The Pure Land

by Spence, Alan

  In effect, Parkes wanted to renegotiate the conditions governing the treaties established between Japan and the various foreign powers, the terms of the trading links with the West. Hitherto the treaties had been ratified by the Shogun, and that had been sufficient to make them law. Now Sir Harry was insisting that the foreign powers had to take cognizance of the Mikado, who must also ratify the treaties.

  The Shogunate, backed by the French, were hostile to the proposal. The Emperor’s faction were wary, noncommittal. The Dutch were interested observers, happy to take advantage of the situation, however it developed. The Americans were there under protest, and their Consul, Townsend Harris, did nothing to disguise his disgust at European machinations.

  ‘We thrashed all this out six, seven years ago. I sweated blood over that damned treaty. And for what? So that these British freebooters and French fops could move in and bleed the place dry.’

  Parkes protested that the situation had changed dramatically in the intervening years and they had to take account of the changes.

  ‘Manipulate the situation for your own ends,’ said Harris. ‘Legitimate your plundering. Extend your Empire.’

  ‘We want what is right for Japan!’ said Parkes, exasperated.

  ‘Ah, yes, of course!’ said Harris. ‘I come from good Puritan stock, sir, and my grandmother was a fine, upstanding woman by the name of Thankful Townsend. She gave me three of the soundest pieces of advice I ever had: Tell the truth, love God, and hate the British. And I shall endeavour to follow her advice to my dying day.’

  Roches laughed out loud. ‘I shall remember this!’

  Parkes glowered at them both, turned and led the way into the meeting room.

  *

  Glover, as a mere trader, had no part to play in the official discussions, but Parkes had thought his presence behind the scenes might oil the wheels of discourse. Satow, as interpreter, had a seat at the table, and reported to Glover in full at the end of each session.

  They had all known it would be difficult. Finding a form of agreement that would satisfy each of the factions was an impossibility. But even Glover, with his years of dealing with the Japanese, was taken aback by their capacity to niggle, quibble, nitpick over the slightest detail. Satow too was well versed in the degrees of prevarication, formulaic evasiveness, at which they were expert. But even he was exhausted by the extent of it. A week passed with little sign of progress. Satow remarked that they might have to send to Edo for more ships carrying more foolscap, more quills, more ink.

  Glover, for his part, took the opportunity of initiating his own discussions. Ito and Godai also kept him informed, and Parkes took him into his confidence. He sensed the historic importance of the outcome, knew if Sir Harry could forge an agreement it would have enormous symbolic significance, send a clear signal to the rebel clans and the embattled Shogunate.

  The negotiations continued. If both the Shogun and the Mikado had to ratify the treaty, and any subsequent agreements, which ratification took precedence? It was a matter of honour, and hierarchy, and protocol. Was one ratification contingent on the other? Did one depend on the other for its validity? Who ratified the ratification?

  Another week passed. Tempers became short, nerves frayed. Every night the foreign delegates returned to their ships, every morning they came ashore and began the long tedious process anew. The foreigners grew impatient with the convoluted haggling over minutiae. Why couldn’t they just sign the damned documents and be done with it? The Shogunate argued the impossibility of frank discussions with a squadron of western warships at anchor in the harbour, said they implied a clear threat. Ito said they were indeed a threat, one that the Shogun should heed. Godai said they had all had to learn this hard lesson, the lesson of Kagoshima, of Shimonoseki. Complete co-operation with the West was now the only way forward. Parkes was at pains to point out there was no bellicose intention in the present circumstances, the ships were for the purposes of transport only and carried nothing even approaching their full contingent of troops and armoury. Satow interjected another reference to the sheer bulk of paper, pens and ink on board, said it left room for little else. Parkes and one or two others chuckled, grateful for the attempt at levity, but it seemed to push the Japanese further into stonefaced intransigence.

  The way Satow described it, Sakamoto glared at him along the length of the table, grumbled something to Godai in his sonorous rumble of a voice, and Godai reluctantly translated. Sakamoto had said that the ships were indeed a reminder of how things stood, they had no choice but to co-operate with the barbarians, it was the official policy of his clan, the only way forward for his country, even if his own natural inclination might be to separate a few barbarian heads from barbarian bodies. Then he’d stood up from the table, walked out of the room.

  Parkes had sighed. ‘And these are our allies!’

  *

  The haggling continued. Then clearly some agreement was reached amongst the Japanese, some formula which could be interpreted as favouring the Mikado and recognising his preeminence, but allowing the Shogun to retain a measure of dignity so honour was not lost. After almost three weeks of negotiation, representatives of the Emperor brought forth the Book of Irrevocable Wills and a new agreement was signed, to the delight of Parkes, the chagrin of Roches.

  Later, as the foreign delegates prepared to depart, Glover found himself next to Harris. It was late evening, growing dark, the lights of the foreign ships bobbing out in the harbour.

  ‘You’re Tom Glover,’ said the American.

  ‘The very same,’ said Glover.

  ‘I’ve heard of you from Jack Walsh. He speaks highly of you. Ordinarily that would make me suspicious.’

  ‘Jack’s a bit of a rogue right enough.’

  ‘But he’s shrewd, and he knows a good man when he sees one.’

  ‘Even if that man happens to be British?’

  ‘Well, you’re Scotch aren’t you? Different beast altogether.’

  ‘Your grandmother sounds as if she might have had Scotch blood in her!’

  Harris allowed himself a chuckle, then spoke with an earnestness, an intensity. ‘What do you young fellows think about the situation?’

  ‘It’s hellish complicated,’ said Glover, ‘made more so by the Japanese talent for obfuscation. But if I were a gambling man – which I am! – I’d put my money on the Southern clans, the Choshu and Satsuma, to take over, drive Japan forward.’

  Harris was silent a moment, took a pipe from his jacket pocket, filled it, lit it, puffed at it, contemplative, filled the air with its fragrant smoke.

  He spoke again. ‘I’ve kept a journal of my time here, thinking it may be of some interest to posterity. And just recently I reread the entry I made on the successful negotiation of the previous treaty. And when I told that stuffed shirt Parkes that I’d sweated blood over this, it was no exaggeration. So the ratification was in some sense a moment of personal triumph. But what was the entry in my journal? Grim reflections – ominous of change. Query whether this for the real good of Japan. In a sense the beginning of the end.’ He puffed on his pipe again. ‘If anything, I feel it even more strongly today. This new treaty is clearly an important development. It represents a beginning. But it’s also, I fear, an ending.’

  12

  MEIJI

  Nagasaki–Edo, 1868–69

  Like an eggshell held in the hand. That was how Satow had described the situation, and the sheer complexity of it rendered the utimate outcome impossible to predict.

  The rebels, it seemed, represented the future, openness to the West. But they rallied under the banner of the Mikado, who was mired in tradition, upheld the old feudal ways, resented foreign intrusion. The Shogun, on the other hand, had signed the initial treaty with the West but had since been obstructive, used the situation for his own ends.

  ‘To be fair,’ said Walsh, setting down the Japan Times which carried reports on the impending hostilities, ‘he’s caught between a rock and a hard p
lace. Damned if he do, damned if he don’t!’

  ‘He’s damned, all right,’ said Glover. ‘His time is over. This revolution is inevitable. Then the country can move forward.’

  ‘And the Mikado?’

  ‘He’s a figurehead only. He wields no real power.’

  ‘You sound very sure.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Glover. ‘I feel it in my bones.’

  But whatever Glover felt in his bones, uncertainty spread and with it a tension, unease. The Choshu engineered a confrontation, issued demands that the Shogun resign and his Bakufu advisers step down, that the Emperor be restored to full, unalloyed power. The demands were backed up by a Choshu army, marching on Edo. The Shogun’s forces came out to meet them and there were initial skirmishes followed by a stand-off. Meanwhile Satsuma troops gathered in the streets of Kyoto, reinforcing the threat.

  Now the country was undeniably on a war footing. Rumour and counter-rumour spread. The Shogun had resigned from office. He had been executed. He had not resigned and his troops were marching on the Mikado’s palace. They had already sacked it, put it to the torch. The Mikado was dead. The Mikado was back in power and would show his true colours by purging the country of all foreigners.

  In the foreign settlements at Edo, Yokohama, Nagasaki, defences were strengthened, women and children sent to the relative safety of Shanghai. For all Glover’s confidence, he was canny, took no chances, installed more cannon on the hillside below Ipponmatsu, laid in supplies of guns and ammunition, posted armed guards around his property.

  ‘Still feel it in your bones?’ asked Walsh.

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Glover. ‘You never know.’

  The skirmishes escalated into a full-blown battle. The Choshu were outnumbered, but armed by Glover, drilled and marshalled by Kido, they overran the Shogun’s army, routed them, drove them back to Osaka.

  Again, the country was rife with rumour. The Shogun had committed seppuku. His followers had taken to the hills and would continue to fight until every last man of them was wiped out. No, he was alive and had rallied his troops. Reinforced by the French, they had beaten back the Choshu, taken on the Satsuma for good measure. The intervention of the French had led to retaliation by the British. Now the country was riven, not only by civil war, but by a colonial struggle between two great imperial powers.

  ‘Who fabricates this nonsense?’ said Glover. ‘If we were at war with the French, I’m sure we would have been informed!’

  Eventually the more extreme rumours died down, were discounted. What became clear was that the Choshu had indeed won a famous victory, that the Shogun was unharmed but battered and humiliated by his defeat. Further, the Shogun’s navy had entered the battle, had also been defeated by the Choshu’s Aberdeen-built battleships.

  Then in true Japanese fashion, time passed and nothing seemed to be happening. Whatever had to unfold would do so with due convoluted process, in its own good time. The foreigners waited.

  Glover had other things on his mind. Tsuru came and told him one morning, there was no doubt, she was pregnant. She also told him directly she had been married before – something she had referred to obliquely, mentioned in passing – and that she had a daughter by the marriage.

  ‘Marriage not good,’ she said. ‘Husband divorce. Child adopt. I come here.’

  She kneeled in front of him, hands on her knees, head bowed, waiting for his judgement, ready to accept it. Like Maki she knew most foreigners disowned the children they fathered here, abandoned their musume as soon as there was complication, responsibility. She also knew he had married Sono, stood by her. Ito had told her the whole story, said he was a good man, honourable. But she did not dare expect.

  If he told her to go, she would go. She couldn’t face bearing another child to give away. She couldn’t bring up a child on her own. If he said No, she would pray to Jizo, visit the doctor at Naminohira.

  Glover took her by the hand, raised her to her feet, looked right into her eyes, smiled.

  ‘Tsuru.’

  He kissed her forehead, her hair, held her to him.

  *

  Ito and Kido came to Ipponmatsu. As always they came late at night, for safety. But now there was nothing fugitive about them. They carried themselves with a new swagger, a confidence borne of success. The battle had been a triumph. Kido spoke of the enemy’s greater numbers, their own tactics, the western formation, the deployment of artillery. He thanked Glover for his indispensable part in the victory, took full credit for his own military strategy.

  Ito spoke like a poet or a preacher. The very spareness of his language, the detail, brought the scene to life.

  ‘Two great armies. Four borders war. Decide fate of Japan. One side Tokugawa Shogun, fourteenth in line, go back 200 years. Other side Mikado, Son of Heaven, born to rule country. Only one side can be victorious.

  ‘Tokugawa army very large, very strong. Cavalry lead attack, ride out of mist. Cold morning. Thunder of hooves on ground. Foot soldiers follow, running in formation. Carry Shogun’s banner and flags of clans loyal to him. Some infantry have rifles but most have spear and sword, bow and arrow. Wear old-time armour, leather and iron. Helmet with crest, mask on face. Thunder of hooves. Mist start to clear, sun flash on swords and armour. Other army Choshu clan, led by Kido-san. Also Tora clan led by Sakamoto-san. Clan banners flying. All wear kingire, streamer of yellow silk, show loyalty to Emperor. Thunder of hooves. Rebel infantry hold firm. Wait. Front row fire volley, fusillade. While they reload, second row step forward, fire. Horses and riders crash to ground. From back, cannon open fire over heads, hit enemy infantry. More gunfire then hand to hand fight with sword and bayonet. All fight with courage and honour. Long battle. At end Choshu victorious, drive Shogun’s army back. Smoke from cannon and gunfire hang over battlefield. Sun streak through.

  ‘I walk across field. Many dead and dying. Men and horses. Some blown apart, only bodies, no arms or legs, or only arms and legs, or head hacked from body, face still look fierce. Is noble death. Samurai death.’

  Ito paused for the first time since he’d started to speak, became even more sombre. ‘Sakamoto-san also fall, die in battle.’

  ‘A great loss,’ said Glover, remembering Sakamoto’s calm presence, his insistence that the clans unite.

  ‘But good death,’ said Ito.

  ‘Yes,’ said Glover. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I bow to all warriors on field,’ said Ito. ‘Make tanka poem.

  Brave warriors lie slain –

  Choshu, Tosa, Tokugawa –

  for the sake of Japan.

  The smoke of battle clears.

  Above, the red sun.’

  *

  The rumours continued, fabrications that had the ring of myth. One particularly persistent story was that the Shogun, Iemochi, had died, and this time it proved true. He had contracted beriberi, died a miserable death in Osaka, the first Tokugawa Shogun in two centuries to die outside Edo. While plans were made for the succession – a poisoned chalice to be passed on – hostilities against the Choshu were ceased for the time being.

  Less than six months later the Emperor also died. His death was announced as festivities were about to commence for the coming of the new year. Festive decorations of paper and silk which festooned the city streets were hastily removed and a fifty-day period of mourning commenced.

  ‘First the Shogun, now the Mikado,’ said Glover, looking out from the Foreigners’ Club at winter streets now suddenly bereft of these splashes of colour. ‘One might almost think the whole thing had been orchestrated.’

  ‘It certainly thickens the plot very nicely,’ said Walsh.

  *

  It had been hoped the new Shogun, Yoshinobu, a young man, unskilled in the ways of the world, would simply hand over power, make a dignified surrender. But his advisers were adamant, he must not do so.

  The new Mikado, Mutsuhito, was even younger, at fifteen not much more than a child. The hope for him was that he would not display his pr
edecessor’s truculent dislike of foreigners, would embrace the rebel cause with enthusiasm rather than reluctance.

  Again there was a cessation in open hostilities, a mora torium on acts of war. The foreign community waited, apprehensive.

  Glover made a trip to Edo, leaving Tsuru in the care of a nurse, a doctor on call. Her time was close.

  In Edo he attended to a few small business matters, met up again with Parkes and Satow at the Legation.

  ‘Straws in the wind,’ said Parkes. ‘There’s talk of more treaty ports being opened up, beginning with Hyogo.’

  ‘I’d heard as much,’ said Glover. ‘So the new Shogun’s been advised to forge ahead, strengthen links with the West.’

  ‘It would seem so,’ said Parkes. ‘To which end I’ve been invited to Osaka Castle to meet him in person.’

  ‘The Shogun?’ asked Glover, surprised.

  ‘None other,’ said Parkes.

  ‘Now that is a new departure.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Parkes, ‘though I fear it’s a last desperate throw of the dice. He’s become an anachronism. His time is at an end.’

  ‘The Japan Times carried an article about him,’ said Satow, ‘based on an account by one of his attendants. It’s quite beyond belief. The fellow has been in preparation for this all his life. He spends his days in lavish indolence. He rises late, takes an inordinate amount of time having his hair elaborately dressed before eating an extravagant breakfast of delicacies imported from every corner of his domain. His every garment is of silk, and he never wears anything twice. During the day he may grant audience to one or two of his advisers, then he simply follows his fancy, playing polo, practising his calligraphy, engaging in an archery contest – which he always wins! – drifting in a boat on the lake. Evenings are given over to various diversions in the Palace of Ladies, where said ladies entertain him most royally. All in all, a most taxing round of duties!’