Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  ōmitakara no What must be the feelings of

  kokoro ya ika ni His Majesty’s loyal subjects?

  The emperor, it is recorded, gave cakes to the peasants, by way of comforting them.17

  On November 14, at Shiomizaka on the Shizuoka coast, the emperor caught his first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. This was probably the first time in recorded history an emperor had actually seen the ocean. Although the emperor kept his reactions to himself, Kido Takayoshi exclaimed that from this day forth the imperial glory would shine across the seas.18 The next day when the emperor crossed Lake Hamana, the surface of the lake was perfectly calm, and the emperor, it is said, looked exceedingly pleased. Iwakura composed a tanka on this occasion that he modestly did not include in his own account of the journey:

  nami kaze no The lake of Arai

  arai no umi wa Known for its waves and wind is

  na nomi nite Rough in name alone:

  mi-fune shizuka ni The royal boat has smoothly

  watarimashikeri Glided across the water.19

  There were other moments of interest along the way. At the Ōi River, known as the widest and most difficult to cross in Japan, a plank bridge had been constructed to facilitate the emperor’s crossing. At the Abe River there was a boat-bridge, an even more novel experience for the emperor. But the most memorable event for him was seeing Mount Fuji on November 20. This was probably the first time an emperor had seen this mountain, so celebrated in Japanese literature. Meiji commanded each of the members of his escort to compose a poem about Fuji by the time his palanquin arrived in Tōkyō.

  The emperor arrived in Tōkyō on November 26. He was met at Shinagawa by Commander in Chief Prince Taruhito, Sanjō Sanetomi, and the governor of Tōkyō Prefecture and was escorted into the city by princes of the blood, nobles, and daimyos all attired in formal costume and wearing swords. This impressive display was at the suggestion of Iwakura Tomomi, who believed that the people of the Kantō region, having long lived under a despotic regime, had fallen into savage ways and that the best way to control their fierceness and soften their dispositions was to expose them to the costumes and etiquette of the court.20

  The emperor’s procession stopped briefly at Zōjō-ji where he changed from his traveling palanquin to the phoenix palanquin (hōsha). The procession entered Edo Castle by the Wadakura Gate, musicians leading the way. At two that afternoon the emperor entered the castle, which henceforth would be known as Tōkyō Castle and considered to be the royal seat. Tens of thousands of people watched the procession with expressions of awe, weeping to think that this day they had beheld the ruler of their country.21

  The fighting had not yet ended; indeed, on December 4 government forces in Ezo suffered a setback at the hands of Enomoto Takeaki’s forces. But the prevailing opinion seems to have been that the rebels no longer presented a serious threat to the regime.22 On December 15 Prince Taruhito returned the brocade flag and settō to the emperor, signifying that resistance to the government forces had been terminated in the northeast.

  On December 17 in commemoration of his visit, the emperor offered to the people of Tōkyō, a vast amount of saké. A total of 2,990 barrels was distributed. In addition, 550 pewter saké containers and 1,700 bundles of dried cuttlefish were given away along with the saké. The total cost was more than 14,038 ryō, but the people of Tōkyō enjoyed a two-day binge. The event inspired a very early example of Meiji literature, a quatrain by Ōnuma Chinzan (1818–1891):

  The Son of Heaven has moved the capital and bestowed his largesse;

  The boys and girls of Tōkyō look lovely as flowers.

  Observe how “Duck Waters” have lost out to “Seagull Crossing”;

  Quite a few of the nobles have forgotten about home.23

  Mention of “largesse” refers to the distribution of saké. “Duck Waters” (the Kamo River in Kyōto) now seems so much less attractive to the Kyōto noblemen than “Seagull Crossing” (the Sumida River in Tōkyō) that they have forgotten about their ancestral homes. Indeed, when it was announced on January 10 that the emperor would return to Kyōto early in the following month, Sanjō Sanetomi, a leader of the nobility, opposed the decision to leave Tōkyō. He argued that the rise or fall of the country depended largely on the attitude of the people of the eastern region; that is, if the emperor were to return so soon to Kyōto, he would surely lose their hearts. The prosperity of Tōkyō, he said, affected the prosperity of the entire country; even if Kyōto and the surrounding region were lost, the country would not be lost, provided Tōkyō was not lost.24

  While in Tōkyō, the emperor met people of special importance to him. He gave an audience to Kazunomiya, now known as Princess Chikako, and probably reminisced about her brother, the late emperor Kōmei. He also gave an audience to Tokugawa Akitake (1853–1910), Yoshinobu’s younger brother and now the Mito daimyo, who had spent a year studying in France, and asked him about conditions abroad. Evidently Akitake’s reports impressed Meiji, who frequently thereafter summoned Akitake to obtain information about the West. In January, Akitake, who was still only fifteen years old, was ordered to go to Ezo where, as the daimyo of Mito, he was expected to crush the rebel forces in Hakodate.25 No doubt he was sent less because of martial talents than because of his name: it was probably hoped that the presence of a Tokugawa—the brother of the last shogun—on the side of the government forces would spiritually weaken the supporters of Enomoto Takeaki.

  During Meiji’s stay in Tōkyō, negotiations were opened with the foreign diplomats living in Yokohama on a number of matters: the end of their policy of neutrality in the conflict between the government and the rebels; the destruction of the rebels in Hakodate; the disposition of the Japanese Christians; and the issuance of paper money. The negotiations did not go smoothly. The foreign representatives, headed by the redoubtable Sir Harry Parkes, refused to consider any request that seemed to threaten the sacred right to trade—in Hakodate and anywhere else.

  On January 2 a foreign trade center was opened in Tōkyō at Tsukiji, which was also made available to foreigners for residence. Samurai were forbidden to enter the settlement without written permission. This restriction on the passage of samurai into the concessions was probably intended to allay the foreigners’ fear of sworded samurai, but it had the effect of lowering their prestige. Before long, the samurai were given the task of protecting foreign ships, something none of them could have foreseen. Ōnuma Chinzan wrote a poem on their plight:

  A little Yang-chou—that’s the new Shimabara;

  Our browbeaten Japanese warriors guard the barbarian ships.

  “Please don’t come here wearing your swords—

  Please come instead with a hundred thousand coins.”26

  In the winter of 1868, at the same time that daimyo mansions in Tsukiji were demolished to provide living space for the foreigners, a new licensed quarter, named after the old Shimabara in Kyōto, was opened nearby. The last two lines of the poem indicate that for the prostitutes of the new Shimabara, money counted more than a customer’s rank. This surely was no less humiliating for the samurai than the duty of protecting foreigners, despite their jōi convictions of a few years earlier.

  On January 5 and 6 the emperor received the ministers from foreign countries, evidence of his hope for increased and better relations between Japan and the rest of the world. In Western diplomatic practice, there was nothing remarkable about the emperor’s receiving foreign diplomats and providing refreshments for them, but it was unprecedented in Japan. It is all the more astonishing when one recalls that Kōmei, who considered that the presence of foreigners on the sacred soil of Japan was an unspeakable offense to the gods, had died less than two years earlier. The young emperor was willing not only to meet foreigners but was affable to them.

  On January 11 the emperor boarded a Japanese warship for the first time and observed the maneuvering of the fleet. He had frequently been urged by Sanjō Sanetomi and Iwakura Tomomi to ride out to the sea off Yokohama, but hi
s grandfather, Nakayama Tadayasu, had been opposed, fearing that the sacred sword and jewel might be lost. In the end the emperor decided to inspect the ships, but when he set out, he left the sword and jewel at the Hama Palace, heavily guarded. While the emperor was aboard the Fuji, an American warship fired a twenty-one-gun salute, to which the Fuji responded. The court officers accompanying the emperor (including the gijō Nakayama Tadayasu and the san’yo Ōkubo Toshimichi) were startled by the noise, but the emperor remained absolutely calm, and his expression was even one of special pleasure. On later occasions he revealed the same self-possession when he heard explosions and similar noises in his vicinity, in contrast to the apocryphal story that as a child he fainted on hearing the sound of gunfire.

  The emperor’s outing to sea was a complete success. The perfect weather and the emperor’s evident pleasure in the day were interpreted as a favorable sign for the future of the Japanese navy. On the following day the emperor issued a command for further study of how the navy might be strengthened.

  On January 15 the hoshō Iwakura Tomomi and the assistant foreign minister, Higashikuze Michitomi, visited the British legation in Yokohama in the hopes of persuading the foreigners to end their policy of neutrality in the warfare between the government and the supporters of the shogunate. The main reason for the urgency of this request was their desire to obtain possession of the American-built ironclad Stonewall Jackson. This ship had been ordered by the shogunate, but before it could be delivered, the country was torn by fighting. Because the foreign powers had adopted a position of neutrality, they were unwilling to turn over the ship to either side. The government had several times requested that the foreigners abandon their neutrality, but they had refused, and the Stonewall Jackson remained at anchor in Yokohama Bay. Iwakura and Higashikuze argued that the war was in effect over and that there was therefore no reason to maintain a policy of neutrality. According to Satow, Sir Harry Parkes replied at this time that his colleagues “were willing to make a declaration that the war was over, but were not willing to give up the ‘Stonewall Jackson’; and that in order to justify her retention they would not withdraw their notifications of neutrality.”27

  Parkes did everything possible to persuade the other foreign ministers, and thanks to his intercession they finally agreed to abandon their neutrality.28 It is hard to know what to make of Iwakura’s statement that “the mikado’s government” was far from desiring to use the Stonewall Jackson to attack Enomoto. No sooner was neutrality lifted than the government bought the ship from the Americans and sent it to Hakodate, where it performed valiantly in naval engagements. But the leniency to the rebels promised by Iwakura at this time was no lie. It is true that after Enomoto surrendered on June 27, 1869, he was imprisoned for three years, but he received a special pardon in 1872 and was appointed to the Office for the Development of Hokkaidō.

  Other leaders of the rebellion were treated with similar lenience. After the warfare in the northeast had ended, the emperor issued a pronouncement stating that he did not intend to be the sole judge of the former rebels, that in order to ensure absolute fairness, the punishments would be decided by a consensus of opinions. With respect to Matsudaira Katamori, the daimyo of Aizu, the emperor favored reducing by one degree the normal punishment of death in such instances of rebellion. This recommendation was in fact adopted not only in Katamori’s case but also for all the other daimyos. Not one of those who fought against the government was executed. Katamori was exiled to Tottori but, before long, was pardoned. Other daimyos were deprived of their domains, but most were soon given new ones. Kido Takayoshi alone held out for the death penalty, saying that although he did not hate the rebels, he hated their crime and could not forget the many loyal soldiers who had died because of their rebellion. He believed that the law must not be twisted in order to be lenient, but his words failed to sway the others in the government, and leniency was the order of the day.29

  The emperor left for Kyōto on January 20, promising to return to Edo in the spring. He was accompanied by a procession of 2,153 men, considerably fewer than on the outward journey, a sign that less danger from hostile elements was expected. Along the way the emperor again saw Mount Fuji and admired Miho no Matsubara. He had every reason to feel satisfied. During the less than three months since he had left Kyōto, the northeast of the country had been entirely pacified, and although there was still resistance in Hakodate, even the ministers of the various foreign countries were agreed that the war had been won. The city of Edo, long the shogunate’s stronghold, was his. Moreover, the unprecedented passage of the emperor’s palanquin along the Tōkaidō had undoubtedly enhanced his prestige among people in places far from the capital.30

  The imperial palanquin returned to Kyōto on February 5, in time for the funeral services in memory of Emperor Kōmei on the eighth. Three days later Ichijō Haruko, the bride of Meiji, entered the palace, an appropriately felicitous ending to one of the most important years in Japanese history.

  Chapter 19

  The year 1869 began under far happier circumstances than any other in recent memory.1 The ceremonies performed at the palace in Kyōto on New Year’s Day were traditional, following ancient precedents. In Tōkyō, too, nobles, daimyos, and other officials resident in the city gathered at the castle to offer their congratulations. New Year’s messages were received from the British and American ministers.

  On the fourth of the month the senior officials—hoshō, gijō, san’yo, and the like—were summoned to the palace to hear a rescript from the emperor read by the hoshō, Iwakura Tomomi. The emperor’s message conveyed his fear that his lack of virtue might result in impairment of the sacred, unbroken dynastic thread he had inherited from his ancestors. It might also prevent him from understanding fully the hardships under which many of his people lived because of the continuing warfare. But he expressed his determination to extend the achievements of his ancestors and his joy that he was served by officials such as those who had gathered this day before him. He asked that they not hesitate to correct and remedy his faults.2

  The emperor’s message was largely conventional in its phrasing, and it is unlikely he had any part in composing the text;3 but it is clear that he expected to participate in whatever future decisions were made by the government. He would be present not only at meetings of his cabinet but at innumerable official functions, almost to the day of his death. Usually he did not say a word during the discussions at the meetings he attended, but his presence added enormously to their dignity and importance.

  It did not take long for the festive New Year atmosphere to be harshly interrupted. On February 15 at about two in the afternoon, the san’yo Yokoi Shōnan was returning by palanquin from the court when, just as it passed Teramachi, several men suddenly began to fire pistols at the palanquin. Yokoi pushed open the door and, emerging from the conveyance, attempted to defend himself with his dirk, but he had been weakened by a recent illness and, powerless to resist, was killed on the spot. The assassins got away despite the efforts of Yokoi’s retainers and servants.

  When word of the assassination reached the emperor’s ears, he was extremely perturbed. He immediately sent a court attendant to Yokoi’s lodgings to ascertain what had happened. The emperor presented the retainers and servants who had been wounded in the attack with 400 ryō for medical treatment. The next day he directed the Kumamoto daimyo Hosokawa Yoshikuni to see to it that Yokoi was buried with suitable honors, and he himself contributed 300 ryō for the expenses. These immediate, warmhearted reactions are memorable if only because they contrast sharply with his impassivity in later years when men, even those closer to himself than Yokoi, were assassinated. His youth may account for the spontaneous concern he displayed at this time. Later, as his concept of the appropriate behavior for a monarch developed, such spontaneity tended to be replaced by a detachment that seldom permitted him to display personal feelings.

  Yokoi Shōnan’s assassins were eventually found on Mount Kōya after a widespre
ad search and such measures as sealing off all entrances into the city of Kyōto. The captured murderers declared that they had killed Yokoi because they despised him as a traitor, a man in contact with the foreigners who planned to propagate Christianity in Japan.4 They were imprisoned in the Kyōto residence of the Fukuoka domain where they soon became objects of compassion: the daimyo of Fukuoka asked that they be treated with leniency, and many people urged an amnesty. Even the government prosecutor, in the hopes of justifying the assassination, searched for evidence that Yokoi might have acted improperly. Such sympathy suggested that behind the enlightened facade of the new regime, the old xenophobia persisted, and the murder of anyone who favored the foreigners would be condoned. The four assassins were not executed until November 1870.

  Needless to say, Yokoi’s purpose had not been to convert the Japanese to Christianity. He was a convinced Confucianist (the teacher of Motoda Nagazane, Meiji’s conservative tutor) and never abandoned this belief. Yokoi had been a passionate advocate of jōi in early years but had shifted to jitsugaku,5 practical learning. This, in turn, led him to favor the importation of foreign learning, including Western economic and political ideas. Christianity was by no means fundamental to his thought, but as one Western authority on the period has stated, “Christianity appeared to Yokoi as the ethic of practicality or rationality…. Yokoi, more perceptive than much later Japanese writers, in seeing the intimate relationship between Western technological and economic power and Christianity, perceived the relationship between modernity and an adequate ethic.”6 The assassins declared that they feared that the pristine purity of traditional Japanese beliefs might be defiled by foreign influence, and they refused to recognize that Yokoi’s learning was of value to the new Japan.

  Yokoi was ahead of his time. Sir George Sansom, tracing the development of Yokoi’s political thought, believed that eventually “he even developed ideas of universal peace and the brotherhood of man, propounding a kind of One World doctrine.”7 A traditional Confucian education might well foster a belief in the brotherhood of man, but this was not the aspect of Confucianism most typical of Japan at the end of the Tokugawa period. The men who assassinated Yokoi believed that their violence was authorized by the Confucianism they had absorbed as young samurai; both tolerance and intolerance were justified according to Confucian texts.