Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  In his way Louis XIV is undoubtedly one of the “great men” of Western history, whose influence has been exceptionally far-reaching. But his personal resources, his individual gifts were by no means outstanding. They were mediocre rather than great….

  The paradox mentioned just now in connection with the “greatness” of Louis XIV points to a curious circumstance: there are situations in which the most important tasks are not those which can be solved by people with qualities we romanticize somewhat as originality or creativity, people distinguished by extraordinary drive and activity, but by people of steady and placid mediocrity. Such was the situation of Louis XIV.14

  Ōkubo’s efforts to make Meiji into a monarch in the style of Louis XIV were misguided and, fortunately, were unsuccessful, but he was correct in his belief that the emperor must become visible, a figure with whom the Japanese people could identify, a stern but loving father.

  Meiji’s journey of 1872, which lasted from June 28 to August 15, was triumphant from beginning to end. Unlike the progresses of Louis XIV, or even of daimyos during the heyday of the Tokugawa period, it was to be circumspect: traffic was not to be interrupted on its account; the common people were to go about their work as on ordinary days; there was no need to repair the roads or to hide dirty places; and gifts offered to the emperor were to be refused. The aim was for the emperor to see the country as it actually was, not for him to be treated to artfully disguised Potemkin villages.

  There was opposition to the journey, mainly from those who remained in Kyōto. Nakayama Tadayasu, the emperor’s maternal grandfather, was astonished that the journey—a major undertaking—had been decided on at a time when conditions were still unsettled, and he had grave fears for the consequences. The journey was only the most striking of the many changes in the life of the emperor. Hashimoto Saneakira (1809–1882), a high-ranking Kyōto nobleman, who had an audience at the palace in Tōkyō with the emperor on June 20, was astonished, after making a profound reverence, to look up and see the emperor dressed in Western clothes sitting on a chair. Hashimoto later noticed that carpets had been laid along the corridors in order to spare the palace officials the trouble of removing their shoes. They sat on chairs when performing their assigned duties.15

  Hashimoto was by no means the only person dismayed by the rapid Westernization of the court, but regardless of such feelings, when the emperor left the palace at four on the morning of June 28 he was dressed for the first time in what would become his most typical costume—a swallow-tail uniform fastened with hooks.16 His appearance did not escape criticism from conservative subjects. While the emperor was in Nagasaki, a certain person addressed a memorial begging him to cease wearing Western clothes. Imperial Household Minister Tokudaiji Sanetsune conferred with Saigō Takamori about their response. Saigō sent for the man and shouted at him, “Are you still ignorant of the world situation?” The intimidated man went quietly away.17 Only three or four years earlier, when jōi was still on the lips of many samurai, such a protest might have been heeded.

  The emperor set out from the palace on horseback. He stopped briefly at the Hama Detached Palace for refreshments, then at five-thirty in the morning boarded a boat that took him to the warship Ryūjō, anchored off Shinagawa. He was accompanied by a suite of more than seventy men (including Saigō Takamori and his younger brother Saigō Tsugumichi) and a platoon of Household Guards. As soon as the emperor set foot aboard the ship, he was greeted with music played by a navy band. Twelve years earlier when the first Japanese mission had traveled across the Pacific to America, the members complained incessantly about the cacophonous “barbarian music” to which they were subjected, but now the Japanese navy played similar tunes for the emperor. His arrival on the ship was otherwise celebrated by hoisting a brocade pennant above the center mast, displaying signal flags, sailors manning the yards and cheering, and firing a twenty-one-gun salute.18 All but the first of these ceremonies had been learned from Western navies only within the last decade but were already firmly part of Japanese naval tradition.

  The first visit of the journey was to the Great Shrine of Ise. On the morning of June 30, the Ryūjō and the other ships of the convoy dropped anchor in Toba Bay. From there, a procession set off for Yamada, the site of the Ise Shrine. It was headed by local officials and, following them, members of the Ministry of Works, the Naval Ministry, the Army Ministry, and so on. Two chamberlains carried the imperial sword and jewel. The emperor himself, riding a horse, was protected on either side by chamberlains. Half the platoon of Household Guards led the way, and half served as rear guards for the emperor. The officials accompanying him, attired in swallow-tail coats and carrying Western swords, walked. Commoners who lined the roads welcoming the emperor were astonished at the simplicity of the costumes worn, compared with those that brightened the daimyo processions of the old regime. Kneeling by the sides of the roads, these commoners clapped their hands in worship, as if in the presence of a god. The procession and the reception were typical of the visits made during the journey.

  The second stop was at Ōsaka. A Russian warship encountered on the way gave a twenty-one-gun salute, honoring the brocade pennant on the Ryūjō. The emperor did not reach his temporary lodgings until ten that night. Along the streets, the people of Ōsaka clapped their hands in worship and shouted, “Banzai!”19 Foreigners in the Matsushima settlement lit bonfires along the roads and, doffing their hats, saluted the emperor.

  On July 7 the emperor left Ōsaka and boarded a riverboat bound for Kyōto. This was his first visit to the old capital in more than three years. It was dark by the time he reached the city, but there were lanterns at every door lighting his way to the Gosho. The people of Kyō to clapped their hands in worship, and, we are told, there was no one who did not weep with emotion on seeing the emperor’s face for the first time.20

  During his brief stay in Kyōto, Meiji met members of his family—his grandfather Nakayama Tadayasu and his aunts Princess Chikako and Princess Sumiko.21 When he went to worship at the tomb of his father, Emperor Kōmei, he changed from Western clothes to formal court robes. Later he visited a display of Kyōto wares that included not only traditional Nishijin silks but a newly invented rice-pounding machine and Western-style umbrellas. He visited a middle school where he observed classes and listened while pupils were questioned about punctuation, arithmetic, and foreign languages. He also visited a school that had been founded to teach boys and girls of the aristocracy foreign languages (English, German, and French) and manual arts, but now also admitted children of the commoner class. He gave audiences to the foreign teachers. Finally the emperor issued a rescript expressing pleasure over the devotion of the foreign teachers and his hope that they would encourage the pupils to work ever harder at their studies.22

  Wherever the emperor went on this and later journeys, he never failed to inspect local products and to visit schools where he watched experiments in chemistry and other sciences and listened to the pupils deliver speeches in Japanese and foreign languages. He also reviewed troops at places where there were encampments. These actions show the emperor at what would be his most typical—encouraging the local production of goods, manifesting interest in education, inspiring the troops. He seems to have decided that Japan’s future as a modern nation would depend on these three factors: industry, education, and the military. The newspaper Nagasaki Express, going beyond conventional expressions of awe and gratitude, praised the emperor’s visit to that city for having shaken its inhabitants from obstinate ignorance and eradicated their narrow-mindedness and for having weeded out the thorns that lay in the road to civilization and progress.23

  Needless to say, wherever the emperor went he was gazed at worshipfully by his subjects. He was welcomed also by foreigners, whether teachers in the schools or state employees (known as yatoi) who had been hired to instruct Japanese in Western scientific and mechanical knowledge. Perhaps the most unusual incident of the journey occurred in Kumamoto. When the emperor visited the house
of Leroy L. Janes, a teacher at the Yōgakkō, or School of Foreign Learning, Mrs. Janes, standing on the second-floor balcony, scattered flower petals over the emperor as he entered, a greeting he never experienced before or afterward.24

  A favorite anecdote Meiji often related at dinner with his ministers was of stopping with members of his escort at a foreigner’s house in Kagoshima. The old woman who lived there produced a splendid Western meal and refreshments, but (the emperor would conclude with a laugh), “She didn’t even know who I was!”25 It is hard to imagine under what circumstances the emperor and his entourage would drop by a foreigner’s house or, no matter how hospitably inclined the old lady might have been, how she managed to produce a splendid meal so quickly, but it is a pleasant story with a familiar theme—the exalted visitor who arrives incognito but is treated hospitably by the aged owner of a humble cottage26—and lacks only a line at the conclusion relating that the visitor bestowed a rich gift on his unsuspecting benefactor.

  After the emperor boarded ship and left Kagoshima, the common people were permitted to examine the place where he had stayed. Crowds that lined up before dawn accepted with reverence bits of the rush matting on which the emperor had knelt in prayer, and cryptomeria needles from the decorations of the platform where he had enjoyed the cool of evening, which they used as talismans to ward off misfortune.27

  The emperor’s ship proceeded from Kagoshima to Marugame in Shikoku, where he arrived on August 7, a day of rain, lightning, and fierce wind. On the following day it cleared, and from a temporarily established place of worship the emperor directed prayers to the tomb of Emperor Sutoku at Shiramine and that of Emperor Junnin on the island of Awaji; both emperors had perished in exile. That day, word came from Tōkyō of dissension among the various elements composing the Household Guards, the majority of whom came from Satsuma. Saigō Takamori and Saigō Tsugumichi returned by fast ship to Tōkyō, for, as Satsuma men, they were thought to be the only officers who could calm the turbulent elements.28 The emperor continued his journey as scheduled, calling at Kōbe on his way back to Yokohama.

  After his return to Tōkyō, Meiji continued to display particular interest in education. On September 3 the first public library was opened in Ueno. On the following day the emperor sent a message stressing the importance of education and revealing the plans that had been drawn up for education at every level. The number of institutions planned ranged from eight universities to 53,760 elementary schools. All children from the age of six would be required to enter one of several kinds of elementary schools intended to meet the different needs of boys and girls, children in the city and the country, and so on. The model for the educational system would be France. These plans were intended to implement the promise made by the emperor in his Five Article Charter Oath to abolish evil customs and to seek learning throughout the world.29

  The country seemed at last to be peaceful after the years of turbulence. Twenty-one of the fortified outer gates of Tōkyō Castle were removed, leaving only the foundation stones and stone walls. The special guards who had been assigned to protecting foreign diplomats, residents, and yatoi were replaced by ordinary police. But there were still sporadic outbreaks of peasant revolts in the provinces, and international questions assumed particular importance.

  On September 26 judgment was pronounced in the case of the Maria Luz, a Peruvian ship that had been damaged on the way from Macao to Peru and had called at Yokohama on July 9 for repairs. One night while the ship was anchored there, a Chinese laborer escaped by jumping overboard. He was rescued by a British warship and turned over to the Kanagawa authorities. The Chinese complained of gross mistreatment of himself and the 231 other Chinese aboard the Peruvian ship and asked the protection of the Japanese authorities. The Peruvian captain was summoned and the Chinese escapee returned to him, but he was warned that he must treat the Chinese aboard the ship more humanely. He was enjoined with particular severity not to punish the man who had escaped. But the captain not only punished him brutally but continued his cruel treatment of the other Chinese crew members. The acting British minister, R. G. Watson, receiving word of this, personally inspected the Maria Luz and discovered that what the escaped Chinese had said was true: the Chinese laborers aboard ship were living under conditions close to penal servitude. He asked Foreign Minister Soejima to look into the matter.

  Soejima at once issued orders that the Peruvian vessel not leave the harbor. He learned on further examination that the ship’s officers had deceived the illiterate Chinese and, after concluding a contract in Macao that committed the men to virtual slavery, had confined them to the hold of the ship where they were subjected to inhumane treatment. A preliminary hearing was held at which the Peruvian shipping company was found guilty of wrongdoing, and all the Chinese were permitted to go ashore. The Court Council approved the decision on August 27. Each of the foreign countries represented in Japan was informed of the decision and asked its opinion. Only the British supported it. The American consul declined to give an opinion because the matter was not related to his own country, but the other countries opposed the decision, citing the regulations signed in October 1867 for the supervision of the Yokohama foreign residence district and expressing doubts about whether the Japanese government was empowered to deal with an incident that had occurred outside its territory. The presiding judge, Ōe Taku (1847–1921), appealed to Soejima, who announced that the court’s decision would be respected.

  On August 30 Ōe ruled that the Chinese should be set free. He added that the ship’s captain, though deserving a hundred strokes of the lash, would be permitted to leave port on his ship. The Peruvians, still not ready to yield, attempted to prove that the contract signed with the Chinese laborers in Macao was legal and binding. The court confirmed on September 26 Ōe’s earlier decision, declaring that the actions of the Peruvian captain had violated international law and were not compatible with Japanese law. Some of the Chinese crew of the ship, encouraged by this decision, deserted, and the captain, perhaps fearing for his life, fled to Shanghai, abandoning the ship. The Chinese government subsequently thanked the Japanese for their friendly action.30 In June 1873 the matter was submitted to the arbitration of Czar Alexander II of Russia, who two years later upheld the Japanese court’s decision.31

  William Elliot Griffis, a worshipful admirer of Emperor Meiji, described his part in the decision:

  Mutsuhito returned to Yokohama about the middle of August. While here he had a long consultation with the governor of Yokohama, Mr. Oyé Taku, concerning the case of the Peruvian ship Maria Luz, which had come into the harbor through stress of weather. It was loaded with the human freight of Chinese laborers, who had been decoyed, practically kidnapped, and cruelly treated. Their condition was made known by one of them swimming off to a British man-of-war then in the harbor.

  Mutsuhito, not afraid of “the vice called republicanism,” nor of Peruvian ironclads, nor of the frowns of men behind the age, resolved to strike a blow for human freedom. After due trial in court, the Chinese laborers were landed on Japanese soil and held until the Peking government was heard from. This was Japan’s first manifesto in behalf not of herself only but of Asian humanity. Some foreigners severely criticized the Imperial action and even imagined a Peruvian man-of-war coming to demand satisfaction; but the matter was settled by arbitration, the Russian emperor deciding that Japan was right.32

  Griffis’s mention of the emperor’s personal role in the settlement of the Maria Luz case is not confirmed by other contemporary sources. If Griffis was correct, this was a rare instance of the emperor’s intercession in a legal matter. Griffis recalled also, “In the trial at court the cogent arguments of the English barrister, F. V. Dickins, and the translator of Japan’s classic verse, helped mightily.33 Young girls, who had been forced to go into service for vile purposes, were practically set free and the old contracts, which bound them involuntarily for a period of years, were annulled.”

  Dickins, a fluent speaker of Japa
nese who had been hired by the Peruvian government to present its case in answer to the argument that the contract made with Chinese laborers constituted slave labor, cited the sale of prostitutes in Japan; if this was legal, the Peruvians had committed no crime. The Japanese were taken aback by his argument, and Ōe, the presiding magistrate, hastily adjourned the court. In the end Ōe ruled that even if slavery did exist in Japan, as exemplified by the sale of prostitutes, it was prohibited to send slaves abroad, and therefore the Peruvian captain, because he intended to send Chinese slave laborers abroad from Yokohama, had violated the law. This tortuous reasoning gave Ōe the authority to order the release of the Chinese.34

  It was highly embarrassing to the Japanese that their practice of selling human beings had been revealed to the foreign consular officials assembled in the courtroom. Ōe urged the government to prohibit this traffic as soon as possible. On November 1 an epoch-making ordinance was issued strictly prohibiting the sale of human beings.35 All prostitutes were released from their contracts, and the debts of geishas and prostitutes were canceled because they had been incurred under nonhuman conditions. The contracts of apprentices were also modified to provide that they could not be bound for more than one year.

  A series of actions taken by the Japanese government at about this time complicated Japanese relations with two countries closer to hand than Peru—Korea and the Ryūkyū kingdom.

  For about 400 years the Japanese had had a trading post in Korea—rather like the Dutch “factory” at Deshima in Nagasaki Bay.36 The Japanese stationed at the Sōryō (Choryang) Wakan in Pusan were restricted to members of the Tsushima domain: because of its geographic situation midway between Japan and Korea, the island of Tsushima had traditionally served as the intermediary between the two countries. Although the Japanese were subjected to strict surveillance and at times discourteous treatment, they remained because trade—largely barter—was profitable.