From Four Nodes of History: The Human Rights Challenge in the Philippine Security Sector The most powerful of these secret societies were the Genyōsha (Black Ocean Society, 1881) and Kokuryukai (Black Dragon Society, 1901). They advocated, organized and significantly financed Japanese militarist expansion and provided a source for capital accumulation for industrialization. These secret societies were patriotic quasi paramilitary organizations which raised funds based on vices abroad. They established brothels in key cities controlled by western powers in Asia. A special intelligence school recruited prostitutes before being deployed to brothels abroad where they targeted foreign high government officials and military officers to assist the Japanese government in collecting vital intelligence information, while raising money through these ventures. In the Philippines, they opened a brothel in Binondo and later transferred to Sampaloc, Manila. In China, they worked closely with Chinese Triad Secret Societies which supported the struggle against western foreign powers. Japan and its secret societies partially financed and provided refuge for leaders of independence movements in Asia to destabilize and weaken the grip of western powers in their Asian colonies. Japan secretly supported the Philippine Republic during the Philippine-American War. They sent a contingent of volunteer 48 Japanese officers and men to aid General Aguinaldo during the Philippine-American War, but the ship that transported them, including the big cache of rifles, cannons and munitions that Mariano Ponce had procured, sank off the coast of Formosa. The weapons were retrieved and later donated by Ponce to Sun Yat Sen, who used them for China’s 1911 Revolution. Japan looked at Korea, Manchuria and eventually the whole of China and Siberia as its sphere of influence. It carried out an expansionist war against China, which became known as the First Sino–Japanese War (1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895) over the control of Korea. It fought Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) over the control of Manchuria and Korea. In later years, Japan included the whole of Southeast Asia as its “ co-prosperity sphere” for the market of its commodities and as sources of raw materials. To have the military means, Japan organized a modern army using French and German military advisers and directed its industries to create a powerful industrial-military complex to produce its armament requirements for international expansion. Military leaders closely studied the strategic concepts of the Mahan Doctrine and applied it for Japan’s imperial interests, building a powerful offensive-oriented navy. In the