Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  At 8:20 the funeral carriage passed through the main gate of the palace where twelve horsemen joined the vanguard of the procession, clearing the way. The Guards Cavalry Regiment followed behind the twelve horsemen and was in turn followed by the Guards Military Band playing “Kanashimi no kiwami” (Extremity of Grief). Ubukata Toshirō, a newspaper reporter who had been assigned to cover the funeral, declared that nothing in the world could compare in sadness with the thin, prolonged, choked sounds of this music: “The tens of thousands of people present swallowed their voices and corrected their posture. Then they surrendered themselves completely to the waves of sound suffused with grief.”26

  The funeral cortege was led by two officers bearing torches. They were followed by some 300 men carrying torches, drums, bells, white flags, yellow flags, quivers, bows, shields, halberds, imperial pennants decorated with the sun and moon, and chests containing articles of war and of Shintō worship. These men, in rows of two or three, served as the advance guard for the hearse. Other officials followed, and the hearse itself was preceded by fifty Yase no dōji in two ranks.27 Officials, including chamberlains, who had personally served the late emperor walked close to the hearse and directly behind them came other chamberlains. Next came twenty-eight generals, admirals, field officers, captains, and commanders, guarding the flanks, and behind them members of the nobility, headed by Prince Kotohito, representing the emperor, Prince Sadanaru, the commissioner in chief of the imperial funeral, other princes of the blood and lesser princes, and Yi Kang, the elder son of the former emperor of Korea. They in turn were followed by members of the nobility, the prime minister, members of the cabinet, the governor general of Korea, high-ranking army and navy officers, and other civil and military officials, all in full dress.

  The Tōkyō municipal authorities had hastily repaired the streets to be taken by the hearse and sprinkled them with white sand. Along the route were branches of sakaki, brocade pennants, gas beacons, and arc lanterns and in between, white and black cloths twisted into ropes. Before each building the procession passed, a white lantern was hung as a mark of grief and as a farewell to the late emperor. The area of the funeral services, although it was extremely crowded with mourners, was pervaded by a reverential silence.

  The hearse arrived at 10:56 P.M. at the Aoyama funeral hall. Officers representing the emperor, empress, and empress dowager went out to meet the hearse which, after passing through the first and second torii, was taken into a curtained enclosure in front of the funeral hall. Here the oxen were released from the shafts of the hearse, and the coffin was carried into the funeral hall. Presently the curtains opened, and the emperor and empress entered the temporary shrine, followed by an officer representing the empress dowager, Prince Arthur of Connaught (representing the king of England), ambassadors, and special delegates. All took their seats, and the ceremony began.

  A Shintō prayer (norito) was read. After this the new emperor left his seat, approached the coffin, bowed, and read the funeral eulogy prepared by Katsura Tarō. The emperor’s voice was low and filled with sorrow. Those present sobbed with grief as they listened. A roar of cannons echoed through the capital, a signal for the city to observe a moment of silent prayer. Sixty million people bowed in distant worship. The services ended at 12:45 on the morning of September 14.28

  That night as the imperial hearse was leaving the palace, General Nogi Maresuke and his wife, Shizuko, committed junshi (suicide following one’s lord) at their residence. Nogi had set a small desk beside a window facing in the direction of the palace, covered it with white cloth, and placed above it a portrait of the late emperor and an offering of sakaki. Both Nogi and his wife left poems of mourning for the emperor. He also left this farewell poem (jisei):

  utsushiyo wo In longing for

  kamisarimashishi The great god who, as a god,

  ōkami no Has departed from,

  mi ato shitaite This transient world of ours,

  ware wa yuku nari I shall follow his traces.29

  Nogi slit his abdomen with his military sword and then stabbed his throat, falling over forward. His wife stabbed her heart with a dagger.

  Nogi’s farewell note explained that feelings of shame about the loss of a regimental flag during the Satsuma Rebellion had make him court danger at the time, hoping to make amends for losing the flag by his death but that death had eluded him.30 During the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, he had again hoped to be killed but had been denied an opportunity. During the Russo-Japanese War, tens of thousands of men, including his own two sons, had died in the attacks he ordered on Port Arthur. He felt deeply ashamed about the loss of His Majesty’s “children,” but the emperor, not blaming him, had appointed him after the war to head the Gakushū-in.

  Nogi felt more than ever the depth of the emperor’s solicitude, and he regretted that in his old age he had so little time left to repay this kindness. During the emperor’s last illness he had gone every day to the palace to offer his respects and to pray for the emperor’s recovery, but to no avail. The death of the emperor had caused him such profound grief that he had decided to offer his life as an expression of loyalty to the holy spirit of the emperor.

  Years earlier, on the day of his triumphal return to Tōkyō after the Russo-Japanese War, Nogi had expressed to the emperor his desire to commit seppuku by way of making amends for the loss of the many officers and men who died in the attacks he ordered at Port Arthur. The emperor at first said nothing, but as Nogi was leaving, the emperor called to him and said, “I understand very well the feelings that make you want to apologize by committing seppuku, but this is not the time for you to die. If you insist on killing yourself, let it be after I have departed this world.”31

  It is reported that when word of Nogi’s suicide reached the Aoyama funeral hall, everyone was stunned by his display of nobility and unswerving loyalty.32 Mori Ōgai, who at first doubted that Nogi had really committed suicide, when he learned that the rumors were true wrote during the next four days “Okitsu Yagoemon no isho” (The Last Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon). The central theme of this short work is the junshi of a samurai who follows his master in death. The story suggests that Ōgai felt unqualified admiration for Yagoemon’s decision to prove by his suicide the depth of his grief; but in his next story, “Abe no ichizoku” (The Abe Clan), Ōgai seemed less certain about the desirability of junshi. In this story, he told how many men who had only indirect connections with the late daimyo, or even none at all, killed themselves, acting as if they were doing merely what was expected of them.

  The resolve of a samurai to display in an unanswerable manner the depth of his loyalty to his late master was usually praised. But if all the most capable and trusted retainers of a deceased daimyo were to commit suicide, the daimyo’s heir would be deprived of their guidance. Suicide, even if nobly motivated, might be irresponsible. A vogue for junshi in the seventeenth century had in fact inspired a decree stating that anyone who killed himself without authorization would be considered to have died like a dog. The prohibition had been incorporated in the Laws for the Military Houses, as revised in 1782.33

  Nogi’s suicide was in contravention of this law, but this was not why it was criticized. Katō Hiroyuki, the last surviving member of the Meirokusha, a group of intellectuals who had promoted “enlightenment” during the early years of the Meiji era, commented that although people in the past might have admired the general’s action, it was now an anachronism. He asked why this fanatically loyal man had not considered offering his loyalty to the new emperor. The military clique, perhaps fearing that other officers might emulate Nogi’s junshi, attempted to conceal his motivation, attributing his suicide to mental derangement.34 The most frequent criticism of Nogi’s suicide was that it had deprived Meiji’s heir of his guidance. Although no one said so plainly, Taishō’s education had been hampered not only by his physical ailments but also by his teachers’ inability to give sufficient guidance to a difficult child. The emperor hoped that Taish
ō’s sons would benefit by the inspiration provided by a man of absolute rectitude. This was why he had chosen Nogi as the president of Gakushū-in, but now that he was dead, the three princes could not benefit from his influence.

  The reasons Nogi gave for his suicide were probably sincere, but they seemed to belong to another era. Other officers had lost regimental flags without feeling obliged to expiate their guilt by suicide, and gratitude to the late emperor for his kindness need not have been expressed by self-immolation. All the same, Nogi’s death reminded most Japanese of the old samurai virtues. Others remained skeptical or even hostile. This was particularly true of the writers of the Shirakaba school, men who had studied at Gakushū-in. Mushakōji Saneatsu published an article denouncing Nogi’s suicide as “an act that could be praised only by the warped intelligence of men who have been nurtured on thought shaped by a warped age through a misuse of nature.”35 He contrasted Nogi’s suicide, which he said was totally lacking in human qualities, with Van Gogh’s, which revealed the nature of humanity.

  Shiga Naoya’s first reaction to Nogi’s suicide, as recorded in his diary entry for September 14, was, “What an idiot!” the same kind of feeling aroused in him when he heard a maid had done something stupid. On the next day he described Nogi’s suicide as “a surrender to temptation.”36

  Criticism of Nogi’s act was by no means restricted to former Gakushū-in students. The kanshi poet Nagai Ussai’s sarcastic poem “Loyalty” contains these lines:

  General Nogi was a model of loyalty,

  Emperor Meiji the embodiment of saintly majesty.

  If the general knew proper behavior, who did not?

  Unfortunately, the court is unaware of tradition …

  Warriors in the middle ages gladly performed the act,

  But junshi was never a custom of the court

  Who would have guessed a mighty general

  Would behave like a eunuch or a priest’s concubine?37

  Even the newspapers were at first by no means unanimous in praising Nogi’s suicide. Some criticized him for failing to fulfill his duty of receiving guests of state like Prince Arthur of Connaught; others, for not serving the new emperor. But two days later the tone changed. On September 16 the journalist Kuroiwa Ruikō (1862–1920) wrote of General Nogi, “Should the people worship him as a god? Yes, if he is not worshiped, who should be worshiped? … Truly General Nogi was a god.” On September 19 the Tōkyō nichinichi shimbun, expressing regrets over Nogi’s death, asked whom future people would take as the model of the ideal Japanese and answered, comparing him with Kusonoki Masashige, that it would be Nogi Maresuke. From this time on, Nogi became the incarnation of loyalty to the emperor, a legendary hero whom it was impossible to criticize.38 Nogi was worshiped as the perfect exemplar of a soldier’s loyalty and devotion to the imperial house.

  At 1:40 on the morning of September 14, a few hours after Nogi committed suicide, the coffin containing the emperor’s body was placed aboard a special train that would take it to Kyōto. The train consisted of seven cars. The middle one carried the coffin, and the mourners, headed by Prince Kotohito and Prince Sadanaru, rode in the remaining cars. The train stopped for a few minutes at each of the principal stations between Tōkyō and Kyōto. At the stations and even along the tracks between stations, crowds bowed in reverence. The train reached Momoyama at 5:10 that afternoon. Guns of the Twenty-second Field Artillery Regiment fired minute salutes as the coffin neared its destination, and the army and navy bands, lined up along the way, played “Kanashimi no kiwami.”

  One hundred five yase no dōji in two ranks were the pallbearers, and alongside them walked high-ranking army and navy officers who had personally served the late emperor and his chamberlains. At 7:35 that evening, the procession arrived at the funeral pavilion. The rain, which had been falling for some time, cleared, and there was faint moonlight. The coffin was moved from the palanquin in which it had traveled and taken to the graveside, where it was placed inside a stone sarcophagus. After personal possessions of the late emperor had been placed inside the sarcophagus, the lid was closed. Haniwa depicting the generals of the four directions were placed at the corners of the grave, and a stone marker with the words “Fushimi Momoyama Ryō” in the hand of Prince Sadanaru was erected. Prince Sadanaru, stepping forward to the grave, bowed three times and placed clean earth on the sarcophagus. Last, he covered the top of the sarcophagus with pure sand.

  The burial was completed at 7 A.M. on the morning of September 15. By 9:55, the entire service had ended.39

  Chapter 63

  Emperor Meiji, unlike most of the Japanese emperors who had reigned during the previous 500 years, was not forgotten after his death. Because his name was derived from the nengō, it inevitably appeared in the titles of the many studies of the Meiji Restoration and later Meiji history; and references to “Meiji culture,” “Meiji thought,” and the like abound, even in books that do not mention the emperor.

  The events of the Meiji period have been studied from every conceivable angle by scholars fascinated by the extraordinary changes that occurred in Japan during the half century following the opening of the country in the 1860s. The emperor himself has been made the object of research much less frequently. During his lifetime, he was idolized by the mass of the people, less as a man with distinct attributes than as the motivating force behind the transformation of Japan from an obscure oriental monarchy into a modern nation ranking as one of the great powers. After his death he was elevated to the ranks of the gods and duly worshiped, especially at the great shrine in Tōkyō named after him. His birthday, November 3, proclaimed a national holiday, came to be considered among the most important celebrations of the entire year.1

  With the steady dwindling number of Japanese who lived and worked during his reign, Meiji tended to become mainly a name, and his achievements were often confused with those of the military and civil officials who served him. He is still popularly remembered, for example, in terms of his heroic role in leading the country to victory in the wars with China and Russia, even though in fact his role in both wars was minor. Although he has not been forgotten, most Japanese would have trouble naming a single deed that indubitably should be credited to the emperor.

  Not only have memories of the man faded, but many of the buildings that stood as tangible reminders of his reign have disappeared. Some were destroyed during the great earthquake of 1923 or the bombings of 1945, but even more were the victims of later generations of Japanese less interested in preserving the past than in accruing commercial profits. The Rokumeikan, the emblematic building of the Meiji era, was razed in 1941. The rows of red brick buildings in front of Tōkyō Station that seemed to represent the hopes entertained by Japanese of the late Meiji era that Tōkyō might one day achieve the commercial success of London, survived the war, only to be condemned afterward as inefficient and to be torn down. Other relics of the era have been moved to Meiji Village, where examples of city architecture are tastefully grouped in bosky surroundings.

  Each New Year, the Meiji Shrine attracts the greatest number of worshipers of any shrine or temple in Japan, but probably no more than a handful of those who fight their way to the altar, hoping that theirs will be a record-breaking crowd, recall the enshrined emperor as they bow, asking his blessings in the year to come. Meiji’s tomb in Kyōto is generally deserted. Meiji and his era grow more and more remote, as this often-quoted haiku by the poet Nakamura Kusatao suggests:

  furu yuki ya The falling snow—

  Meiji wa tōku Meiji has receded

  narinikeri Into the distance.

  It is the task of the biographer to make his subject come alive again. Leon Edel, the celebrated biographer of Henry James, once said that a biographer must “fall in love” with his subject. It is hard to fall in love with Meiji, who even in his most informal moments never forgot himself or his ancestors and rarely revealed his feelings. Many accounts relate how the emperor at a party kept drinking as long as there was any
liquor on the table and then staggered off. Such anecdotes provide a “human” touch to the portrait of the emperor, but in the end they prove only the uninteresting fact that like millions of other Japanese, he enjoyed drinking saké. They do not make us feel any closer to him. The gossip about his affairs with anonymous women, including those allegedly provided by hosts during his travels, is equally unilluminating.

  Meiji seems almost to repel attempts by a biographer to come closer. Perhaps we would feel differently if those who knew him best had not been so reluctant to write down their memories. Obviously, Empress Shōken would never have revealed details of her married life (for example, how she felt about the various gon ni tenji), nor could we expect that the future Emperor Taishō would explain the causes of his strained relations with his father, but we would know Meiji much better if Fujinami Kototada had related what it was like to be the emperor’s friend or if Sono Sachiko, the mother of his last eight children, had indicated if this seemingly cold and distant man had a warmer side.

  It may be that there was no other side to Meiji than the one that could be observed in public. He was a stoic who rarely expressed preferences and almost never complained of heat, cold, fatigue, hunger, or the other afflictions of ordinary men. He was almost ostentatiously impassive. A chamberlain recorded that during maneuvers when cannons were fired, he refused to stuff cotton into his ears, even though every member of his staff took this precaution.2

  Meiji’s indifference to comfort has been ascribed to his Confucian training, but this training was essentially the same as that received by his father and by other members of the court, yet none of them resembled Meiji in his stoicism. Unlike his father, he seldom gave way to anger or acted in a manner that might be termed arbitrary or irresponsible. He seems to have possessed some inner force that enabled him to follow with rare deviations a code of behavior that was his own creation. He followed this code to the very end, when he painfully dragged himself to the Tōkyō University graduation exercises and to a session of the Privy Council. He was unwilling to admit, even to himself, that he was in pain.