Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  On April 6 the emperor granted Saigō Tsugumichi full powers to pacify the Taiwan natives. In a rescript the emperor commanded Saigō to punish those responsible for killing Japanese. In separate instructions the emperor stated that if the natives were left to do as they pleased, this would lead to great harm: “Our purpose in carrying out the conquest is to civilize these savages and set at ease the minds of our good people. You should bear this in mind, and carry out your task with both kindness and resolution. Once the natives are subdued, you should educate them and lead them in the direction of enlightenment. They should be encouraged to perform useful activities in cooperation with our government.”41

  Kido, however, again spoke out against the proposed Taiwan expedition. He noted with surprise that even though only a few days had passed since the Saga rebellion was quelled, people were already calling for the invasion of Taiwan. He asked, “Who does not feel delight at the thought of expanding national power abroad and opening our territory into foreign realms? However, it is the duty of the government to discriminate between inner and outer, central and peripheral. There is an order of priorities, slow or fast, early or late. At present thirty millions of our people still do not receive the protection of the government. Ignorant and poverty-stricken people still cannot be said to possess rights. One must admit that our country is not behaving as a country should.” Kido argued that in some respects the present regime was inferior to the feudal system. The people’s lack of confidence in the new government was not without cause. Since the Restoration, not a year had passed without a revolt. His own recommendations had been ignored, and military officers had already left for a campaign abroad. He could no longer remain in a cabinet whose views were so remote from his own; he would only be deceiving himself and the world. Even if he were not ill, he would be unable to remain in his post, but in view of his illness, how could he remain and still keep his integrity?42

  Despite Kido’s objections, plans for the attack on Taiwan proceeded. Saigō Tsugumichi and Ōkuma were now in Nagasaki preparing to depart for Taiwan. The protests of the British and American governments, which recognized Taiwan as a Chinese possession, were so strong, however, that the ministers and councillors decided to consult the Chinese government before taking further action. Ōkuma was ordered back to Tōkyō, and Saigō Tsuguichi was told to remain in Nagasaki and await further orders. Saigō protested strongly against any delay. He argued that the troops were ready for the departure and that any delay would impair their morale. The harm would be far worse than the Saga rebellion. He had decided that if he were commanded to halt action, he would return the commission given him by the emperor, become a renegade, attack the savages’ haunts, and in this way keep the matter from involving the country. Ōkuma tried to dissuade him, but in vain. That night, Saigō Tsugumichi gave orders to the ships to leave the harbor and loaded firewood and water. Ōkuma sent a telegram to the Shōin reporting that fighting spirit was so high he could not control it.43

  On April 27 Saigō dispatched a consular official to Amoy with a letter for local officials in which, after expressing neighborly friendship for China, he explained that he was about to set sail for Taiwan in order to fulfill the mission imposed on him by the emperor. His ships would pass territory under Chinese control, but since he had no hostile intentions toward them, he asked them not to interfere. He intended to subdue the unruly natives and make sure they would never again commit outrages against Japanese. He requested that if the savages attempted to take refuge in the areas of Taiwan controlled by the Chinese, they would be arrested and the Japanese informed.

  Saigō was impatient to start out for Taiwan but felt obliged to wait for permission from Tōkyō. Finally on May 2 he decided he could wait no longer. More than a thousand soldiers boarded four warships that headed for Taiwan. L kuma followed on May 17. His departure from Nagasaki had been delayed by negotiations to purchase an American and a British merchant ship to be used in the operation.44

  The Chinese were naturally highly displeased that the Japanese had invaded an island that they considered to be their own territory and repeatedly demanded that the Japanese troops be withdrawn. The Chinese, announcing that both Taiwan and Ryūkyū were Chinese possessions, sent two warships to Taiwan which arrived on May 22. The captain of one of the ships met Saigō and asked for a reply to this declaration. Saigō answered that all discussions of the matter were in the hands of the Japanese minister to China, Yanagihara Sakimitsu. As far as he was concerned, the operation against the natives had been more or less concluded. His soldiers were suffering from the heat, and he was waiting only for the command to return to Japan for a triumphant welcome.

  Although Saigō had claimed that the operation against the savages was more or less over, the Japanese troops did not immediately leave Taiwan. They continued to battle not only the savages but also the tropical heat and disease. Negotiations with China for disposing of the Taiwan problem continued., with the Japanese anticipating that they might be broken off at any time. In that case, should Japan declare war on China? Most army leaders, including Yamagata Aritomo, opposed a war, contending that Japan was not yet ready, but two generals insisted that Japan had nothing to fear. They averred that even while China was resorting to delaying tactics, it was frantically arming for war and that Japan must not let China gain the advantage. The Court Council, meeting on July 9, announced that it intended to strive for a peaceful solution with China, but if this failed, there would be no alternative to war.45

  The possibility of a war with China, the model for Japanese civilization for more than a thousand years, naturally caused extreme anxiety, even though some men argued that China was no longer the old China and that Japan therefore must perform necessary tasks—such as educating the Taiwanese natives—in place of a weak and inefficient China.46

  On August 1 the emperor commanded Ōkubo Toshimichi to go to China to negotiate the issue of Taiwan with the Chinese government. Negotiations did not proceed smoothly. On October 2 the Chinese rejected a Japanese request for an audience with the emperor, declaring that it was insulting for the Japanese to request an audience even as they were massing their troops for an attack. On October 10 Ōkubo delivered what was intended as a final ultimatum, but the Chinese stalled again. Both sides continued to repeat the same arguments.

  Finally, however, on October 31 China and Japan agreed to a treaty. It provided that the Chinese would recognize that the Japanese move into Taiwan had been justified; that the Chinese would pay an indemnity for the loss of Japanese lives and for the costs the Japanese had incurred in building roads, erecting buildings, and the like; that acrimonious documents exchanged between the two countries would be destroyed; and that the Chinese would ensure the sea-lanes’ safety from attacks by the Taiwan savages. The departure of Japanese troops from Taiwan was set for December 20.47

  Ōkubo returned from China on December 9 and was granted an audience with the emperor along with other officers who had served prominently in the campaign on Taiwan. The emperor thanked all of them and gave them gifts. On the thirteenth, Madenokōji Hirofusa, the acting minister of imperial household affairs, presented Ōkubo with 10,000 yen in gold, but Ōkubo declined the gift, saying that the successful conclusion of a treaty with China was owing not to his own merit but to the guidance of the emperor. He also mentioned the great expense that had been involved in pacifying the Taiwan savages and noted that the imperial palace had yet to be rebuilt.

  On December 23 the emperor, at last yielding to many urgent requests, authorized the rebuilding of the imperial palace, not for his own pleasure, but because the temporary palace was so cramped official functions could not be carried out properly.

  The year ended cheerfully. The dangerous rebellion in Saga had been put down with minimal government losses, and the invasion of Taiwan had achieved its real purpose, to make the Chinese admit that Okinawa was Japanese territory; but neither success was a full resolution of the issues involved. The Saga rebellion was a prelude to
the much more serious Satsuma Rebellion, and in another twenty years, the dispute with China would lead to the Sino-Japanese War.

  The last document of the seventh year of Meiji was a memorial presented to the throne on December 31 by Iwakura Tomomi, in which he outlined the many changes that had occurred since the arrival of Commodore Perry’s fleet in 1853. The felicitous developments, such as haihan chiken and the sending of the Iwakura mission to America and Europe, were attributed to the emperor’s ceaseless pondering of the needs of the country; but there were also many unfortunate events. Indeed, it might be said that only now, after twenty years of turmoil, was the country at peace and the surrounding seas calm. Iwakura’s memorial concluded with the prayer that the emperor would devote himself even more intensely to nurturing his ministers’ talents so that together they might realize the vision he had entertained ever since the beginning of his reign of restoring the grandeur of Japan.48

  Chapter 26

  The eighth year of Meiji’s reign, 1875, was one of the quietest. After the customary New Year observances on January 1, he went the next day to visit the Aoyama Palace and pay his respects to the empress dowager. On the fourth he went to the Shōin to be present at the commencement of state business for the year. Prayers were offered that day to the Great Shrine of Ise, the Kamo Shrines, and the Hikawa Shrine, followed by reports from the different ministries on such subjects as the number of policemen stationed throughout the country “for the protection of the people” and the forthcoming inauguration of postal money orders. Many schools had been built during the previous year, and there were now 1,297,112 elementary-school pupils, approximately one-twenty-fourth of Japan’s entire population. Finance Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu offered the prime minister a budget for the coming six months that anticipated a surplus of nearly 40 million yen of revenues over expenditures.1 In short, all seemed to going well in Japan.

  As part of his continuing education, the emperor would hear in 1875 lectures delivered each month by Fukuba Bisei, Motoda Nagazane, and the newly appointed Nishimura Shigeki (1828–1902).2 He also had calligraphy instruction from Motoda and Chō Hikaru.

  The emperor’s days were otherwise occupied with performing ceremonies (such as the observances on the anniversaries of the deaths of previous emperors), giving audiences to foreign diplomats, rewarding Japanese for meritorious deeds, observing military drills, and composing poetry. The emperor’s poem at the first poetry gathering of the year was on the theme “Capital and Country Greet the New Year.” The expression is not complicated:

  miyako ni mo In the capital

  tōki sato ni mo And in distant villages

  atarashiki People are busy now

  onaji toshi woba Welcoming the beginning

  uchimukaetsutsu Of the same New Year.3

  On January 21 his second daughter was born to the gon no tenji Yanagihara Naruko.4 The delivery was in a building specially constructed on the grounds of the Aoyama Palace. After the disappointment of two stillborn babies, the newborn baby seemed to be healthy, to everyone’s immense relief. During the next few days a stream of visitors came to the palace to offer congratulations. On the twenty-seventh, the emperor bestowed on the little princess the name Shigeko.5 She would live in the Ume Goten (Plum-tree Palace) and for this reason would also be known as Umenomiya. The birth and naming were reported to the gods, and a banquet was held in the palace. Toasts were offered to the long life of the princess and to the greater and greater flourishing of the imperial line. The emperor asked the guests to share his joy.

  In February there was a smallpox epidemic. The emperor and empress were vaccinated, which served to give Japanese, who might have otherwise feared an injection of foreign medicine, the courage to have themselves inoculated as well. Even little Princess Shigeko was vaccinated. On February 20 she paid her first visit to the palace, accompanied by her mother, Naruko, her grandfather Yanagihara Mitsunaru, and her uncle Yanagihara Sakimitsu. From this time on, she was frequently taken to the palace. No doubt her father was eager to see the princess as often as possible, but keeping her in the palace would have violated precedent. Meiji was obliged to follow the same custom that had required his own parents to leave him as a small child with his grandparents in the Nakayama household. It was understood that Shigeko would remain with her grandparents until the age of five.

  The princess’s mother, Yanagihara Naruko, was the most notable of Meiji’s concubines. Writing in 1912 about the ladies of Meiji’s court, Saitō Keishū described “Sawarabi no tsubone” (her “Genji name”)6 as a model for all women officials in the palace.7 Saitō declared that she was not only beautiful but extremely intelligent; moreover, despite being exceptionally strict in her behavior, she was also gentle. Everyone in the ōoku admired her and agreed it was impossible to find fault with her behavior.

  Like the other ladies who served as gon no tenji, Naruko was a shadowy presence even in the palace. Unlike court ladies of other ranks, who were encouraged to exercise and occasionally accompanied the empress on excursions, a gon no tenji rarely left her quarters within the palace and, never being exposed to sunlight, was likely to have a pallid complexion.8 Their ranks were higher than those of most ladies of the emperor’s entourage (a few were later promoted to tenji and rose as high as the first rank), but a somewhat clandestine air surrounded them. Yamakawa Michiko, whose position at the court was considerably inferior to that of a gon no tenji, wrote, “Gon no tenji are what in vulgar parlance are known as mistresses. Their main task was to look after the emperor, and when he went to the ōoku, they would take turns at serving by his side.”9

  Gon no tenji took care of the emperor’s personal needs, attending him, for example, when he dressed or took a bath. But their most important function, as Yamakawa Michiko implied, was serving in his bed. This special duty was officially recognized: they were the only court ladies to receive an allowance for cosmetics.10 The choice of just which gon no tenji would sleep with the emperor on a particular night was made not by him but by the senior court lady.11 He seems not to have had strong preferences among his sleeping partners. If the emperor took a dislike to a concubine, she soon left his service, but this happened rarely. The fact that his last eight children (born between 1886 and 1897) were all born of his union with the gon no tenji Sono Sachiko suggests that he preferred her to the others, but it may be simply that she was exceptionally fecund. Several gon no tenji, including Ogura Fumiko, never bore him any children.12

  As the mother of Princess Shigeko, Yanagihara Naruko enjoyed preferential treatment, but the birth of her third child, the future Taishō, was so difficult and accompanied by such hysteria and screams of anguish that she was never again permitted to share the emperor’s bed.13 She was nevertheless promoted to tenji and elevated to the second rank and, after her death, to the junior first rank, all as the result of having given birth to a prince who became the heir apparent.14

  Princess Shigeko lived for only about a year and a half before succumbing to brain fever despite the court physicians’ determined efforts.15 Two years elapsed between her birth and that of the next imperial child. One can imagine how impatiently Meiji waited for word that one of his gon no tenji had put on a maternity belt.

  In the meantime he spent his days as usual, receiving visitors from at home and abroad, riding, and occasionally issuing rescripts on matters of the day. He was also obliged to read and form opinions on the memorials submitted by his officials. At the end of February, for example, he received a long memorial from Iwakura Tomomi that stressed Japan’s weakness when compared with the major nations of the West—no doubt the product of Iwakura’s reflections after his travels abroad.16 An awareness of Japan’s military and industrial backwardness, had impelled Iwakura to oppose sending Saigō Takamori to Korea, but in this memorial Iwakura warned instead of the Russian menace to China, using a familiar expression from the Chinese classics: if the lips perish, the teeth will feel the cold.17 He urged closer relations with China as a bulwark against Russ
ian aggression; the two nations should help and depend on each other like the two wheels of a cart or the wings of a bird. His recommendation was unusual, as Japanese officials of the time thought of China as an enemy, a rival for control of the Korean peninsula, or as a self-satisfied but ineffectual country whose claims to possession of Taiwan could be defied with impunity.

  Iwakura also described in his memorial how profoundly he had been impressed by the emperor’s powers of judgment. He prayed that the emperor would henceforth deign to decide all matters of state, for if he graciously granted the benefit of his wisdom, what plan could fail? Once the nation, basking in his benevolence, was fully united, it would be able to gain equality with foreign countries, and the imperial glory would not falter for 10,000 years to come.18 This was more than mere flattery. Perhaps because of his experiences abroad, Iwakura seems to have come to believe that the emperor should be (at least in principle) all-powerful, in this differing from such men as Kido, Ōkubo, and Itō who favored gradual progress toward a democratic state. But the despotism Iwakura had in mind would follow not the European style but the ancient Japanese ideal. The emperor, the descendant of the gods, would rule serenely, untroubled by the political antagonisms of those beneath him, imparting his wisdom to his ministers.19

  Iwakura may have come to believe in the necessity of an all-powerful emperor because of his observation of the hostility that some major figures were then displaying toward the government. Even though he was minister of the left, Shimazu Hisamitsu had long refused to attend court, alleging illness, and had consistently opposed every innovation. He was especially enraged by the Western clothes that most officials now wore as their normal costume. In addition, Saigō Takamori, back in Kagoshima, showed no signs of returning to Tōkyō, maintaining mute opposition to the government.20