Mishima Confronts the Jietai

While the Colonel was away conferring with his superiors, Mishima told General Mashita what his demands were. He told the General that if his demands were not met that he would first kill him and then commit hari-kari. Mishima ordered one of the students to read the list to the General. One of the students took out a piece of paper from Mishima's attache case and began to read. His demands went as follows:

• All soldiers at the Ichigaya garrison were to assemble in front of the headquarter building by midday.
• Mishima intended to make a speech to the men.
• The soldiers may not be allowed to interrupt the speech. The must listen to the speech in complete silence.
• There were 40 members of Mishima's army waiting outside the gates to the base. They must be present to hear the speech as well.
• The speech would be followed by a truce of 90 minutes during which time the Jietai must guarantee not to attack Mishima or any member of his group. If the truce was broken, he would kill General Mashita and commit suicide by seppuku(hari-kari).

At 11:38 AM police sirens could be heard approaching the base. By11:45 the first helicopters began to arrive. Some were police helicopters and others were helicopters belonging to newspapers and television stations. But the 40 members of Mishima's army who were waiting outside the base had refused to assemble in the courtyard for the speech.They didn't know that the order had come from their own leader.

Shortly before Mishima was to make his speech , Morita and Ogawa came out onto the balcony overlooking the courtyard and hung a banner to the parapet which had written on it the conditions which guaranteed General Mashita's safety. The two students began dropping papers over the side of the balcony to the men below. The papers contained Mishima's " last manifesto ", a document which was modeled after statements made by rebel military officers during the abortive government takeover attempts (The Ni Ni Roku incident for example) that took place during the 1930's in Japan.

At noon exactly, Mishima walked out onto the balcony overlooking the courtyard and began to speak. Mishima spoke briefly to the men gathered below. He said that there was a need for the Jietai to overthrow the present government and save Japan. He tried to convince the soldiers gathered below that it was necessary for the Jietai to rise up and save not only Japan, but its history and its culture. Mishima's speech was met with jeers and insults. After speaking on the balcony for only a little over 5 minutes, Mishima ended his speech and along with Morita withdrew to General Mashita's office.