Japanese silk map of Manchukuo and Choson (Korea) with photograph portrait of Baron Shigeru Honjo at top. Baron Shigeru Honjo was general of the 10th Division of the Kwantung Army. In his long career in the military, he saw action in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), the Siberian Intervention (1918-1922), and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). In 1931, as Commander in Chief of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, he led the forces in the Mukden Indicent and Invasion of Manchuria. A year later in 1932, he was relieved of his command for insubordination, only to return to Tokyo as a national hero. With the public and the media in full support of his exploits in Manchuria, Honjo was made a member of the Supreme War Council in 1933, awarded the highest decorations (Orders of the Sacred Treasure, Golden Kite, and Rising Sun – all 1st class), and given the title of “danshaku” (Baron). Honjo would later become Chief aide-de-camp to the Emperor Hirohito in 1936 and at the end of the war he was serving as a Privy Councilor when, after the surrender of Japan, he was arrested by the American Occupation Authorities and forced to stand trial as a war criminal. He committed suicide before the trial began and is buried in Tama Cemetery in Tokyo. A very rare and historic silk map of the region.

According to scholar Peter Kornicki, “On the envelope it says, quite extraordinarily, “Commemorative souvenir of the Manchurian Incident.’ That’s like saying ‘Commemorative souvenir of the Amritsar Incident’ for Brits or ‘Commemorative souvenir of the Mylai Incident” for Americans.'”