Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  The statement went on to accuse officials of greed and corruption, lining their purses while the vast majority of the ordinary citizens were suffering from privation. Five offenses were singled out: (1) autocratic control of the government achieved by halting public discussion and suppressing civil rights; (2) the arbitrary issuance of laws and the widespread use of influence to intimidate; (3) the depletion of public funds for unnecessary building and useless decorations; (4) the creation of internal dissension caused by the neglect of patriotic and loyal samurai and by suspicions directed at persons who grieve for the country and seek to protect the sovereign; and (5) the loss of national prestige caused by their mistaken methods of dealing with foreign countries.30

  Although the conspirators’ immediate objective was the assassination of Ōkubo, the statement also mentioned others who either must be killed or could not be tolerated. The former category included Iwakura Tomomi and the late Kido Takayoshi; the latter, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Itō Hirobumi, Kuroda Kiyotaka, and Kawaji Toshiyoshi. Still others, like Sanjō Sanetomi, were corrupt but could be expected to fall like dead leaves from a branch once the trunk of the tree—the arch villains—had been cut down.31 There were hints that Shimada and his fellow assassins expected a second assassination to follow their own.32

  The first part of the statement concluded with the hope that in accordance with the oath sworn by the emperor at the time of his accession, the evils of the officials would be corrected, and a parliament be speedily established where public discussions would be held, ensuring the prosperity of the imperial household, the permanence of the country, and the tranquillity of the people.33 Here, too, reverence for the throne and insistence on the people’s rights went together. But it is doubtful whether the assassins understood the high-flown language of the manifesto drawn up by Kuga Yoshinao to justify their crime.34 Their minds were set on only one thing—killing Ōkubo.

  Once the six assassins had assembled in Tōkyō, they began to prepare systematically. They determined on which days Ōkubo went to the Akasaka Palace, the route he took, the distinguishing features of his horse carriage, and, of course, his facial features. They chose for the crime a narrow street that Ōkubo’s carriage customarily took in order to avoid crowds. They discovered that councillors were expected to attend the Dajōkan on six days of the month—the fourth, fourteenth, twenty-fourth, seventh, seventeenth, and twenty-seventh—and decided to carry out the assassination on May 14. A few days before the fourteenth, Shimada, brushing off the objections of his fellow conspirators, sent Ō kubo a letter warning him that his life was in danger. Apparently he felt that unless Ōkubo was warned, the reason for the assassination would not be known.35 Probably Ōkubo shrugged off the threat; it could not have been the first such letter he had received.

  In their last-minute preparations, Shimada and Chō wrote letters to their wives, telling them of their determination and expressing their hopes for their children’s education.36 Shimada’s letter was in the form of a long poem including such accusations against Ōkubo as “These great villains made false charges to His Majesty, whose name we mention with awe, and devoted every effort to murdering every last worthy minister. They plotted together, deceiving those above and attacking those below. They traded Sakhalin for the Kuriles.”37

  Ōkubo was not the monster portrayed in the statement or the letters sent home by the conspirators. Early that morning, before setting out in his carriage for the palace, he had a conversation with the governor of Fukushima Prefecture in which he predicted that it would take three periods of ten years each to achieve the work of the Restoration. Japan was about to enter the second period, which Ōkubo believed to be of critical importance, when the country would be strengthened internally and the productivity of the people enhanced. He considered that whatever his faults might be, he was the best person to guide Japan during this period. The third period would be in the hands of the next generation.38 One step in his plan for increasing production was opening new lands, and that morning he discussed plans for building a canal in Fukushima Prefecture.

  Normally Ōkubo would have had a pistol in the carriage to protect himself from sudden attack, but that night he was to attend a reception given by the Chinese minister, and directing that the carriage be cleaned for the occasion, he had left the pistol with a subordinate. This may have cost him his life.

  The assassination was carried out with the smoothness born of intensive preparations. Two men maimed the front legs of the two horses, and the other four killed one of the coachmen before dragging Ōkubo out of the carriage and killing him with singular brutality. The coup de grâce was delivered to Ōkubo’s throat with such savagery that the point of the sword penetrated the earth below. After arranging their weapons neatly on the ground beside the corpse, the six men went to the nearby palace to turn themselves in. They presented the police with a copy of their statement. When asked if they had other accomplices, they replied, “Yes, every one of the 30 million Japanese, except for the officials, are our accomplices.”39

  Word reached the palace soon afterward. Motoda Nagazane had just begun to deliver a lecture on the Analects to the emperor in his study. A court official rushed up to inform Motoda of the calamity. Motoda at once reported this to the emperor, who sent a chamberlain to Ōkubo’s house to find out precisely what had happened. The chamberlain returned presently with word that Ōkubo was dead. The emperor, severely shaken by the news, sent the chief chamberlain, Tokudaiji Sanetsune, to convey his grief. The empress dowager and the empress sent other envoys.

  On the following day the emperor posthumously promoted Ōkubo to minister of the right and contributed 5,000 yen for the funeral expenses. Later that day he issued a formal announcement of grief over the loss of a faithful minister on whom he had depended. He appointed Itō Hirobumi to succeed Ōkubo as interior minister, ensuring continuity in this important post.

  The assassination of Ōkubo Toshimichi was deplored even in foreign newspapers.40 His funeral, the first state funeral in Japan, was on an elaborate scale. Flags were at half-mast, and warships gave twenty-one-gun salutes. The religious ceremonies were entirely Shintō; the general disapproval of Buddhism at the time no doubt accounted for this break with tradition.

  The appointment of Itō meant that Ōkubo’s policies would not be repudiated, but the assassins’ statement seems to have been taken to heart. Even before the assassination, early on the morning of May 14, three jiho (Sasaki Takayuki, Takasaki Masakaze, and Yoshii Tomozane), who had decided that a new office should be created to assist the emperor, called on Itō Hirobumi intending to recommend Ōkubo as the man best qualified for the post. Itō concurred, but immediately afterward they learned to their horror of the assassination.

  On examining the statement left by the assassins, they could not help but agree, however, that at present the laws neither originated with the emperor nor resulted from the deliberations of the people. They decided that the most urgent need was for the emperor to administer state affairs personally, and they decided to inform the emperor of their conclusion.

  On May 16 the jiho were granted an audience at which each man expressed his views. Sasaki said that although in principle the emperor governed, in fact he delegated his authority to his ministers. This gave rise to the impression that a handful of powerful officials actually ran the country, which in turn stirred resentment among the people, as one could tell from the recent assassination. Unless positive steps were taken, the great enterprise of the Restoration would end in so much foam. It was essential that the emperor’s wishes be put into practice if Japan’s prestige was to be extended abroad. The emperor thus must be kept fully informed of developments both at home and abroad.

  Takasaki Masakaze came forward to relate that Ōkubo had always been profoundly concerned over the cultivation of imperial virtue. On the day before he was assassinated, Ōkubo had visited Takasaki’s house and expressed his anxiety. Takasaki seemed overcome even as he spoke, and he sobbed and wept as he voiced
his opinion that it was essential for the emperor to assume personal rule. At this, tears could also be seen in the emperor’s eyes. Yoneda Torao also expressed the hope that the emperor would devote himself to state affairs with the same energy he daily devoted to riding horseback. The emperor, changing his expression, said that he gladly accepted their loyal counsels and that he would henceforth pay attention to these matters. He asked the men to join in the task of assisting him. Takasaki, weeping tears of emotion, withdrew.41

  The emperor seems to have taken his counselors’ advice to heart. He would no longer seem indifferent to the running of the state. On May 21, for example, he expressed to the two jiho on duty his views on abuses of the time. Some officials had built new houses in Western style. For persons of rank whose position made it necessary to associate with foreign diplomats, there was probably a need for such houses, but in the eyes of the common people, these officials were prospering from the people’s sweat and blood and seeking only personal interest. He therefore commanded officials to refrain for the time being from building such houses. If they would wait a few years until the new imperial palace was built before building their own houses, the complaints would disappear of themselves.

  The emperor also expressed dissatisfaction that ever since the Restoration, posts in the government had been filled mainly by men from three provinces: Satsuma, Chōshū, and Tosa. This would have to end. There were well-qualified men in all parts of the country—even in the remote northeast regions—and they should be employed.42 The shock of Ōkubo’s death and the remonstrations of the jiho seem to have aroused a new sense of responsibility and a new sense of his own authority.

  Chapter 30

  On May 23, 1878, the emperor decided that he would leave in August on his long-planned tour of the Hokuriku and Tōkai regions. He had originally intended to make the journey in 1877, following his tour of the previous year to the north, but complications arising from the Satsuma Rebellion prevented him from carrying out this plan. The stated purpose of the forthcoming journey, as usual, was to learn from personal observation about regions of his country he did not know and about the people living there.1

  Remembering his experiences during his travels in the north, the emperor made it clear that he did not wish his journey to cause anyone financial hardship. He mentioned in particular that when he visited schools, the pupils should all wear ordinary attire and not have new hats, shoes, or other items of clothing made in honor of the occasion. He also expressed the hope that when he visited prefectural offices, he would be shown maps of the area, vital statistics, and records of the meritorious deeds of virtuous persons. In addition, he asked that reports be submitted on police stations and the number of patrolmen, methods of encouraging industry, pastureland, the number of cattle, and the size of uncultivated lands and currently cultivated lands. He did not expect this to be a pleasure trip, nor was his object primarily to inspire awe or even affection. His journey was, above all, educational, to give him greater knowledge of his people and how they made a living. No doubt his advisers hoped also that a visit from the emperor would make the inhabitants of remote parts of the country more fully aware of the existence of the government in Tōkyō to which they owed allegiance, a tie transcending regional loyalty.

  Nothing corresponding to the element of spectacle, so important to European progresses, was planned.2 His tours of the provinces differed in one other respect from European examples: no attempt was made to make the Japanese familiar with the face of their emperor either during his travels or on coins or banknotes. Meiji generally traveled in a closed palanquin rather than an open carriage from which he could be seen by spectators. In earlier days his face would have been visible only to members of the highest nobility, and even now he was reluctant to show it. Photographs of Meiji, few and not generally available, were not for public display. Ministers of foreign countries sometimes received a photograph of the emperor when they left Japan, but Japanese, no matter how devoted, could not display their sovereign’s photograph.

  In 1874 a man in Tōkyō began to sell (without authorization) reproductions of the photographs taken by Uchida Kuichi. This inspired Uchida to ask permission to sell his negatives, prompting a lengthy debate in the government as to the propriety of selling the emperor’s photograph.3 In the end, sale of the photographs was prohibited, and people who had already purchased one were commanded to surrender it. The absence of photographs or other tokens of self-aggrandizement typified the restrained nature of the emperor’s journey. The crowds lining the streets of towns and villages through which the procession passed might catch a glimpse of Meiji, but he did not court their attention by wearing a splendid uniform or traveling in a luxurious carriage, and his largesse was confined to small gifts to pupils at elementary schools and to very old people.

  Just before Meiji was scheduled to leave Tōkyō, an incident occurred that threatened to postpone his journey. On August 23 soldiers of the artillery battalion of the Household Guards mutinied, angered by a reduction in their pay and the worsening of their rations. The mutiny involved only about 100 men, all (except for two noncommissioned officers) privates, and most from either Kagoshima or Kōchi, two regions known for their military traditions. During the brief revolt, the mutineers killed several officers, fired a cannon at the residence of Finance Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu, and set off with two mountain guns for the Akasaka Palace, where they intended to present their demands. Some ninety men reached the palace, where they were met by regular troops who had been warned they were coming. The mutineers were arrested.

  By four the next morning, calm had been restored, but the disturbance, coming not long after the assassination of Ōkubo Toshimichi, made Iwakura and other jiho propose that the emperor’s journey be postponed. The incident was minor, they admitted, but it might be symptomatic of more serious unrest in the army. Their view was opposed by Sanjō Sanetomi and most of the councillors, who felt that it would be harmful to imperial prestige if the progress was postponed because of an unimportant incident. After consulting with the jiho Sasaki Takayuki, the emperor decided to leave as planned.

  The emperor and his entourage4 set out on August 30. The first night of the journey was spent at Urawa in Saitama Prefecture. The next morning when he granted an audience to officials of the prefecture, the emperor was presented not (as one might expect) with materials attesting to the happy lives of the inhabitants but with a report on the dismal conditions under which people at Nakatsugawa lived. The people of this village of twenty-five houses and a population of 129 were so poor and backward that they had never worn even cotton clothes, and none of them was literate. When they fell ill, there was no doctor to attend them, and when they died, no temple where they might be buried. Their staple food was millet, not rice. Most of these villagers were even unaware that there were such things in the world as schools, pharmacies, saké shops, or fishmongers. It was a blot on Emperor Meiji’s glorious regime that people were living under such conditions a bare forty or fifty miles from his residence. Local officials said they planned to repair the road to the village and to guide the villagers gradually into the ways of civilization.5

  The emperor’s reactions to this account are not given. Later he visited the offices of each branch of the local administration, a court, and various schools where he observed classrooms and rewarded prizes to the best pupils. Next he visited a museum of industry and toured the exhibits of models of machinery, minerals, and works of art. He was particularly interested in the tea produced in Sayama and the silk thread from Koma, as tea and silk were the main Japanese exports at this time. Wherever the emperor went on this journey, he always showed a special interest in local products.

  From Urawa the progress went to Maebashi, where the crowds straining to get a look at the emperor were especially numerous, and from there to Matsuida. It had rained almost every day since the emperor left Tōkyō, and the roads were in terrible condition. At places it was impossible for the emperor’s palanquin to pass, a
nd he had to get down and make his way through the mud. Fortunately his legs were strong, but the others of his suite, less endowed, trailed behind him, some with great difficulty. The weather was clear the day he crossed Usui Pass, and from the highest point he enjoyed a splendid view. Later the royal progress passed through Karuizawa, Oiwake, and Komoro, but low-hanging clouds blocked the view of Mount Asama, the most prominent feature of the landscape.

  At Nagano the emperor met the resident priest of the celebrated temple Zenkō-ji. It was unusual for him to associate with Buddhist priests, and he seldom visited a temple, but he probably considered that the Zenkō-ji, the heart of Nagano, could not be ignored. At Takano where he stayed at the local school, he sent a chamberlain to offer prayers at the graves of men killed in the war of 1868. As the progress moved closer to the scenes of fighting in that war, the prayers became frequent. In Takano, the emperor bought several varieties of sweets, which he sent to the empress and empress dowager, along with cakes and fruit from Nagano. The gesture no doubt pleased people of the town; and the fact that he bought the sweets, rather than accept them gratis, distinguished him from European monarchs.

  The journey from Takano to Kakizaki followed the coast of the Japan Sea most of the way, and the emperor seemed delighted by the splendid scenery. But the journey was by no means easy. The road, narrow and through deep sand, was said to have been repaired, but the little horse carriage rocked each time its wheels sank in the sand. Sunlight pouring through the windows made the interior so hot and humid that Sasaki Takayuki, accompanying the emperor, could not stand being inside. He obtained permission to proceed on foot, but the emperor, stoic as always, endured both the tossing of the carriage and the heat. All the same, when he reached Kakizaki he was feeling so poorly that he sent for his physician, overcoming his dislike of medical treatment.