Emperor of Japan
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18. A third party, the Chūritsu (or Neutral) Party, eventually sided with the government forces.
19. Mōri Toshihiko, Etō Shimpei, p. 202.
20. Soejima was also asked to return to Saga, but he yielded to Itagaki’s strong pressure to remain in Tokyo (Mōri, Etō, p. 205). Etō, disregarding Itagaki’s (and Ōkuma’s) advice, went.
21. Nakano Yoshio shared my bewilderment over the reasons for Etō’s decision (“Saga no ran to Etō Shimpei,” p. 213).
22. Nakano, “Saga no ran,” p. 215. Etō did not elaborate on what a “second ishin” would involve, but it may have included seikan.
23. Mōri, Etō, p. 206.
24. Sonoda, Etō, pp. 154–55. A shorter form of what is essentially the same statement is in Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 212. The Chōshū war is discussed in chapter 21.
25. Sonoda, Etō, p. 156. Etō had received assurances from men not only from these two prefectures but also from Aichi and Kumamoto. See also Nakano, “Saga no ran,” p. 216.
26. Evidence suggests that Nakayama Ichirō, whom Etō sent to see Saigō Takamori in Kagoshima, reported back that if Saga rose in rebellion, Saigō’s party would follow its lead, but it seems hardly possible that Saigō would have committed himself in this way (Nakano, “Saga no ran,” p. 216).
27. Sonoda gives a paraphrase of Etō’s statement on this occasion (Etō, pp. 194–95). He said that unless the army were disbanded, every man of the rank of corporal and above would be killed by the government army. He asked that they put aside their military garb, scatter through the region, and await the time (which would certainly come) for a second uprising.
28. Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 221–24. For a detailed account of the fighting, see Sonoda, Etō, pp. 163–90.
29. The details are given in Sonoda, Etō, p. 200. Etō’s opens: “Age 41. Tall and rather heavy. Long face with high cheek bones. Eyebrows thick and long.”
30. Kido remarked ironically that “what we are advocating now, Etō was advocating last year.” He seems to have been equating Etō’s eagerness to conquer Korea with the Japanese war of conquest in Taiwan that was then being waged (quoted in Sonoda, Etō, p. 205).
31. Sonoda, Etō, pp. 190–91.
32. Ibid., p. 207.
33. Ibid., p. 208.
34. This is what he told his servant, urging him to return home lest he become implicated in the crime of rebellion (Sonoda, Etō, p. 209).
35. The text of the letter is in Sonoda, Etō, p. 210. Although the envelope was addressed to Iwakura only, the letter itself also bears the names of Kido, Ōkubo, Ōkuma, and Ōki as addressees. The sender’s name on the envelope was part of the alias that Etō used in his guise as a secret agent, but his real name was given in the letter.
36. Sonoda, Etō, p. 211.
37. He was captured on March 7 (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 239).
38. Sonoda, Etō, p. 219. The wording of Etō’s outburst varies somewhat according to the source.
39. Sagi Ryū zō, Shihōkyō Etō Shimpei, p. 408. Nakano states that the Tōkyō nichinichi shimbun denounced the sale in Kyūshū of photographs of the severed heads of Etō and Shima (“Saga no ran,” p. 218). He said that he was reluctant to believe that Ōkubo was behind this but that there were rumors to this effect.
40. In his diary for April 2, 1874, Kido Takayoshi wrote, “Today was the day for members to affix their seals to the resolution on Taiwan; therefore, I told the two Ministers of State, Sanjō and Iwakura, that I am refusing to sign. The reason is, as I observed in my statement in response to the Imperial inquiry last year, that in surveying the present condition of the country I am conscious of the poverty of the people. We should devote ourselves exclusively to domestic administration, and to advancing the people’s living standards, and afterwards, it will not be too late to undertake an overseas expedition.”
41. Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 234–35.
42. Ibid., 3, pp. 243–44.
43. Ibid., 3, p. 245.
44. The American ship the Shaftsbury was renamed the Sharyō maru, and the British ship the Delta was renamed Takasago maru. Both names refer to Taiwan: Sharyō was the port the Japanese would use for their expedition, and Takasago was the name the Japanese gave to the natives of the island (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 259).
45. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 280.
46. Ibid., 3, p. 282.
47. Ibid., 3, p. 325.
48. Ibid., 3, pp. 368–73.
Chapter 26
1. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 377.
2. He was at the time an officer of the Ministry of Education (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 378).
3. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 383.
4. The daughter of the nobleman Yanagihara Mitsunaru (Meiji tennō ki, 2, p. 292). She was appointed as gon no tenji on February 20, 1873. She bore Meiji four children; three of them died, but the remaining one was the future Emperor Taishō.
5. Earlier in the same month a series of regulations had been formulated concerning the ceremonies to be observed after the birth of a prince or princess. They prescribed that in keeping with the practice in the imperial family ever since the time of Emperor Seiwa, male children should have names ending in -hito and female children names ending in -ko (Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 384–85).
6. It had long been the custom to bestow on courtesans names derived from the female characters in The Tale of Genji. Originally, this may have been to give merchants who bought the favors of prostitutes the impression that they, like Genji in ancient times, had slept with Murasaki no Ue or Rokujō no Miyasudokoro. Meiji bestowed on his ladies the names of plants and trees. These names were used by both the emperor and the court ladies themselves when calling one another. In addition to their Genji names, the ladies had nicknames, also bestowed by the emperor.
7. Saitō Keishū, Jokan monogatari, pp. 91, 93.
8. Katō Hitoshi, “Meiji tennō o-tsubone go-rakuin den,” p. 60.
9. Yamakawa Michiko, “Kindan no jokan seikatsu kaisōki,” p. 196.
10. Yamakawa Michiko, Jokan, p. 16.
11. Katō, “Meiji,” p. 60. The senior court lady (jokanchō) during much of Meiji’s lifetime, Takakura Kazuko, seems to have been a redoubtable figure. She would inform the gon no tenji she had chosen as the emperor’s companion for the night, “Kyō wa, anata” (It’s your turn today).
12. When Yamakawa Michiko entered the emperor’s service in 1909, Ogura Fumiko and Sono Sachiko were the only two women who shared the emperor’s bed.
13. Yamakawa, “Kindan no jokan,” p. 196. She quotes an unnamed aged woman who served Yanagihara Naruko for many years. The woman recalled that Naruko’s hysteria was such that not only the other palace ladies but even the nurses ran from her.
14. Yanagihara Naruko was one of seven gon no tenji portrayed by the ukiyoe artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in a series of prints published in 1878. All the women are beautiful in much the same way, but Naruko’s picture offended the Ministry of the Imperial Household because her pose recalled those of the courtesans Yo-shitoshi so often depicted. (The print is reproduced in Impressions, no. 21, 1999.) It is said that consequently, ukiyoe artists were henceforth forbidden to depict the emperor in their prints, but if such an order was actually issued, it was frequently disobeyed in later years.
15. For details, see Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 623.
16. Ibid., 3, p. 405.
17. Ibid., 3, p. 406. The expression was derived from the Chinese historical work Tso Chuan. If China fell, Japan would feel the Siberian cold from Russia.
18. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 407.
19. Ōkubo Toshiaki, Iwakura Tomomi, pp. 218–19.
20. The emperor gave Sanjō a memorandum urging Saigō to return and, as a loyal subject, to take part in reviving the spirits of the people and planning for a prosperous and militarily strong country (Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 427–28).
21. Genrō-in was a translation of “Senate.” It was expected to perform legislative and advisory functions. The Taishin-in was the highest judicial court.
23. Ibid., 3, p. 436.
24. Ibid., 3, pp. 444–45. The treaty was signed on May 7 by Enomoto Takeaki, representing Japan, and Duke Alexander Gorchakov.
25. The decision was issued by the czar on May 29 (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 453). Despite this welcome development, many Japanese continued to believe that Russian expansion in East Asia was the chief menace to Japanese security.
26. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 473.
27. Iwakura, exasperated by Shimazu Hisamitsu’s obsessive insistence on what Iwakura considered to be trifles, decided not to meet him again (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 498). Hisamitsu nursed a secret plan for correcting the woes of the time: it was to adopt the policy of Emperor Hsüan Tsung of the T’ang dynasty who, after putting down a rebellion, had strictly forbidden luxury and had commanded that all elegant things be burned (p. 500). When Iwakura heard of this “secret plan,” he merely laughed.
28. For Korean interpretations of the incident and its place in the chain of events leading to the treaty between Japan and Korea, see Kan Je-on, Chōsen no jōi to kaika, pp. 140–42, 163–71.
29. Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 496–97. Other sources give somewhat different dates. The place where the boat from the Un’yō attempted to land was directly in front of the main gun emplacements on the island, an obvious challenge to the Korean defenders (Kan, Chōsen, p. 164).
30. For press coverage in Japan of the incident (which undoubtedly affected public opinion), see Kinebuchi Nobuo, Nikkan kōshō shi, pp. 30–48.
31. Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 520–22.
32. Ibid., 3, pp. 541–42.
33. Woonsang Choi, The Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, p. 6. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 568, gives two platoons, not three companies, of marines. The two warships were the Nisshin and Mōshun.
34. Choi, Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, pp. 6–7.
35. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 569.
36. A translation of the treaty is in Choi, Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, pp. 124–27. It was in twelve articles. The fourth article provided that trade should be continued at the Wakan at Pusan without restricting it to the Tsushima Domain. Two other ports would be opened “for commercial intercourse with Japanese subjects.”
37. Joseph H. Longford, The Evolution of New Japan, p. 105.
38. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 578.
39. Ibid., 3, pp. 584–85.
40. The site of the villa, near the present Komagome Station, is marked by a stone pillar with an inscription commemorating Meiji’s visit.
41. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 590.
42. Kido Takayoshi noted in his diary, “I am the first shizoku whose villa His Majesty has chosen to visit. Nine years ago I was summoned into the Imperial Presence, the first man without court rank to be honored with an Imperial audience” (diary entry, April 11, 1876, in Sidney DeVere Brown and Akiko Hirota, trans., The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, 3, p. 281).
43. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 606.
44. Diary entry, May 19, 1876, in Brown and Hirota, trans., Diary, 3, p. 297.
45. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 599.
46. The journey is described in great detail in a series of accounts given in Yoshino Sakuzō, Meiji bunka zenshū, 1, pp. 341–572. See also Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 614–81.
47. Kishida Ginkō, “Tōhoku go-junkō ki,” p. 342; Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 616.
48. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 646. The portrait of Hasekura is no doubt the one now displayed in the Sendai Museum.
49. On July 11, however, much to Kido’s relief, the emperor walked some 100 yards down a steep hill (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 664).
Chapter 27
1. Shinpū is the on reading of characters usually pronounced kamikaze. The members took this name for their organization by way of signifying that they, like the “divine wind” that had foiled the Mongol invasion, would protect Japan from harm.
2. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 709. The ideal of the Jitsugaku-tō, derived from its mentor, Yokoi Shōnan, was the creation of an American-style democracy.
Despite the prominent activity of its samurai nationalists, Kumamoto was also known for its Christian thought. In 1876, the same year as the Shinpūren rebellion, the “Kumamoto Band,” a group of thirty-five young men who had been converted to Christianity by L. L. Janes, an American teacher, swore an oath to save their country through Christianity. For more about Janes, see F. G. Notehelfer, American Samurai.
3. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 710. For the text of the manifesto composed (and read aloud to Shinpūren members) by Kaya Harukata, see Araki Seishi, Shinpūren jikki, p. 138. Among other charges, the government was attacked for seeking to ingratiate itself with the foreigners by forbidding the wearing of swords, secretly promoting the dissemination of Christianity, and intending to sell land to foreigners.
4. Ōtaguro had become the chief priest of the Shinkai daijingū in 1875 as the result of the policy of Yasuoka Ryōsuke, the governor of Kumamoto Prefecture, of appointing members of the Shinpūren as priests of the principal Shinto shrines. The rite of divination (as performed by Ōtaguro) was known as ukei. In order to obtain an oracle from the gods, three alternative courses of action were inscribed on slips of paper which were then inserted in a hollow tube. The tube was shaken, and whichever slip dropped from the tube was taken to be the will of the gods. All of the Shinpūren’s important decisions were made in this manner, and the answer vouchsafed by the gods was absolutely followed, even if it disappointed the inquirer by denying support for some action. Ōtaguro had several times been forbidden by the gods to attack the government forces before he at last receiving a command sanctioning action (Shiba Ryōtarō, Tobu ga gotoku, 6, pp. 227–28).
For the importance of ukei in the spiritual thought of the Shinpūren, see Araki, Shinpūren jikki, pp. 35–36. The mentor of the Shinpūren, Hayashi Ōen (1798–1870), wrote a study of the practice of ukei, tracing its origins back to the dispute between Amaterasu Ōmikami and Susano-o no mikoto, described in the Kojiki, over his failure to obey her command.
5. Members of the Shinpūren detested Buddhist priests and regarded them as unclean because their religion had originated outside Japan and was therefore alien.
6. These and other equally amusing examples of Shinpūren fanaticism are given in Kobayakawa Hideo, Kesshi Kumamoto keishintō, pp. 22–23. The author, although generally sympathetic to the Shinpūren, described such actions as “sick” (byōteki).
7. Mishima Yukio gives a highly dramatic account of the Shinpūren, from the time Ōtaguro first sought permission from the gods to stage his uprising until the final defeat (Homba, pp. 458–504). Mishima’s account cannot be accepted as historical evidence, but he had evidently read widely in the surviving materials.
8. Shiba, Tobu, 7, p. 42.
9. Their name, meaning “shield and castle unit,” indicated their determination to protect their lord (presumably the emperor) from all enemies.
10. They evidently did not know that the rebellion in Kumamoto had failed.
11. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 712. Hōkoku means literally “repaying [one’s] country.”
12. Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 713.
13. Ibid., 3, p. 715. Junkoku means “to die for one’s country.”
14. Meiji tennō ki, 3, pp. 742–44.
15. Diary entry, January 4, 1877, in Sidney DeVere Brown and Akiko Hirota, trans., The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, 3, p. 419. For the text of the emperor’s brief announcement, see Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 4.
16. Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 6.
17. The announcement of the forthcoming journey was made on November 22, 1876 (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 729).
18. Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 30.
19. The text and prefatory material are from Shinshū Meiji tennō gyōshū, 1, p. 45. The poems are in reverse order in Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 19.
20. Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 21.
21. Shinshū Meiji tennō gyōshū, 1, p. 46. Both the prefatory note and the poem mention “rowing” into the harbor at Toba, probabl
y a poetic term for the maneuvering of the steamship.
22. Shinshū Meiji tennō gyōshū, 1, p. 46.
23. Meiji was so upset when he saw how run-down the buildings had become during the bare eight or nine years since he had taken up residence in Tokyo that he arranged for 4,000 yen to be paid every year for their maintenance and commanded the Kyōto prefectural administration to consider how best to preserve them (Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 48).
24. The insistence that the schools were “private schools” (shigakkō) was in order to make it clear that they were not under the control of the government-sponsored educational system.
25. Paraphrase in Meiji tennō ki, 4, p. 26. In surviving examples of Saigō’s calligraphy, the maxim is given as keiten aijin (Revere heaven and love mankind), but in the private schools, sonnō, the term familiar from sonnō jōi days, was used.
26. The traditions were largely Confucian in origin, but instruction in the “private schools” did not deal with such “mainstream” Confucian works as the Four Books because it was believed they were intended for prospective officials rather than for samurai.
27. They included ten policemen (junsa) and several students, all natives of Kagoshima. These men were samurai but, being from the hinterland, were scorned by samurai stationed at Kagoshima Castle. Feeling was bitter on both sides, which no doubt was why Nakahara and the others cooperated with the central government.
28. The main points of the confession are in Saitō Nobuaki, Saigō to Meiji ishin kakumei, pp. 361–62. Nakahara had told a trusted old friend (who immediately passed on the information to his superiors) that the chief objective of his mission was to alienate samurai from the private schools. This would be easy in outlying parts of Kagoshima Prefecture but difficult within the city. The best way to destroy the private schools in the city would be to kill Saigō and his two lieutenants, Kirino Toshiaki and Shinohara Kunimoto. In his formal confession, Nakahara stated that as soon as Saigō was assassinated, a telegram would be sent to Tokyo, followed by armed intervention by the army and navy. Saitō, who believed in the veracity of the confession, admitted that it was obtained by means of torture but insisted that the use of torture was legal at the time.