Uichi Shinkai (died 12 November 1954) was a Japanese yakuza crime boss who served as an underboss of the Yamamori-gumi family and the boss of its Shinkai-gumi subsidiary. He was killed at the culmination of a major gang war between his faction of the Yamamori-gumi and that of his rival, Tetsuya Sakai, in 1954.
Biography[]
Uichi Shinkai was born in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, and he served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. During this time, he befriended Shozo Hirono, Tetsuya Sakai, Seiichi Kanbara, Masakichi Makihara, Shuji Yano, and Shinichi Yamagata, and, in 1946, the seven of them joined the Yamamori-gumi yakuza family following Hirono's release from prison through Yoshio Yamagata's influence.
Shinkai in 1950
Over the next several years, the seven men rose to be underbosses in Yamamori's organization. In 1949, Yamamori betrayed Hirono and had him imprisoned after sending him to kill his rival Kiyoshi Doi, fearing that Hirono would become too powerful for him to manage. During the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953, Shinkai increased his own power and formed his own subsidiary family, the Shinkai-gumi; his subordinate Toshio Arita built up a burgeoning methamphetamine trafficking operation which drew him the ire of Sakai. Ultimately, Sakai and Toru Ueda came to lead a majority faction within the family which opposed the methamphetamine business and demanded more autonomy for the lieutenants, while Shinkai and Yano came to lead a minority faction within the Yamamori-gumi which supported Yamamori's unquestioned rule and his prerogatives. As the factional divide became deeper, Shinkai was urged by Arita and by the corrupt politician Shoichi Kanamaru to take out Sakai before it was too late to stop him. Arita had Yamagata gunned down in his car in October 1954, making him the first victim of a looming mob war. The situation remained tense until Toru Ueda himself was assassinated on Yamamori's orders after Sakai and Ueda - having discovered that Yamamori sold his lieutenants' confiscated methamphetamine himself - demanded that Yamamori give up all of his day-to-day power. Ueda's assassination led to an all-out, two-month gang war on the streets of Hiroshima.
Death[]
Shinkai's death
The gang war proved to be one-sided, with the Shinkai-gumi and the remnants of the Doi-gumi being wiped out by Sakai's army of killers. On 12 November 1954, Shinkai attempted to flee Hiroshima by train. However, he was approached by two men dressed in police uniforms and then repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen as he stood on the platform. His death brought an end to the main phase of the gang war.