Asaka Yasuhiko

General was the founder of a collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family and a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of China and the Second World War. He was the son-in-law of Emperor Meiji and uncle by marriage of Emperor Hirohito. As the commander of Japanese forces outside Nanjing in December 1937, Asaka presided over the mass murder of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians in what came to be known as the Nanjing Massacre. After Japan's defeat in World War II, General Douglas MacArthur granted immunity to the country's Imperial Family. As a result, Asaka was never tried for his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre by SCAP authorities. Nonetheless, by 1947, he and his children were stripped of their imperial status. He later converted to Catholicism and died of natural causes at the age of 93. Biography Early years Prince Yasuhiko came from Kyoto, the eighth son of Prince Kuni Asahiko and the court lady Tsunoda Sugako. Prince Kuni Asahiko was the youngest prince descended from the Fushimi-no-miya, one of the four branch houses of the imperial dynasty (shinnōke) entitled to provide a successor to the throne. In 1872, the Emperor Meiji granted him the title Kuni-no-miya and authorization to begin a new collateral branch of the imperial family. Prince Yasuhiko was a half-brother of Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, Prince Nashimoto Morimasa, Prince Kaya Kuninori, and Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi, the father of the future Empress Kōjun, the consort of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito).