by Hiroaki Sato
What prompted the assassinations was the social unrest that had brought to the fore the notion that, if the Tennō were allowed to step forward and rule the land, all the problems would be straightened out. Since ancient times there was in China the belief that an enlightened ruler could be, and often was, blocked from manifesting his “shining mind” by his corrupt aides and councilors.
For the 2.26 Incident officers who held this idea, the immediate precedent was the Meiji Restoration, in 1868, which they believed ushered in a great age for Japan by restoring the Tennō system to replace the Tokugawa shogunate. But since the Meiji Emperor’s death, in 1912, the nation had only declined because the parliamentary system and other European-style developments increasingly inhibited the free exercise of the Imperial Mind. As Capt. Andō Teruzō, one of the leaders of the insurrection, succinctly explained, “We believed that, if we felled the high councilors and cabinet officers who beclouded the Imperial Brightness, His Majesty would decisively carry out a Shōwa Restoration.”12 Or, as the “Statement of Purpose of the Uprising” detailed in a prose encrusted with classical Chinese words and concepts:
Both internally and externally in a truly grave emergency, if we did not punish now His Majesty’s unprincipled, deceiving councilors who have destroyed the National Polity (kokutai), and sweep away the evil elements that have long blocked the Divine Glory and prevented His Majesty’s Renewal, the Imperial Rule would become empty. . . . It is our proper duty to slash off the evil councilors and military bandits by His Majesty’s side and smash their core. If we, His Majesty’s children and His arms and legs, did not fulfill our absolute duty, we would not be able to avert self-destruction and decline. Thus we men of like concern and like mind have risen simultaneously to annihilate the evil bandits in order to restore the Great Principle (taigi), rack our humble brains to preserve and bring to light, so we the humblest of our Divine Nation may express our opinion however insignificant.13
The statement made clear that all those in power were to blame for running down the nation: the genrō, elder statesmen, those who made a special contribution to the formation of the Meiji government; the jūshin, high councilors or those who had served as prime minister or lord keeper of the privy seal; the gunbatsu, the military establishment;14 the zaibatsu, the financial and corporate establishment; the kanryō, the bureaucrats; and the seitō, the political parties—every entity or group more interested in staking out its own turf than in what people really needed.
Directly behind the fermentation of this idea was the widespread poverty among the peasants, especially in the Tōhoku region that suffered from chronic crop failures, and the sufferings of struggling ordinary people. One consequence was rampant “human trade”: selling young daughters to brothels. A large proportion of the military personnel, both officers and regular conscripts, were of peasant stock or else the sons of mom-and-pop store owners or poor workers who were as adversely affected. In fact, and ironically, among those assassinated in the Incident, Watanabe Jōtarō, who had risen to the rank of full general, was unable to finish grammar school because his adoptive father was a poor peasant.
With the government apparently doing nothing to cure the social ills, there inevitably arose among a number of military officers the strong sense that something had to be done. Indeed, remarkably in an age when “special higher police” and other apparatus were set up to eradicate anything remotely associated with communism and socialism, these officers openly told their men that aikoku, patriotism, which was to form the spiritual core of every soldier, meant destroying the capitalist system such as it was and build a new nation of peasants and workers strong on defense.15
Here the meanings of the two terms that appear to form the core of the insurgents’ argument, kokutai, “National Polity,” and taigi, “Great Principle,” need some clarification because Mishima would start spouting them with seeming earnestness soon enough.
Simply put, kokutai means “polity.” But the nationalists used the word with the pregnant sense that Japan is unique because it is a land ruled by the Tennō whose genealogical line has never been broken. This thesis started with Kitabatake Chikafusa (1293–1354) in his treatise An Account of Our Divine Sovereigns and Their Orthodoxy (Jinnō shōtō ki) written when the Tennō institution was in serious decline. It was taken up and pushed with great seriousness by scholars of National Learning toward the end of the Edo Period when the Tennō was in practical eclipse.
The argument of National Learning was fundamentalist to the core: it accepted and presented as incontrovertible truth certain descriptions in the early documents such as the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki), compiled in 712, and the History of Japan (Nihon shoki), in 720, both composed to justify the Tennō line. Fukuzawa Yukichi, the prominent leader of “civilization of enlightenment,” i.e., Westernization, in the Meiji Era, deeply annoyed by the orotund arguments pushed toward the end of the Edo Period, defined kokutai as nothing more than the general makeup and milieu of an independent country or society, applying the English word “nationality” to the word as early as 1875.16 But to no avail.
With the rise of chauvinism following the Manchurian Incident, in 1931, a push to “clarify and manifest kokutai” intensified. That led the Ministry of Education, in 1937, to compile a catechism, The True Import of Kokutai (Kokutai no hongi), which begins with the assertion: “The Great Empire of Japan is eternally ruled by Tennō whose line is unbroken for thousands of generations and who uphold the Divine Edict of their original Imperial Ancestor. This is our kokutai that has remained unchanged since time immemorial.” 17 That was one reason why in 1945 when confronted with the demand for an unconditional surrender, the Japanese leaders were obliged to insist on “the preservation of kokutai,” unnecessarily prolonging the war.
Because of these developments in the recent past, the sense of incongruity and disbelief must have been uppermost when Mishima, the celebrity author with a wide-ranging cultural mastery, started spouting the term kokutai well into the 1960s. In the end Mishima did not go beyond defining kokutai as “the identity of Japanese folk and Japanese culture, with its essence lying in the perpetuity that is not affected by changes in political administrations,”18 but it is not clear whether that helped.
Taigi, “Great Principle,” is a Confucian term (dayi in Chinese) meaning an immutable principle or justice, although as with its lesser version gi, “principle” (yi in Chinese), it is so amorphous as to be practically meaningless. It is closely associated with shisei (zhicheng), which, as we shall see, Mishima used in the film version of “Yūkoku.” It means sublime, supreme sincerity or unwavering dedication. Both terms apply to human conduct in general and to a man’s service to his lord or to his state in particular.
The young officers’ attempt for imperial restoration failed. Hirohito refused to entertain anything like the idea of taking over as ruler. A firm believer in the constitutional monarchy established during the Meiji Era—to him kokutai meant just that—he was outraged by the blatant attempt to trample upon the government by killing some of its members who had the constitutional duty to “assist” him, and demanded an immediate suppression of the uprising. He is known to have declared at one point, “I would lead the Imperial Guards Cavalry to put them down!” Although it was something that happened between His Majesty and his top aides within the Palace, his strong position somehow leaked out, creating a clear image of the Tennō, it is said, for the first time.19
Nonetheless it took fully three days to put down the uprising because his councilors did not take his word as absolute and act promptly, and because the idea of a Shōwa Restoration had many sympathizers in the top echelons of the government—and among college students and professors. Bōjō Toshitami, for one, recalled the excitement among his fellow students at the Peers School during the uprising, especially those whose older brothers were military officers, with one professor of philosophy setting aside his usual lectures and talking about the need for such a restoration “with a ferociou
s tone.”20 Members of the top echelons who were sympathetic started with Army Minister Kawashima Yoshiyuki and His Majesty’s Chief Aide-de-Camp Honjō Shigeru. Lt. Gen. Kashii Kōhei, Commander of the Tokyo Garrison, was another; he hesitated to move against the insurgents, even after he was ordered to implement martial law.
Those sympathetic to the cause were also found among the members of imperial houses. One was Hirohito’s distant but important relative, Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu, then Chief of the Naval Staff; he had taken part in the Russo-Japanese War and was admired by his men for his mettle and naval skills. Hirohito’s uncle, Prince Higashikumi Naruhiko, then Chief of the Army Aviation Headquarters who, after Japan’s defeat nine years later, was fated to serve as prime minister as the first and only member of imperial lineage to do so, was another. Closer home, Hirohito’s own brother, Prince Chichibu Yasuhito, then a colonel, was the one man the young officers had counted on the most.21 His association with them was such that Hirohito, along with some of his top aides, feared that Chichibu might usurp him.
The strong sympathy at the top was clear in the first official response to the insurgents that was issued in the name of the Minister of the Army—3:30 pm of the 26th or nearly half a day after the series of assassinations came to light. It consisted of five points: “1. As to the purpose of the uprising, it has been brought to the Imperial attention; 2. We recognize that your conduct was based on the earnest desire to manifest kokutai; 3. As to the present state in which kokutai manifests itself in reality (including corrupt customs), we can only think of it with trepidation [i.e., We think you are correct]; 4. All military councilors have agreed to do their best in accordance with the above points; 5. As for the rest, we simply await the Imperial decision.”
Despite the military regulation of the day, “A rebellion starts the moment it leaves the barracks,” the Army Ministry refused to call a spade a spade: “the military units that have been taking action since this morning” (3:00 pm, Feb. 26); “occupying military units” (10:30 am, Feb. 27; the term survived until 7:00 am, Feb. 28); “resisting military units” (4:00 pm, Feb. 28); “the Kofuji Unit” (between the last two because the order issued at 7:00 am, Feb. 27, told the insurgents to “act under the command of Col. Kofuji, Guards Commander, Kōjimachi District, the First Division”); and “enemy” (in Martial Law Operation No. 14, issued at 11:00 pm, Feb. 28). It was not until 5:30 pm of February 28 that the uprising was termed “a rebellion.”22 For their part, those who aimed for a Shōwa Restoration studiously avoided words such as “revolution,” “coup d’état,” and “Putsch”; they believed what they had in mind was nothing of the sort.23
Within the military there existed a great schism between those who, like the young officers, thought that having the Tennō as direct ruler would solve pressing social ills (Kōdō-ha, “Imperial Way Faction”) and those who pushed for reform through a rational control or discipline of policy (Tōsei-ha, “Control Faction”).24 The process of deciding how to deal with the insurgents was also the process of resolving the conflict between the two factions, with the latter group winning.
Also, faced with a real action, not just the idea of one, and with Hirohito’s adamant opposition—he may well have been the first to use the word hanran, “rebellion”—the sympathizers wilted, made an aboutface, or later denied involvement. Among them, Gen. Mazaki Jinzaburō, the hero for the young officers, appeared on the morning of the assassinations at the Ministry of the Army the insurgents had occupied and encouraged them with words to the effect, “Well done. Leave the rest to me.”25
But all Mazaki ended up doing was drag out the final decision. Later he would insist he had nothing to do with the insurgency. He was indicted but acquitted. Those concerned knew the officers killed Gen. Watanabe Jōtarō not just because he was chosen to replace Mazaki as inspector-general of military education but also because he upheld the view of the Tennō as a “state organ,” whereas Mazaki denounced it.
More important, the young officers who hatched and carried out the idea of Shōwa Restoration had not thought of a contingency: What if the Tennō refused to go along? When they realized that an Imperial Edict for Restoration was not coming, they felt profoundly betrayed. Many were prepared to die if the Tennō publicly recognized they’d done it as “a just army to honor the Tennō” (sonnō gigun). That did not happen.
The army leadership that had behaved like a drunken schizophrenic midway through the uprising acted with vengeful speed once the uprising faltered and collapsed.
First, when the officers who had led the uprising assembled in the residence of the Minister of the Army following the collapse, they were told that their only honorable recourse was to kill themselves on the spot. The army leaders had gone as far as preparing three dozen coffins ready in the next room. Most officers took that as an affront. Even those who had avowed to take responsibility and kill themselves changed their minds and decided to clarify their intent through legal proceedings. Only one of them, Capt. Nonaka Shirō, persuaded that any attempt to do so during court martial would only bring him disgrace, shot himself. Because of the circumstances, however, the suspicion has persisted that he was killed.26
Failing in blatant coercion, the army set up a special military tribunal and tried those involved—but not those in higher echelons who aided and abetted them—in secrecy, without defense attorneys, and in a single trial with no appeals, and executed sixteen officers by a firing squad. It followed this action a year later by executing two more officers along with two civilians alleged to have provided the insurgents with philosophical underpinnings.
Isobe Asaichi, one of the two officers who were kept alive for more than a year for close questioning, left prison writings Mishima would especially value in his understanding of the failed uprising, especially the fact that Isobe went to death fulminating against the Tennō. Kita Ikki, one of the two civilians, was the advocate of “genuine socialism” who had served the Father of Modern China Sun Yat-sen as an aide during that country’s revolution. Mishima would also take up Kita’s theory head on, later.
The army, soon taken over by the Control Faction, cleaned out the principal sympathizers, that is, the leaders of the Imperial Way Faction, demoting or retiring them where they could. It also, fatefully, reintroduced the requirement that the ministers of the army and the navy be officers on active duty. That furthered the militarization of Japan.
Aside from the savage killings, the motive and aim of the insurgents had something genuinely appealing. Katō Shūichi, the towering intellect of modern Japan who was seventeen when the uprising occurred, avowed he was not “sympathetic with the rebellious officers,” but still recognized their “sincerity.” What the incident and its aftermath revealed in naked form, Katō wrote in his autobiography, was a political process “in which sincerity is met with betrayal, idealism met with exploitation, and yesterday’s loyalty construed as today’s conspiracy as soon as one has outlived his usefulness.”27
Katō was reflecting on the past, but Mishima, when he was about the same age, seventeen, had written an essay praising the Buddhist treatise Establishment of the Teaching for the Protection of the Country (Risshō ankoku-ron) of Nichiren (1222–82) and in it noted that he saw in the young officers the same “burning desire” to rectify the situation as that the firebrand Buddhist of the thirteenth century had manifested.28 Years later he would define what the officers had tried to do as a “moral revolution.” The “tragisch Ironie”—the phrase he used in the same analysis—was that it was not self-evident to the one being that most counted, the Tennō.29
The Seppuku: Disembowelment
For now, in “Yūkoku,” Mishima focused on one result of the old Japanese way of expressing sincerity by the sword: disembowelment. “Yūkoku,” he wrote five years later, was “the only work which, from start to finish, was born only of my brain and which realized its world through words.”30 In truth, it was not all his fantasy and imagination. He had a direct source of inspiration.
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p; In “Disembowelment” (Seppuku), published in September 1943, Wada Katsunori had written: “Among those who committed suicide [during the 2.26 Incident] were Capt. Nonaka Shirō in the rebel army and Maj. Amano Takeo and others in the Imperial Army. Of these, the death of Lt. Aoshima Kenkichi and his wife vividly recalled the death by sword of Gen. and Mrs. Nogi.” Nogi Maresuke, along with his wife Shizuko, killed themselves to follow Emperor Meiji in death on the day of the latter’s funeral, September 12, 1912. Wada continued:
The lieutenant, of the Transport Battalion of the Imperial Guards Division, was, upon the eruption of the Incident, made commander of the ——unit and assigned to guard duty: he was continuing his various activities without sleep or rest when, on the evening of the 28th, he was ordered by Battalion Commander Yuasa to take his turn to rest and came home around eleven o’clock.
But the lieutenant, profoundly agonizing since the Incident began that his close friends were participating in the rebel army, thought he would not be able to bear it should the Imperial Army end up fighting within itself. He had been intently waiting for them to feel responsible for their actions and commit suicide swiftly. But they were in the end labeled with the stigma of rebels. Anxious for what situation might ensue come morning, he decided to settle it all by death. When he told these sentiments to his wife Kimiko, she said she’d gladly accompany him. The two put on formal attire as man and wife and wrote a will. The lieutenant calmly cut his stomach straight from left to right with his military sword and further stabbed his throat, thus killing himself excellently. His wife followed him. She wrapped a blanket around her waist and stabbed her throat with a Japanese sword, thus meeting her death as admirably.31