At the same time, Tokyo stepped up efforts to organize, arm, and train civilian militias. All men between the ages of fifteen and sixty, and all women between the ages of seventeen and forty, were drafted into these local fighting organizations, whose enlistment roles officially topped 25 million. Many were equipped with nothing better than spears or household weapons. Every citizen-fighter was exhorted to kill at least one barbarian invader before dying in turn. These preparations proceeded under the new national slogan: “The Glorious Death of the 100 Million.”
