KYN Shwa shoki no tenn to kych: jijjich Kawai Yahachi nikki, vols. 1–6, Takahashi Hiroshi et al., eds. (Iwanami Shoten, 1993–94). The diary of Kawai Yahachi.
MNN Makino Nobuaki nikki. It Takashi, Hirose Junkou, eds. (Ch Kronsha, 1990). The diary of Makino Nobuaki.
NH Nakazono Hiroshi, “Seit naikaku-ki ni okeru Shwa tenn oyobi sokkin no seijiteki Kd to yakuwari: Tanaka naikaku o chshin ni,” master’s thesis, Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku, Daigakuin, 1992.
Senshi ssho Japan’s official war history in 102 vols., ed. by Beich Bei Kenshjo, Senshishitsu (Asagumo Shinbunsha, 1966–80); many documents on which it is based remain closed to the public.
TN Takamatsu no miya Nobuhito Shinn, Takamatsu no miya nikki, Vols. 1–8 (Ch Kronsha, 1997). The diary of Prince Takamatsu.
TWCT The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Complete Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, edited by R. John Pritchard and Sonia Maganua Zaide (N. Y. & London: Garland, 1981). Vols. 8, 12, 13, 20, and 21 are cited in the notes.
STD Shwa tenn dokuhakuroku, Terasaki Hidenari, goygakari nikki, Terasaki Hidenari and Mariko Terasaki Miller, eds. (Bungei Shunjsha, 1991).
INTRODUCTION
1. Adding to Hirohito’s stress, by reminding him of the insecurity of monarchs in the wake of lost wars, were press reports on the forthcoming general election in Italy, which would determine not only the fate of his former Axis ally, the fascist King Victor Emmanuel III, but decide whether Italy itself would become a republic. See Asahi shinbun, Mar. 15, Mainichi shinbun, Mar. 21, and news reports thereafter until the abolition of the Italian monarchy and establishment of a republic following the general election on June 2, 1946.
2. See Higashino Shin, Shwa tenn futatsu no ‘dokuhakuroku ’ (NHK Shuppansha, 1998), p. 158, citing historian Yoshida Yutaka.
3. “Inada Shichi ‘Bibroku’ yori bassui,” March 18, 1946, in Higashino Shin, pp. 224–25. Inada, the director of the Imperial Palace Records Bureau, probably made the original stenographic record from which all versions of the “Monologue” derive. The other participants were Hirohito’s liaison and interpreter with GHQ, Terasaki Hidenari, Imperial Household Minister Matsudaira Yasumasa, Vice–Grand Chamberlain Kinoshita Michio, and Matsudaira Yoshitami.
4. Terasaki Hidenari and Mariko Terasaki Miller, eds., Shwa tenn dokuhakuroku—Terasaki Hidenari goygakari nikki (Bungei Shunj sha, 1991), p. 136. Cited hereafter as STD .
5. “Eigoban, ‘Shwa tenn dokuhakuroku’ genbun,” in Higashino Shin, p. 212. The original is untitled and undated. Internal evidence, analyzed by Higashino, suggests that it was drafted by Terasaki Hidenari about a week after the completion of the Japanese version of the “Monologue” and presented to Gen. Bonner F. Fellers, MacArthur’s secretary, on or around April 23, 1946, the day Hirohito was scheduled to have (but at the last minute was forced to cancel) his second meeting with MacArthur.
6. No one knows the true dimensions of the human losses from World War II in Asia and the Pacific because accurate figures on war deaths were never really collected. It can be said with some certainty that China sustained the most casualties at the hand of Japan, including more than 10 million killed. The Philippines (according to official Filipino sources) suffered 1.1 million wartime deaths. Approximately 1.5 to 2 million Vietnamese died from war-related starvation. Official casualty estimates for Indonesia seem to have been buried (probably deliberately) within the figure of 4 million “forced laborers” put forward by Indonesian officials during reparations talks with Japan; famine was the main cause of their deaths. An estimated 150,000 Burmese, more than 100,000 Malaysians and residents of Singapore, 200,000 Koreans, and more than 30,000 residents of Taiwan died during or immediately after the war, including many from noncombat situations. There appear to be no official casualty figures for Pacific islanders, especially those who suffered in the jungle fighting in the Solomons and New Guinea. Australia suffered nearly 18,000 dead. More than 60,000 Allied soldiers, civilians, and prisoners of war were killed by the Japanese. Japan, the aggressor in Asia and the Pacific, suffered 3.1 million deaths, of which nearly one-third were noncombatant fatalities. Like Nazi Germany, Japan incurred gross human losses smaller than those it inflicted on some of the nations that were the objects of its aggression. Finally, huge as these Asian losses were, the European losses from the war were greater, especially in the Soviet Union, which did most of the fighting against Nazi Germany. See Otabe Yuji, Hayashi Hiroshi, and Yamada Akira, Kiiwaado Nihon no sens hanzai (Yuzankaku Shuppan, 1997), p. 54; for Soviet casualties, see John Erickson, “Soviet War Losses: Calculations and Controversies,” in John Erickson and David Dilks, eds., Barbarossa, the Axis and the Allies (Edinburgh University Press, 1994), pp. 255–77.
7. Tadokoro Izumi, Shwa tenn no waka (Sjusha, 1997), p. 11.
8. On the tenth anniversary of Hirohito’s death, the Yomiuri shinbun reported that the Imperial Household Agency had already spent over 97 million yen on the Shwa annals project and “a further 12.74 million yen was budgeted for fiscal 1999.” Daily Yomiuri (Jan. 8, 1999), p. 3.
9. Higashino Shin, p. 142. He identifies this as Record Group 331, Box 763.
10. Yasuda Hiroshi, Tenn no seijishi: Mutsuhito, Yoshihito, Hirohito no jidai (Aoki Shoten, 1998), p. 277.
11. An imperial household law, promulgated at the same time, blurred the distinction between the ancient customs and institutional practices of the imperial house and the many newly constructed ones of the Meiji era. Together with imperial ordinances, it formed a legal tradition entirely separate from parliamentary law based on the constitution. Yokota Kichi, “‘Kshitsu tempan’ shich” in Yokota Kichi et al., ed. Shch tennsei no kz: kenp gakusha ni yoru kaidoku (Nihon Hyronsha, 1990), pp. 105–106.
12. Both the oligarchs and Emperor Meiji believed that the emperor’s “right of supreme military command” did not require for its exercise the advice of any minister of state. From their viewpoint the essence of the Restoration was precisely the revival of the emperor’s position as a military monarch.
13. Kimijima Kazuhiko, “Shokuminchi ‘teikoku’ e no michi,” in Asada Kyji, ed., Kindai Nihon no kiseki 10, ‘Teikoku’ Nihon to Ajia (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1994), pp. 60–61. The fighting on Taiwan lasted for more than a decade and cost 9,592 Japanese combatant deaths.
CHAPTER 1
THE BOY, THE FAMILY, AND THE MEIJI LEGACIES
1. Kojima Noboru, Tenn 1: wakaki shinn (Bungei Shunjsha, 1980, 1989), p. 12.
2. Kawahara Toshiaki, Tenn Hirohito no Shwashi (Bungei Shunj, 1983), pp. 10–11; Hosaka Masayasu, Chichibu no miyato Shwa tenn (Bungei Shunj, 1989), p. 21; Nezu Masashi, Tenn to Shwashi, j (San Ichi Shinsha, 1988), p. 11.
3. Asukai Masamichi, Meiji taitei (Chikuma Raiburarii, 1989), p. 211.
4. In 1895 Emperor Mutsuhito allowed the German physician Erwin Baelz to begin treating Yoshihito for his various illnesses on a regular basis. See Awakening Japan: The Diary of a German Doctor: Edwin Baelz (Indiana University Press, 1974), pp. 105–6, 116, 167, 359–60, 376; Iwai Tadakuma, Meiji tenn “taitei” densetsu (Sanseid, 1997), p. 139.
5. Tanaka Sogr, Tenn no kenky (San Ichi Shob, 1974), p. 218.
6. Nezu, Tenn to Shwashi, j, p. 14.
7. Kawahara, Tenn Hirohito no Shwashi, p. 14.
8. Hosaka, Chichibu no miya to Shwa tenn, pp. 30–31.
9. Cited in Kawahara, Tenn Hirohito no Shwashi, p. 30.
10. Hosaka, Chichibu no miya to Shwa tenn, p. 26.
11. Suzuki Taka, “Kinj Tenn, unmei no tanj,” in Bungei Shunj tokushg: tenn hakusho (Oct. 1956), p. 74.
12. Takamatsu no miya Nobuhito Denki Kank Iinkai, eds., Takamatsu no miya Nobuhito shinn (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1991), p. 81.
13. Ibid., p. 72.
14. Togashi Junji, “Tenn hakusho: shirarezaru heika,” in Tenn no Shwashi, Sand Mainichi fukkokuban, kinky zkan (Feb.–April 1989), p. 88, citing Chichibu no miya, “Omoide no ki.”
15. Zaidan Hjin Chichibu no miya Kinenkai, ed., Yasuhito shinn jikki
(Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1972), p. 44.
16. Twenty-Third Annual Statistics of the City of Tokyo (Tokyo, 1927), p. 150; Historical Statistics of Japan, vol. 1 (Japan Statistical Association, 1987), p. 168.
17. Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pagentry in Modern Japan (University of California Press, 1996), pp. 128, 131; Iwai Tadakuma, Meiji tenn “taitei” densetsu, p. 156.
18. Watanabe Osamu, “Sengo seiji no nagare ni miru tenn to Nihon nash-ionarizumu no heny,” in Nihon Jyânarisuto Kaigi, ed., Yameru masu komi to Nihon (Kbunky, 1995), pp. 98–99, 100.
19. Masuda Tomoko, “Tenn: kindai,” in Nihonshi daijiten, yonkan (Heibonsha, 1994).
20. It removed the top of the military chain of command from the prime minister’s jurisdiction and deliberately weakened the prime minister’s powers in order to enhance the emperor’s. He also strengthened the independent advisory authority of ministers of state and made cabinet decisions depend on unanimous consent rather than on simple majority vote. In the final stage of his constitution making, It established a privy council to deliberate on the constitution. Although Emperor Meiji actively participated in virtually all of its meetings, it is doubtful if he really understood the enormous political and military obligations he was foisting on himself—obligations that would fall with even greater weight on the shoulders of Hirohito. For details see Minobe Tatsukichi, Chikuj kenp seigi, zen (Yhikaku, 1931), p. 523; Sakano Junji, “Naikaku,” in Nihonshi daijiten, dai gokan (Heibonsha, 1993), pp. 289–90; Masuda Tomoko, “Meiji rikken kunshusei ni okeru Smitsuin,” in Rekishi to chiri 355(March 1985), pp. 1–14; and Tanaka, Tenn no kenky, p. 168.
21. Mitani Taichir, “The Establishment of Party Cabinets, 1898–1932,” in Peter Duus, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6, The Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 55–86.
22. Iwai, Meiji tenn “taitei” densetsu, pp. 85–86.
23. Masuda, “Tenn: kindai,” p. 1243.
24. It Hirobumi, Commentary on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan (1906; reprint, Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 7.
25. First used in an official document in 1881, shinmin became a legal term only in 1889. Until 1946, an unusually strong sense of “subjecthood” distinguished Japan from other nation-states. See Asukai, “Meiji tenn, ‘ktei’ to ‘tenshi’ no aida: sekai rekkye no chsen,” in Nishikawa Nagao and Matsuya Hideharu, eds., Bakumatsu, Meiji-ki no kokumin kokka keisei to bunka heny (Shinshsha, 1995), p. 46.
26. For the text of the Education Rescript, see David J. Lu, Sources of Japanese History, vol. 2 (McGraw-Hill, 1974), pp. 70–71.
27. Asukai Masamichi, “Kindai tennz no; tenkai,” in Asao Naohiro et al., eds., Iwanami kza, Nihon tsshi, kindai 2, dai 17 kan (Iwanami Shoten, 1994), p. 246.
28. Ienaga Sabur, “Nihon no minshushugi,” in Ienaga, ed., Gendai Nihon shis taikei 3, minshushugi (Chikuma Shob, 1965), pp. 24–25.
29. Yasuda Hiroshi, “The Modern Emperor System Before and After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95,” in Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture 59 (Th Gakkai, 1990), p. 57.
30. Wakamori Tar, Tennsei no rekishi shinri (Kbund, 1973), pp. 199–200.
31. Ishida Takeshi, Meiji seiji shisshi kenky (Miraisha, 1954), chaps. 1, 2.
32. Quoted in Brian Victoria, Zen at War (Weatherhill, 1997), p. 44, citing Kashiwagi Ryuho, Taigyaku jiken to Uchiyama Gud (JCA Shuppan, 1979), pp. 198–201. I have altered the translation slightly.
33. Masuda, “Meiji rikkensei to tenn,” pp. 120–21.
34. Yasuda, Tenn n seijishi, pp. 150–51.
35. Yoshida, “Nihon no guntai,” in Asao Naohiro et al., eds., Iwanami kza, Nihon tsshi, kindai 2, dai 17 kan, p. 153.
36. e Shinobu, p. 84; Yoshida, “Nihon no guntai,” p. 154.
37. Yoshida, “Nihon no guntai,” pp. 156–57.
38. Yi O Un Den Kankkai, Ei shinn Yi Un denki (Kyei Shob, 1978), pp. 78, 83, 89; Yoshida Kichi, “Nihon no Kankoku tji ni okeru Kankoku kshitsu no sonzai.” 1992 nendo Hitotsubashi daigaku, shakai gakubu, gakushi ronbun (January 1993, unpublished), pp. 28–31; and Chichibu no miya Kinenkai, Yoshihito shinn jiseki shiry (n.p., 1952), pp. 14–15. After It’s assassination, Meiji’s frequent audiences with Yi Un seem to have ended.
39. H. D. Harootunian, “Introduction,” in B. S. Silberman and H. D. Harootunian, eds., Japan in Crisis: Essays in Taish Democracy (Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 6–7.
40. Takamatsu no miya Nobuhito shinn, p. 68.
41. Fujiwara Akira, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens (Aoki Shoten, 1991), p. 11.
42. Nezu, Tenn to Shwashi, j, p. 14.
43. Watanabe Osamu, Sengo seiji shi no naka no tennsei (Aoki Shoten, 1990), p. 395.
44. Nagazumi Torahiko, Shwa tenn to watakushi (Gakush Kenkysha, 1992), p. 41. Starting in 1927 and continuing for the rest of his working life, Nagazumi served Hirohito as chamberlain, vice grand chamberlain, and chief ritualist.
45. Iwai, Meiji tenn—“taitei” densetsu, pp. 138–39.
46. Nezu, p.14; Kanroji Osanaga, Sebiro no tenn (Tzai Bunmeisha, 1957), p. 57; take Shichi, Tenn no gakk: Shwa no teigaku to Takanawa ogakumonjo (Bungei Shunj, 1986), pp. 248–49.
47. Yoshida Yutaka, Shwa tenn no shsenshi (Iwanami Shinsho, 1992), p. 224.
48. Nagazumi, pp. 39–40; the prayer room was also used for purposes of admonishment.
49. Ogasawara notes Hirohito’s visit in 1916 to the crematorium of Emperor Juntoku, who had been sent into exile on Sado for participating in the Shky Disturbance of the early thirteenth century. See Ogasawara Naganari, “Sessh no miya denka no goktoku,” in Taiy (Jan. 1, 1922), p. 5.
50. Suzuki Masayuki, Kindai no tenn: Iwanami bukkuretto shiriizu, Nihon kindaishi 13 (Iwanami Shoten, 1992), p. 44.
51. Yoshida, pp. 223–24.
52. Ibid., p. 224.
53. That year Hirohito received Japan’s highest award, the Grand Order of the Chrysanthemum, in the form of a little button. When Chichibu saw Hirohito in his special uniform with the button on it, he was jealous and said to him, “You’re not that important. You don’t even have the Order of the Golden Kite or a medal from a foreign country.” The gentle rivalry and tension between the brothers would continue into their adulthood. See Togashi Junji, “Tenn hakusho: shirarezaru heika,” p. 88.
54. Yasuda Hiroshi, “Kindai tennsei ni okeru kenryoku to ken’i: Taish demokurashii-ki no ksatsu,” in Bunka hyron, No. 357 (Oct. 1990), p. 179.
55. Yasuda, tenn no seijishi, p. 159.
56. Ibid., pp. 164–65.
57. Suzuki Masayuki, Kshitsu seido: Meiji kara sengo made (Iwanami Shinsho, No. 289, 1993), p. 138; Mitani Taichir, Kindai Nihon no sens to seiji (Iwanami Shoten, 1997), p. 43.
58. Mitani Taichir, “Taish demokurashii to Washinton taisei, 1915–1930,” in Hosoya Chihiro, ed., Nichi-Bei kankei tsshi (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1995), p. 78.
59. Hosaka, Chichibu no miya to Shwa tenn, p. 46.
60. Yamaga Sok’s Chk jijitsu [True facts of the central realm], printed in 1669, extolled Shinto teachings, asserted the innate superiority of the Japanese people, and claimed that Japan’s early emperors had realized an ideal government. The other book was Miyake Kanran’s Chk kangen. Notions of reverence for the Imperial House permeated both works. See Takamatsu no miya Nobuhito, p. 84.
61. Uchikawa Yoshimi et al., Taish nysu jiten, dai ikkan (Mainichi Komyunikshion Shuppan Jigybu, 1986), p. 621.
62. Asahi shinbun, Sept. 20, 1912, cited in Taish nysu jiten, p. 629.
63. Taish nysu jiten, dai ikkan, p. 620; Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 221.
64. Okada Hisashi, Senjinkun to Nihon seishin (Gunji Kyiku Kenkykai, 1942), p. 320.
65. Asahi shinbun, Sept. 14, 1912.
66. Shinano Mainichi shinbun, Sept. 19 and 20, 1912, cited in Taish nysujiten, pp. 627–29.
67. Asahi shinbun, Sept. 15, 1912.
68. Tsurumi Shunsuke, Nakagawa Roppei, eds., Tenn hyakuwa, j (Chikum
a Shob, 1989), pp. 58–59.
69. Tokoro Isao, “Shwa tenn ga mananda ‘kokushi’ kykasho,” Bungei shunj (Feb. 1990), p. 131; Tanaka Hiromi, “Shwa tenn no teigaku,” This Is Yomiuri (Apr. 1992), pp.87–106. Prince Chichibu embarked on an army career after graduating from the Peers’ School; Prince Takamatsu pursued a naval career; Prince Mikasa graduated from the Army College in 1941.
70. The Ogakumonjo was located on the site of the Edo mansion of the Hosokawa daimy, where in 1703 ishi Yoshio and sixteen others of the famous forty-seven rnin of the Ak fiefdom were interred and committed suicide after they had avenged the death of their lord Asano. The incidents took place from 1701 to 1703 and were later dramatized for the puppet and Kabuki theaters.
71. On Capt. Alfred T. Mahan and Japan, see Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of U.S.–Japan Relations (W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 56; Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right (Hill & Wang, 1995), pp. 84–87.
72. On Prince Fushimi, see Hata Ikuhiko, ed., Nihon rikukaigun sg jiten (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991), p. 228; Nomura Minoru, Tenn, Fushimi no miya to Nihon kaigun (Bungei Shunj, 1988), p. 55.
73. On Ugaki see Hata, ed., Nihon rikukaigun sg jiten, p. 22; Inoue Kiyoshi, Ugaki Kazushige (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1975).
74. Nara Takeji, “Nara Takeji kaikoroku (san),” manuscript, pp. 298–99.
75. Anatol Rappaport, “Introduction” to Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Penguin Books, 1968), p. 28; C. L. Glaser and C. Kaufmann, “What Is the Offense-Defense Balance and Can We Measure It?” in International Security 22, no. 4 (Spring 1998), p. 54, n. 35, citing Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Harvard University Press, 1987).
76. Yamada Akira, Gunbi kakuchon no kindaishi: Nihongun no kakuchot hkai (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1997), pp. 37–40.
77. Nagazumi, p. 74.
78. Ibid. , pp. 57–67.
79. Tanaka Hiromi, “Shwa tenn no teigaku,” in This Is Yomiuri (April 1992), pp. 97–100. Kojima, Tenn, dai ikkan, p. 85.
80. Both as regent and emperor, Hirohito bestowed gifts and accolades on the kzoku, hosted them at his annual birthday dinner, and at New Year’s celebrations received them in audience, allowing certain kzoku to attend imperial lectures. Author’s interview with Professor Yamashina (Asano) Yoshimasa, Tokyo, July 10, 1993; Tanaka Nobumasa, Dokyumento Shwa tenn: dai ikkan shinryaku (Ryokuf Shuppan, 1984), pp. 122–24. Tanaka has termed the kzoku and kazoku “the imperial guard without weapons.” For insight into the vanished world of the kzoku, see Otabe Yji, Nashimoto no miya Itsuko-hi-no nikki: kzokuhi no mita Meiji, Taish, Shwa (Shgakukan, 1991); on the kazoku, see Sakai Miiko, Aru kazoku no Shwashi (Kdansha, 1986).
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Page 71
