The Japanese Empire mobilized various resources ranging from livestock to human resources from its colonies. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan introduced a Western lifestyle for cultural modernization. This change affected the Japanese traditional diet, and a large number of people started consuming beef. Soon this consumption led the country to a chronic cattle shortage, especially considering the number of cattle that were slaughtered. For this reason, demands for Korean cattle went up. The Korean export of cattle to Japan grew about 60,000 every year and further expanded with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. “Cattle of the Peninsula” had become “Cattle of the Empire.” Systems of quarantine and disease prevention were established. However, because of the rapid growth of cattle exports to Japan, the height and weight of Korean cattle became inferior, and this deficiency marked the birth of “healthy” yet undersized Korean cattle. Consequently, it can be said that Korean cattle were merely used as a source of supply to propagate Japanese cattle. The case study on colonial cattle indicates that the imperial economic integration might give rise to a contradiction between the empire and the colony.