a turn for general brutality, as Dayashinese units were forced to raid in order to sustain themselves, stop taking prisoners to avoid supply liabilities, and resort to a form of warlordism over local villages in order to receive sustenance. Anglian units would infamously return this brutality in kind, leading to scores of war crimes being committed on both sides over the course of these two years.

The 5th Company was one of the only units in the 3rd Mountaineer Regiment that remained in action until Dayashina's surrender in 1946. When notified via airdropped flyers, the 5th Company reportedly debated refusing surrender and fighting to the death on the presumption that they would just be killed out of spite if they surrendered. With the unit indecisive, Kikuchi ultimately made the decision to surrender, refusing to be responsible for unnecessarily guaranteeing the death of his entire unit when the possibility of survival was still on the cards. They would raise a large makeshift white flag atop their position by using a tree stump and tied-together garments, signalling their decision to surrender to a nearby commando unit that they had been engaged with. The remaining 72 soldiers of 5th Company would be marched down the mountains and driven to Peshawar, where they received medical attention from the local hospital and were shipped off to Sakurajima in short order for trial.

Post war and tertiary education

Members of the 5th Company under Kikuchi's command were only proven to be involved in four war crimes, three of which involved executions of prisoners of war and one of which involved stealing from the food storage of the village of Hosaluru, which resulted in some members of the 5th Company receiving over a decade in prison. The 5th Company were accused of 19 separate crimes, and due to a lack of records and a lack of legally tenable evidence to back up accusations, 15 of them, including accusations of mass killings and looting, went unproven. Most controversially, Kikuchi was acquitted of charges for destroying civilian buildings and lands to deny advancing Anglian troops sustenance via the local population. The result of the trial of Kikuchi and the 5th Company remain controversial in Khalistan and Maracaibo, with many accusations still floating around to this day.

After the war and trial, Kikuchi returned to his family in their retreat in Shizuna, a part of northern Dayashina which remained largely untouched by Allied bombings. In 1948, at 28 years old, he enrolled in Shizuna University, one of the most prestigious universities in the nation, where he completed his tertiary education in philosophy and economics. During this time, he developed a strong attachment to the ideals of libertarian capitalism, seeing it as the solution to solving Dayashina's post war economic slump and moving the nation into a new era. This is largely attributed to his studies under Kenkichi Yosano, Dayashina's most prolific libertarian economist, and the failure of the authoritarian Dayashinese Empire to provide even the most basic necessities to their people. He consistently argued against collectivist economic models such as communism and socialism, which were rising juggernauts in East Hemithea at the time. He traveled often to Fyrland to study the economic practice of libertarianism, where he would establish friendships with a number of Fyrish magnates and politicians. He also frequently traveled to Hanhae during the Hanhae War, where he studied the ideological conflict between capitalism and communism in the nation. Here, he befriended Kim Ji-tae, a Hanhaean Provisional Army colonel who was familiar with the exploits of D/ISOG in Khalistan and shared Kikuchi's vision of a libertarian capitalist future in east Hemithea. After the end of the Hanhae War in 1953, they both pursued unsuccessful careers in entering politics in their nations, with state capitalist and mixed market capitalist economic ideals sweepingly prevailing.

North Abyaalan War

A Hanhaean and Dayashinese volunteer prepare defensive positions in Leoterra

On the outset of the North Abyaalan War in 1961, Kazuo Kikuchi observed that sentiments in support of Fyrland, Medacapre, and Macchia against the communist Leoterrans were very high in both Dayashina and Hanhae, despite their respective governments refusing to directly enter the conflict. Having contacted Kim Ji-tae and a number of people of political importance in Fyrland, Kikuchi resolved to substantiate these sentiments by recruiting experienced anti-communist Pan-Septentrion War and Hanhae War veterans to form a unit, arm in Fyrland, and deploy into Leoterra to join Fyrland's plight against communism in Abyaala. Over the course of 11 years, Kikuchi and Kim Ji-tae recruited over 8,000 volunteers from Dayashina and Hanhae to the East Hemithean volunteers in the North Abyaalan War which fought under the field command of former Hanhae War Major General Jang Min-Yoo. Kikuchi, alongside Kim and Jang, was made a topic of high political praise in Fyrland for their history, ideological standpoint, and support in the global fight against communism, being cited as an inspiration and model for the Fyrish citizen.

The East Hemithean volunteers in the North Abyaalan War, being mostly veterans of major wars themselves, were notably prolific in combat in Leoterra, often being assigned to tasks wherein they were vastly outnumbered or outgunned, but often achieving their objectives regardless. No member of the volunteers was ever persecuted for any reason. Kikuhci was made the subject of criticism by Andrea Amores, a commander of Maracaibean Volunteers in the North Abyaalan War who worked to spread defeatist propaganda to Fyrish forces in the war. She broadcasted her contempt for Kikuchi in a 20 minute long broadcast across Leoterra, belittling the efforts of the East Hemithean volunteers, denouncing libertarian capitalism, and amplifying his alleged crimes during the Pan-Septentrion War, mentioning the most heinous allegations such as slaughtering and destroying entire villages and using cruelty against civilians to bait Anglian units to intervene and reveal their locations. Kikuchi, who was in Fyrish-held territory in Leoterra on a routine check-up at the time of the broadcast, and was familiar with Amores through his studies of contemporary syndicalism, asked for Fyrish propagandists to broadcast a response. The request was denied, but Kikuchi got a chance to reply when press asked him of his thoughts on it upon returning to Dayashina. "I have no intention to substantiate the ramblings of a syndicalist terrorist with more than a sentence," he replied, "but everything that she [Amores] broadcasts is a self-evident lie and should be treated as such."

Inazuma Group

Kikuchi founded the Inazuma Group following the North Abyaalan War, initially comprised mostly of former volunteers. The paramilitary organisation was formed with the mission of opposing radical leftism globally and providing security solutions for interested parties when state actors were "too frozen and cowardly to act." Inazuma Group would obtain extensive connections to influential Dayashinese Conservative Party politicians, and as a result, would end up undergoing a massive rebrand in 2000 following the end of the Cold War with Menghe. Nowadays, Inazuma Group is Dayashina's largest private military company, which has been contracted in many conflicts involving Dayashina within the last decade. It is sometimes described by detractors as a "state affiliated network of mercenaries" or "the armed wing of the Dayashinese nationalist right."

Hasunohana Foundation

After inheriting his family's extensive wealth, Kikuchi founded the Hasunohana Foundation, a large charitable organisation which now manages several billion dollars in assets. It is the direct extension of Kikuchi's economic philosophy and the result of his perceived burden as a priveleged member of society to help those less fortunate achieve success and turn them away from ideologies which seek only to take advantage of their plight, such as socialism and communism. The Hasunohana Foundation works to elevate the position of economically disadvantaged Dayashinese people by investing in their education, training, and incorporation into upward-projecting careers in the national labour force. Furthermore, the Foundation provides funding and consultation to small businesses, especially in rural poorer rural areas, to discover and drive solutions to stay afloat and achieve desired success. Furthermore, the Hasunohana Foundation provides sustained funding for disaster relief processes, homeless shelters, and affordable accommodations across the Dayashina and Hanhae.