mountains, yet having a sufficient flat surface area for underground construction; Abundance of labor (later proven untrue); Nagano Prefecture's residents were naive people and would not reveal secrets. The old name for Nagano, Shinshū (信州, "Shin[ano] Province"), is a homophone of Shinshū (神州, "land of the gods"), and was therefore considered auspicious. This proposal primarily involved setting up bunkers for the army throughout the Japanese homeland. It was afterwards that Prime Minister Tojo Hideki expanded the project to accommodate the transfer of the government. While the project was an operational secret in the guise of a warehouse, according to a statement of a local Japanese labourer, rumors were rife in the surrounding villages and towns that the emperor was coming to town. The cause of the rumors was the massive amounts of cargo arriving in trains. After the war After the surrender of Japan, most of the documents relating to the Matsushiro complex were destroyed. As a result, very little is known about the day-to-day construction of the facility. In 1946, a local Buddhist association received permission to convert what was going to be the imperial palace into an orphanage. In 1947, plans to convert the whole complex into an orphanage complex for war orphans were debated but not implemented. The Meteorological Agency then set up a seismographic office in the concrete building at Mount Maizuru. An assortment of seismographs and equipment were installed, making it the largest office of its kind in Japan. In 1967, the Matsushiro Earthquake Center was built on part of the Mount Maizuru ruins following a local earthquake. In 1990, parts of the Mount Zōzan bunker were opened by Nagano Municipality and Shinshu University set up an astronomical observatory inside. Subsequently, more of the complex was opened by the sightseeing department of the same office. The city of Nagano spent many years trying to attract the Olympic Games, culminating in their successful bid to host the 1998 Winter Olympics. During the bidding period and again during the games, peace activists accused the city of Nagano and the Nagano Organizing Committee (NAOC) of burying the past. Masako Yamane, a local activist who worked to bring increased attention to the Matsuhiro complex, decried actions by Nagano officials which she felt obfuscated the site’s history: "Just the other day, the authorities blocked the entrances to the underground shelters with fences, despite requests that the last Imperial General Headquarters