Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  The rewards of this mainly painful journey were confined to the scenery and sights along the way. At Izumozaki, for example, the emperor watched with great interest hundreds of boats fishing at night. The pains far outweighed the pleasures of travel, however: he spent the whole of each day sitting Japanese-style in a cramped palanquin and at night was obliged by custom to sit bolt upright on a chair until ten, his bedtime, when he was at last able to stretch out. The night that the emperor spent at Izumozaki, his quarters were not only cramped but invaded by swarms of mosquitoes. His chamberlains urged the emperor to retire into the protection afforded by a mosquito netting, but he answered, “The whole purpose of this journey is to observe the suffering of the people. If I did not myself experience their pains, how could I understand their condition? I do not in the least mind the mosquitoes.”6 The emperor’s words seem too Confucian to be true, but it accords with other recorded episodes of the journey and gives an indication of the compassion felt for his people by a man who thus far had had little personal experience of suffering.

  When the emperor reached Niigata, he was shocked by the number of people suffering from trachoma. He recalled that when he had traveled in the north two years earlier, he had noticed people who suffered from the same disease and had asked a doctor if there was no way of treating it. The doctor answered that there was none that poor people could afford. Now, seeing even more trachoma victims in Niigata, the emperor commanded his personal physician to investigate the causes and possible ways of curing and preventing trachoma. Two days later the emperor received a report blaming the climate, the physical features of the region, and the inadequately clean houses for the spread of trachoma; but the main cause was its infectious nature. The emperor donated 1,000 yen for study of a cure and prevention.

  There were a few bright spots on the journey. At Nagaoka the emperor was pleased to see that this city, which had been almost totally destroyed during the war of 1868 and had been desperately poor afterward, was gradually recovering. There was much to remind him of the warfare of ten years earlier. At Fukushima Village, the site of a battle, the positions of the government troops were marked by white flags and those of the rebels by red flags to give the emperor an idea of just how the battle had been fought.7

  For the most part the journey was miserable. It rained day after day, leaving the roads deep in mud, and even when it cleared, the rivers were so swollen that they were extremely difficult to cross. Years later (in 1899) the emperor recalled the journey in this tanka:

  natsu samuki It’s now long ago

  Koshi no yamaji wo Since I traveled mountain roads

  samidare ni Soaked by the spring rains

  nurete koeshi mo In Koshi, where it is cold

  mukashi narikeri Even in the summertime.8

  By the time they reached Oyashirazu Koshirazu, the most dangerous place on the Japan Sea coast, cliffs dropping into the sea and the only road washed by the waves, everyone was exhausted. Once safely passed this frightening place, Meiji stopped his carriage to enjoy the scenery. It was magnificent—he could catch glimpses through the ocean spray of Sado Island and the Noto Peninsula.9

  Danger of another sort was feared in Kanazawa, for this was where Ōkubo’s assassins had plotted, and there might still be unruly elements in the population. Nothing untoward happened; instead, the emperor spent his time as usual—visiting schools, the Kenrokuen garden, and a museum where products from home and abroad were displayed. At Komatsu, the emperor received letters and gifts from the empress and empress dowager. No doubt they gave him as much pleasure as letters from home bring any traveler.

  From this point on, the journey was relatively easy. From Kanazawa he went to Komatsu, Fukui, Tsuruga, Ōtsu, and on to Kyōto. One night in Kyōto he entertained the members of his suite with stories of the Gosho before the Restoration. Although his recollections were barely ten years old, they may have seemed echoes of the distant past.

  Plans for the emperor to worship at the Great Shrine of Ise during his progress through the Tōkai region had to be altered when typhus was reported in Mie Prefecture. The revised route took the procession through Kusatsu, Ōgaki, and Gifu to Nagoya. At each stop, as usual, the emperor visited schools and exhibitions of local products. There is no suggestion that he was bored or impatient to get back to Tōkyō; his strong sense of duty, submerged temporarily during the Satsuma Rebellion, had again manifested itself and characterized his actions for the rest of his life.

  Meiji returned to Tōkyō on November 9. He had traveled some 440 ri (more than 1,000 miles) over a period of seventy-two days and had passed through eleven prefectures. Despite the fatigue of the journey, he looked well and seemed to be in good spirits. The day was declared a holiday, and everywhere in the capital he was greeted with flags.

  The remainder of the year was generally uneventful, but just before it ended—on December 27—an order was suddenly issued by the Court Council abolishing the Ryūkyū domain. The minister of the interior, Itō Hirobumi, had decided to demote the domain to a prefecture; it would no longer be a kingdom but merely one of many prefectures. The background of this decision was the refusal of the Ryūkyū domain to obey the Japanese order to break its contacts with the Chinese court. The Ryūkyū king had been specifically commanded not to send an envoy to express congratulations when a new emperor ascended the throne of China or to receive appointment by the Chinese emperor as king of the domain. The king had disregarded these orders and had secretly sent a member of his family to the Chinese court to appeal for help against Japan. He had also asked the domain representative in Tōkyō to secure help from the Chinese, American, French, and Dutch ministers. No fewer than fourteen petitions were submitted to the Japanese government asking to return to the old form of dual allegiance to both Japan and China, pointing out that “Japan is our father and China our mother.”10

  The Japanese insisted, however, “For a country to serve two emperors is like a wife serving two husbands.”11 The Ryūkyū kingdom had for centuries served two masters, China and Satsuma, paying tribute to both. This was the only way a small country with few resources and no military strength could maintain its existence. Determined to break the ties between the Ryūkyū Islands and China, the Japanese were exasperated by the king’s stalling tactics. Finally Itō decided to abolish the domain, using as a pretext the king’s intransigence. He ordered Matsuda Michiyuki (1839–1882), the chief secretary of the Interior Ministry, to draw up a plan for terminating the Ryūkyū domain. The plan called for the enforced removal of the king from Okinawa to Tōkyō. It was approved by the prime minister and the Court Council. The king was ordered to comply within a week with the order issued to him. If he refused, the Japanese government would take “positive measures” to dissolve the domain. In the meantime Ryūkyū officials stationed in Tōkyō were ordered to return immediately to Okinawa, a first step in depriving the domain of its semiautonomous status.12

  Matsuda Michiyuki left Yokohama for Naha on January 8, 1879. He arrived in Naha on January 25 and on the following day went to Shuri, the Ryūkyū capital, where he met with high officials and read aloud this message from Sanjō Sanetomi:

  On May 29, 1875, you sent an alternate-year tributary mission to China and a congratulatory envoy on the occasion of the succession to the throne of the Chinese emperor. Moreover, when you were named king of the domain, you accepted the status of a loyal vassal of China. You were forbidden to continue these practices, but you have not yet submitted a statement of compliance. Again, although you were directed in May 1876, in connection with the establishment of a magistrate in your territory, to turn over all the court business of the domain, you have failed to comply with this to the present, terming this a “supplication.” This situation cannot be allowed to persist. If you continue to fail to obey directives, appropriate measures will be taken. This demand is urgent.13

  After reading this statement, Matsuda gave the document to Shō Hitsu, the younger brother of the king. He added verbally a thr
eat of extreme measures in the event that the order was not obeyed and gave the king until 10 A.M. on February 3 to respond. On January 29 Matsuda sent the king another missive ordering him to submit a statement of obedience, together with an oath. Failure to comply would be interpreted as a sign that the king was likely to repeat his former errors and so would not carry out his promise in good faith. The king was ordered to appear at the branch office of the Interior Ministry along with the king’s deputy. But the king did not appear on the third. Instead he sent some senior officials with his reply to Matsuda’s letter.

  The king, using deferential terms, explained the difficulty of his position. If he refused to pay tribute and offer congratulations to the Chinese court (as Matsuda commanded) and refused appointment as a vassal to that court, his domain would certainly be punished by the Chinese. His small country, caught between two strong countries, was helpless. He abjectly begged for Japanese sympathy.

  Shō Tai had never been a commanding figure, but there is something inescapably moving in the spectacle of a king cringing before an official whose sense of mission—disposal of the Ryūkyū problem—left no room for pity. Matsuda, charging that the king’s letter was evidence that he still refused to obey the order of the Court Council, announced that he was returning to Tōkyō where he would report in detail what had transpired. He told the Ryūkyū officials to await further orders. When the officials begged him to show consideration, he not only refused but added a new cause of complaint: he was angry that although Ryūkyūans had been directed years earlier to use the reign-name Meiji, they still dated their documents according to the Chinese reign-name Kuang-hsü. He declared that this was absolutely forbidden.

  Matsuda left the next day for Tōkyō. On March 11 the emperor issued a command abolishing the Ryūkyū domain and directing the king and his heirs to move to Tōkyō.14 Okinawa would become a prefecture, and members of the royal family would be given titles in the Japanese peerage. Matsuda sailed once again to Okinawa, this time with more than 160 police and 500 infantry troops. The king, pleading illness, refused to see Matsuda, but on March 11 he left the palace, the seat of Ryūkyū authority for 500 years where he had lived his entire life, and moved to the residence of the crown prince, Shō Ten.

  Shō Tai’s resistance seems to have had some effect. On April 5 the emperor sent the chamberlain Tominokōji Takanao to inquire about Shō Tai’s health. He privately directed Tominokōji to urge Shō Tai to come to Tōkyō as soon as possible and, in order that the king might travel safely, sent the government-owned ship Meiji maru for his use.

  Tominokōji arrived in Naha on April 13 and, protected by an escort of thirty police officers, went on to Shuri. Shō Tai declined because of illness to see the emperor’s envoy but sent word asking that Shō Ten be allowed to receive him instead. Tominokōji, refusing, went with Matsuda to Shō Tai’s temporary residence. He was met at the gate by princes of the royal house and high officials, and Shō Ten led the envoy to Shō Tai’s sickroom. The king, with his clothes and hat of ceremony placed on the bed, pretended (as a mark of respect to the emperor’s envoy) to put them on. Then, supported by two attendants, he rose from bed and, kneeling, bowed profoundly.

  The envoy communicated the emperor’s message. Shō Tai expressed thanks in extremely humble language. Tominokōji asked whether he would obey the emperor’s command. The king replied that he would answer the following day.

  Now that the formal part of the visit was over, Matsuda left his chair and, sitting on the floor, expressed sympathy for the king’s illness and the mental anxiety he had suffered during the past months. Tominokōji joined in comforting the king. When they had left the sickroom, they agreed that although Shō Tai looked pale, there was no sign of a wasting illness; but it was clear that he was not merely pretending to be ill.15

  On April 14 Matsuda summoned the chief officials of the former domain and urged them to persuade the king to make a reply. The king was exceedingly reluctant to leave Okinawa and begged for a postponement of his departure because of illness. Matsuda refused, saying that because Shō Tai’s illness was chronic, he could not hope to recover completely. On the fifteenth, Shō Tai’s brother Shō Hitsu, along with more than twenty senior officials, begged Tominokōji and Matsuda for a stay of four or five months, proposing that one of the royal princes be sent (as a hostage) to Tōkyō. On the sixteenth, 150 members of the Ryūkyū aristocracy, along with the royal princes and senior domain officials, begged for a stay of ninety days. This was refused outright. It was pointed out that the king would enjoy the special protection of the state during the voyage and that there was nothing to worry about.

  Behind the intransigence of the Japanese officials was the fear that the king was delaying his departure for Tōkyō in the hopes that in the meantime, the Chinese would come to his support. The sooner Shō Tai was in Tōkyō, they reasoned, the less chance there was of Chinese intervention.

  The king was scheduled to leave on April 18, but on the day before Shō Hitsu and other high officials made a final appeal to Matsuda. They said this time that it was not only because of Shō Tai’s health that a delay of ninety days was sought but because the former domain had been unsettled by recent changes and the king himself was needed to admonish the people and persuade them to continue at their normal occupations. This time they proposed that Shō Ten, the crown prince, be sent to Tōkyō. Matsuda at last yielded but insisted that there was no reason to postpone the departure for ninety days. Therefore he would shorten the period of delay and inform them the next day exactly when the king would have to leave.

  Matsuda was not worried by the possibility of unrest. He reasoned also that if the king persisted in refusing to go to Tōkyō, he could be taken by main force. But if Shō Ten was left in Okinawa, he might become the focal point for a rebellion that would lead to Chinese intervention. The best plan was to get both Shō Tai and Shō Ten to Tōkyō. He decided therefore to accept the proposal that Shō Ten be sent to Tōkyō and to state that the decision about whether or not Shō Tai’s departure might be delayed would be left to the prime minister. Once Shō Ten was safely in Tōkyō, they could say that Shō Tai’s request had been refused. In this way responsibility for sending Shō Tai to Tōkyō would rest at the highest level of the government. An imperial envoy would then be sent to Okinawa to escort Shō Tai to the capital.16

  On April 18 a delegation of Ryūkyū nobles headed by Shō Hitsu called on Matsuda. This time they asked for a postponement of only eighty days and again proposed that Shō Ten be sent to Tōkyō. Matsuda answered that if they requested fewer than forty days, it might be possible to ask Tominokōji, the imperial envoy, to delay his return. In that case Shō Ten’s journey to Tōkyō could be viewed as a gesture of gratitude. On the next day Tominokōji approved the plan, and it was decided that Shō Ten would accompany him to Tōkyō. On April 19 Tominokōji Takanao and Shō Ten left Naha aboard the Meiji maru.

  The ship reached Yokohama on May 1. On the fifth, Meiji received Shō Ten and five members of his entourage, who bowed in respect from the other side of the threshold. That day Shō Ten offered presents to the emperor and empress. He also requested the prime minister to allow his father a delay in going to Tōkyō, but this was refused. Everything went in accordance with Matsuda’s scenario.

  On the same day Major Sagara Nagaoki and the court physician Takashina Tsunenori left for Okinawa to examine the king’s malady. The two men arrived on May 18 and went with Matsuda to the king’s temporary residence in Shuri. Takashina diagnosed the king’s ailment as a nervous disorder and hypogastric congestion. He said there was no immediate danger from this illness, but it was unlikely it could be completely cured in a matter of months or even years. Having heard this much, Matsuda produced a document announcing that the government had refused Shō Tai’s request for a delay. He would have to leave for Tōkyō within a week. The king at last resigned himself to going to Tōkyō but asked for a delay of three weeks. More than sixty nobles from Shuri, Naha, Kume,
and Tomari made the same request, but Matsuda sternly refused. The king’s departure was set for May 27.17

  In the meantime the Chinese had at last protested. On May 10 a letter signed by Prince Kung and other ministers was sent to the Japanese minister in Peking declaring that the Ryūkyū kingdom had for hundreds of years accepted the Chinese calendar and paid tribute. China, respecting its integrity as an independent country, had allowed Ryūkyū complete freedom in its politics and laws. China had also joined with Japan in signing a treaty with Ryūkyū, recognizing it as a sovereign state. Now, however, the Japanese government had imposed its administrative system on Ryūkyū. This not only contravened the treaty of friendship and destroyed another country but ended its ancestral sacrifices. It could only be considered an expression of contempt for China and other countries. Only by giving up its plan to end Ryūkyū sovereignty could Japan promote friendly relations between the two countries.18

  China was in a poor position to protest. According to the convention signed at Peking in October 1874 by the Japanese plenipotentiary and the Chinese minister of foreign affairs, the Chinese recognized the people of Ryūkyū as Japanese subjects. The Chinese government agreed also to pay an indemnity to the families of Ryūkyū fishermen who had been killed by the Taiwan natives, referring to the fishermen as “people of Japan.”19

  When the Japanese foreign minister received the Chinese protest, he replied that the disposal of the Ryūkyū problem was a matter of domestic policy, that other countries might not intervene. The Chinese retained one hope of dissuading the Japanese: the former United States president, Ulysses S. Grant, who visited China in May, would be going on to Japan. He would bear a communication from Prince Kung and might, with his prestige, change the minds of the Japanese.