The Genyosha, also known as the Black Ocean Society or Dark Ocean Society, was an ultranationalist secret society and political movement in Japan which was founded in 1879 during the Meiji Restoration era. It was founded as a federation of nationalist societies based around the principles of revering the Emperor, loving and respecting the nation, and defending the people's rights. Under the leadership of Mitsuru Toyama, the Genyosha recruited discontented ex-samurai into a paramilitary force which suppressed labor discontent in Kyushu's mines, agitated for a return to the old feudal order, government stipends for the samurai, expansion abroad, and authoritarianism at home. Genyosha members worked as bodyguards for government officials, as strong-arm persuaders for local political bosses, and as skilled laborers (plumbers, carpenters, and masons) in unions affiliated with the society and its successors. The Genyosha - who were themselves partly forerunners of the yakuza and the uyoku dantai - considered themselves at the opposite end of the underworld spectrum from the bakuto and tekiya as high-class gangsters imbued with the righteousness of super-patriotic politics. Its agents were sent to China, Korea, and Manchuria as spies, operated schools to train new generations of ultranationalists, studied martial arts, foreign languages, and spying techniques, and formed a sophisticated intelligence network later utilized by the Japanese government during World War II. The Genyosha used money gained from its growing rackets to engage in a campaign of terror and assassination aimed at achieving a new social order in Japan, and Genyosha activists hurled a bomb into the carriage of Foreign Minister Shigenobu Okuma, stabbed the liberal politician Taisuke Itagaki, and urdered Toshimichi Okubo, the Meiji era's most brilliant statesman. In 1892, the first national election in Japan, the Genyosha took part in the first large-scale cooperation between rightists and the underworld, making deals with conservatives inside the Meiji government and launched a violent campaign in support of like-minded incumbents. In Kumamoto, Toyama borrowed 300 men from a yakuza boss to join the local police, sent in by the Home Minister, to harass anti-government opponents. The result was the bloodiest election in Japanese history, with scores dead and hundreds wounded. The Genyosha stated openly in its official account that the purpose of the Fukuoka campaign was to uproot all democratic and liberal organizations in the region. In 1895, a squad of Genyosha agents, trained as assassin-spies in the martial arts of the ninja, infiltrated the Korean Imperial Palace and murdered the queen, Empress Myeongseong, precipitating the Japanese invasion of that country. From then on, ultranationalism became a permanent fixture on the political landscape. The Genyosha provided the model for hundreds of secret societies reaching into every corner of Japan and, eventually, thorugh much of East Asia as well, including the Blood Pledge Corps, the Loyalist Sincerity Group, the Farmers' Death-Defying Corps, and the Association for Heavenly Action. The society continued to exist until World War II, and it was dissolved during the Allied occupation of Japan.