Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  On April 14 the emperor attended the Shōin and, in the presence of the councillors and other important officials, announced the creation of the Genrō-in and the Taishin-in.21 Regional legislatures would also be inaugurated. These measures were intended to be preparatory to the establishment of a parliamentary system of government. Meiji declared,

  At the beginning of our reign, We assembled our various ministers and swore an Oath in Five Articles to the gods. With these articles as the policy of Our government, We have sought a way to enable our people to live in security. Fortunately, thanks to the spirits of Our ancestors and the efforts of Our ministers, we have attained the present short respite. It is evident to Us, however, that this prosperity is not deep-seated, and that many things in our domestic policy have yet to be revived and restored. We now, in an extension of Our Oath, have established the Genrō-in, in this way broadening the sources of lawmaking; created the Taishin-in, in this way strengthening judicial power; and summoned the provincial officials, in this way preparing the people to think of the public good and thereby laying the ground for the gradual creation of a government with a national constitution.22

  In April, Iwakura submitted another long memorial to the throne that included the statement “Although the customs and languages of those who dwell in the many countries of this world differ, all are equally human beings.”23 This may seem like a truism to modern readers, but it served as a prelude to Iwakura’s analysis of the changes in Japanese relations with foreigners. In the past Tokugawa Ieyasu had closed Japan to all but a handful of Chinese and Dutch merchants in Nagasaki, but this was no longer feasible. Japan could not ignore the achievements of the major nations of the West and the many facilities that contributed to their prosperity and strength. They made steam engines run on the ground and floated steamships on the oceans. The telegraph enabled them in a matter of seconds to be in communication with the most distant parts of the world. Places that in the past were thought to be 10,000 leagues away were now as close at hand as one’s own backyard; East and West were neighbors. Unlike the fanatical believers in jōi of ten years earlier, Iwakura believed that the Japanese would have to recognize the qualities of men in other countries and learn to live with them.

  Despite Iwakura’s apprehensions over Russian territorial aims, a treaty was signed at this time with Russia that seemed likely to settle the long dispute over possession of Sakhalin. The treaty provided that the emperor of Japan would cede rights to the entire island in return for receiving from the czar of all the Russias the eighteen islands of the Kurile chain.24 Not long afterward the czar’s decision in favor of Japan in the case of the Peruvian ship Maria Luz mollified even Japanese who believed that Russia was Japan’s greatest enemy.25 It seemed likely that better relations between the two countries would prevail, and Meiji expressed his gratitude to the czar.

  The acquisition of the Kurile Islands caused attention to be focused on the north. In July 1875 Sanjō Sanetomi, Kido Takayoshi, and Ōkubo Toshimichi presented a memorial asking the emperor to visit Hokkaidō in order to learn about its landscapes and people. They were convinced that if he toured Hokkaidō, it would make the entire country aware of the island. Its great size and possibilities for development would silence petty disputes on other matters, enlarge the imperial authority, and bring enlightenment to the ignorant.26

  The government also began at this time to devote its attention to Okinawa, at the opposite end of the empire, applying pressure on the Ryūkyū kingdom to conform to Japanese usage. In July an envoy was sent to Shuri Castle with orders for King Shō Tai to discontinue vassal relations with China. Henceforth the Ryūkyū government was not to send envoys to China or to congratulate Chinese emperors on their accession to the throne or to accept appointment to their own throne from the Chinese government. They were to use the nengō Meiji. The Ryūkyūans, however, were reluctant to break their historical ties with China.

  The remnants of jōi sentiments in Japan now took the form of protests over the importation of foreign products, which had caused an imbalance in trade and an outflow of specie. The minister of the left, Shimazu Hisamitsu, was the spokesman for a group of antiforeign partisans that included the emperor’s grandfather, Nakayama Tadayasu. The emperor listened to their complaints and promised to give them careful consideration, but there was less and less inclination among members of the court to pay attention to Hisamitsu’s protests, whether about the trade deficit, the clothes worn at court, or the solar calendar.27 Besides, any attempt to prohibit the importation of foreign goods would certainly cause difficulties with the Western powers.

  Ōkubo Toshimichi also was concerned about the Japanese trade deficit and had started a more positive program to reduce the deficit. Two years earlier he had employed an American to introduce sheep raising and to build a factory for making blankets in the hopes that this would reduce Japan’s imports of wool and help develop hitherto unproductive land. Students of sheep raising were recruited throughout Japan, and in September, after visiting some uncultivated property in Shimōsa Province, Ōkubo himself decided to start his sheep ranch there. Unfortunately this scheme did not help correct the trade imbalance.

  The most dramatic event of 1875 was an incident at Kanghwa Island in Korea that September. According to the Japanese version of what happened,28 the Japanese warship Un’yō, on a mission to survey the Tsushima Strait, was passing along the west coast of the Korean peninsula on its way to China when it ran out of firewood and water. The ship anchored on September 20 off Kanghwa Island, and the captain went by boat to look for a place where he might land and obtain water, only to be greeted suddenly with rifle fire followed by blasts of artillery. The Un’yō responded with naval gunfire, but the captain, realizing that the water was too shallow for the Japanese ship to approach shore and that he had too few men with him to engage in combat, returned to the ship and ordered the firing to stop. The next day at dawn, the Japanese attacked and occupied the island after a brief but intense clash. The Japanese lost only one man to thirty-five by the Koreans. Sixteen Korean prisoners were taken. The Japanese ship returned to Nagasaki on September 28.29

  The incident was no more than a minor clash involving a few dozen men on each side, but it was deliberately expanded into a crisis by Japanese officials who used it as an excuse for demanding concessions from the Koreans. When word of the action at Kanghwa Island reached the government, a session of the Court Council was held in the presence of the emperor. The council decided to dispatch a warship to Pusan to protect the lives of Japanese residents of Korea. The emperor, extremely disturbed by these developments, sent for Iwakura and asked for a detailed explanation of the Kanghwa incident, treating it as a matter of major national importance.

  Kido Takayoshi, who a few years earlier had opposed Saigō’s request to be sent as an envoy to Korea because he believed that strengthening the country internally was more important than avenging a supposed affront to Japanese honor, now changed his mind. He decided that although previously the evidence to warrant attacking Korea had been insufficient, firing on Japanese troops constituted an unmistakably hostile act. He proposed himself as an envoy to Korea. In a letter he sent to Sanjō Sanetomi, he blamed the crises Japan had faced during the recent years—the political upheaval of 1873 and the Saga rebellion—on the failure to establish satisfactory relations with Korea. In 1874, members of the Ryūkyū domain had been killed by Taiwanese savages, but the present event was much more serious—not only had the Japanese flag been dishonored, but (unlike Taiwan) Japanese lived in Korea, and their plight could not be ignored. The first step should be to ascertain whether China was willing to take action to chastise Korea, its tributary state; if not, he (Kido) should be delegated to deal with the Korean government. A Korean refusal to accept blame would justify the use of military force, and the responsibility would be clear. Kido was confident that if the Japanese government left the tactics of negotiations with the Koreans to him, he would do nothing to impair the glory of the imp
erial land.

  Public opinion was aroused over the Kanghwa incident,30 but the government was prevented from acting immediately because of internal problems, notably the attack directed against Prime Minister Sanjō Sanetomi by Minister of the Left Shimazu Hisamitsu in a letter to the emperor. He declared that if his advice—to dismiss Sanjō—was not heeded, Japan would be enslaved by the Western powers. He urged the emperor to assume full control of the government.31

  Shimazu’s accusations were vague and left the emperor perplexed. On October 22 he sent for Shimazu and, rejecting his petition, stated that Sanjō had served the nation devotedly and enjoyed his confidence. Shimazu Hisamitsu replied that if his petition were not accepted, he would have no choice but to resign his post. The emperor responded that in view of the crisis in Korea, he could not accept Hisamitsu’s resignation.

  In this and other controversies of the time, the emperor showed a firmness indicating that his period of youthful inexperience had come to an end. Naturally, before making decisions he consulted with his ministers, notably Kido, but the decisions were his own.

  On November 1 it was decided at a meeting at Sanjō’s house, attended by Minister of the Right Iwakura Tomomi and the councillors, to send an envoy to Korea and to station an envoy extraordinary and a minister plenipotentiary in China in order to be better informed about the situation. Mori Arinori was appointed to the latter post on November 10 with orders to ascertain through the intermediary of the Chinese government why the Koreans had attacked Japanese, who were merely looking for fresh water.

  On December 9 an envoy was appointed to proceed to Korea. Kido had repeatedly asked to be sent, but just at this time he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and Lieutenant General and Councillor Kuroda Kiyotaka was chosen in his place. Sanjō’s instructions to Kuroda described the grievous insult to the Japanese flag but said that the Japanese government did not despair of improving relations with Korea, that it was possible that the incident at Kangwha had been the decision of a provincial official and was not by order of the Korean government. It was essential to determine who had made the decision. If the Koreans were willing to open friendly relations with Japan and allow trade, the envoy was authorized to accept this concession in lieu of reparations for the attack on the Un’yō. If, however, the Korean government refused to accept responsibility for the attack at Kangwha and showed no signs of sincerely wishing to resume the traditional friendship between the two countries, the envoy was authorized to take appropriate measures.32

  Kuroda sailed for Korea on January 6, 1876, with two warships, three transports, and three companies of marines, some 800 men in all,33 the maximum the Japanese navy could provide by way of escort. The badly equipped little fleet was by no means as impressive as the ships Commodore Perry had brought to Japan on a similar mission twenty-three years earlier. In case negotiations broke down, secret plans were made for army reinforcements. Leaves for army personnel were canceled, and General Yamagata traveled to Shimonoseki to prepare for a possible military expedition.

  The Japanese ships anchored off Kanghwa, a distance of some twenty miles from Seoul. On January 16 the Japanese military paraded to the Treaty House on Kanghwa, where they were met by two Korean commissioners. Kuroda at first thought that there was little hope of arriving at an agreement with the Koreans because of the prevailing unsettled conditions. He asked for reinforcements, but the Court Council refused his request, judging that a premature display of military strength might place an obstacle in the path of peaceful negotiations, by making the Koreans dread the Japanese.

  The first meeting between representatives of the two countries lasted for four days. The negotiations were conducted with ritual politeness on both sides but consisted mainly of repetitions of familiar arguments. The Japanese wanted to know why their attempts to secure a treaty of peace and friendship had been consistently rebuffed; the Koreans in return wanted to know why the Japanese had used titles for their emperor that put him on an equal footing with the emperor of China, thereby placing Korea in a subordinate position. After denying any intent of asserting suzerainty over Korea, the Japanese asked why their ship had been fired on at Kanghwa. The Koreans answered that because the Japanese marines were dressed in European-style uniforms, they were mistaken for either French or Americans.34 They failed to apologize, saying merely that the provincial officials had not recognized that the ships were Japanese. The Japanese delegates then demanded why the Korean government had not informed its provincial officials of the flags flown by Japanese ships and insisted that this required an apology. The Korean commandant replied that he was charged only with receiving the Japanese visitors; he was not authorized to make an apology.

  The negotiations dragged on, interrupted by periods of consultation between the Korean commissioners and their government in Seoul, but on February 27, 1876, a treaty of friendship was at last signed between Japan and Korea.35 After the signing ceremony, the Japanese offered presents to the Koreans, not only the traditional bolts of silk, but a cannon, a six-shooter, a pocket watch, a barometer, and a compass. The gifts (with the exception of the silk) were strikingly like those the Americans had given the Japanese when the first treaty between the two nations was signed, and the treaty itself had almost identical significance: Japan was “opening” Korea, the hermit nation, to diplomatic relations and to trade.36 One Western scholar later commented,

  As the Western Powers had done with herself, so did she now, without one particle of compunction, induce Korea to sign away her sovereign rights of executive and tariff autonomy, and to confer on Japanese residents within her borders all the extraterritorial privileges which were held to violate equity and justice when exercised by Europeans in Japan.37

  When word of the signing of the treaty reached the diplomatic community in Tōkyō, the ministers of the various countries asked for an audience with the emperor so that they might express their congratulations. The emperor invited them to a banquet at the Shiba Detached Palace, where each minister had the opportunity to convey joy over the signing of the treaty and hopes for greater and greater friendship between Japan and Korea.38

  In the meanwhile small changes were affecting the lives of most Japanese almost daily, far more than events in Korea. On March 12, for example, Sunday was officially established as the day of rest. The government hesitated to take this step, for it feared that people might suppose it was out of deference to Christianity. But it was essential to bring Japan into line with the enlightened countries of the West, and in the end the government risked being called subservient to the Christians. A month later, Saturday afternoons were also designated as holidays.

  On March 29 a decree was issued prohibiting all persons (except members of the armed forces and the police in uniform) from carrying swords. Violators of this order would have their swords confiscated. For years a debate had been waged over whether samurai should be permitted to wear swords in the old tradition or forbidden as an anomaly in modern Japan. It was at last resolved, no doubt bringing comfort to Europeans, who were always made nervous by the sight of a sword.

  On April 4 the emperor, empress, and empress dowager visited Iwakura Tomomi’s house, where they were entertained with performances of nō. Although nō had been performed at the palace in Kyōto and the empress dowager in particular was devoted to the art, it had long been associated with the shogunate. In keeping with the Confucian tradition that a well-run government honors “rites and music” (reigaku), the shogunate had chosen nō as its “music” and patronized it. With the fall of the shogunate, the future of nō had become doubtful. Some actors followed the Tokugawa family to “exile” in Shizuoka, but not finding audiences for their plays, most turned to other occupations. Only a handful attempted to maintain nō in Tōkyō. Daimyos still resident in the city on occasion requested performances as part of the entertainment offered their guests, but after the daimyos returned to the provinces, the nō actors no longer had patrons. It is true that when the duke of Edinburgh visited Japan
, performances of nō (the first since the Restoration) were presented for his pleasure, but the actors could not wait hopefully for another royal visitor from abroad; they needed income to sustain their families, and none was forthcoming.

  Hōshō Kurō (1837–1917), probably the most distinguished actor of the day, requested permission in 1870 to retire from the stage and debated whether to become a merchant or a farmer. Nō was performed in only two theaters—in Kyōto, where the Kongō School maintained its theater, and in Tōkyō, where in 1872 Umewaka Minoru (1827–1909) built a theater at his house in Asakusa. Performances at both theaters were rare.

  The performances at Iwakura’s house were thus of great importance in the revival of nō. During his travels in America and Europe, Iwakura had been invited on various occasions to the opera which, he was informed, was the most notable variety of European drama. (His hosts probably invited him to the opera because they hoped that even if he could not understand the words, he might at least enjoy the music.) Seeing opera abroad made Iwakura recall the nō, and after he returned to Japan, he asked two members of his embassy to plan a revival of the nō as a suitable entertainment to offer to foreign visitors.

  The actors who appeared before the emperor on this occasion included Umewaka Minoru and Hōshō Kurō. In addition to members of the imperial family, four former daimyos, Sanjō Sanetomi, Kido Takayoshi, Ōkubo Toshimichi, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Itō Hirobumi, Yamagata Aritomo, and other major figures in the government also attended. After the planned program of Kokaji, Hashi Benkei, and Tsuchigumo had ended, Hōshō Kurō, at the emperor’s request, performed Kumasaka. The emperor, it was reported, looked highly pleased. At the dinner of Western food offered afterward by Iwakura, the emperor favored him and the other ministers and councillors with saké poured by his own hand.