Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

2. For details on the children of these three emperors, together with Ōya Sōichi’s views on why mortality was so high, see Ōya Sōichi zenshū, 23, pp. 24–26.

  3. The mortality rate for infants in Japan in 1899 was 153.8 per thousand. Even if it was somewhat higher forty years earlier, this was still a far cry from the mortality rate in the imperial family (Katō Hitoshi, “Meiji tennō o-tsubone go-rakuin den,” p. 62).

  4. The ceremonies were, of course, of the utmost importance to the court, and it had therefore happened twice during the Tokugawa period that because the male heir to the throne was still too small even to make a pretense of performing these ceremonies, a princess was chosen to rule as empress until the heir was more mature. Herschel Webb wrote, “Cycles of ceremonies, attestations of appointment, and calendrical affairs were the whole ‘national’ business of the emperor and his court” (The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa Period, pp. 119–20).

  5. Higashikuze Michitomi, Ishin zengo, p. 41.

  6. It was actually a week before his birthday. At the time, Kōmei was eight years old by Western count. Although I have elsewhere converted dates from the lunar to the solar calendar and the ages of people from Japanese to Western count, when making direct translations I have followed the original.

  7. Higashikuze, Ishin, p. 32. For an official account of this ceremony, compiled from various sources, see Kōmei tennō ki, 1, pp. 43–45.

  8. See the account by Sanjō Sanetsumu of the devious activities of the dōjō kuge, nobles of the highest rank who were permitted to appear in the emperor’s presence (quoted in Fukuchi Shigetaka, Kōmei tennō, p. 21). He mentions, for example, how they sold medicine, which they claimed had been passed down in their families for centuries, pretending that it was highly efficacious. Or when encountering a military person or rich merchant on the street, they would allege some trivial offense and demanded money by way of apology. Sanjō, himself a high-ranking noble, said that the get-rich-quick schemes of the dōjō kuge were as numerous as bamboo shoots, popping up in all directions.

  9. Koji ruien, 12, p. 747.

  10. Confucian texts. The Four Books were the Analects, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Great Learning, and Mencius. The Five Classics were the Book of Changes, the Book of Odes, the Book of Documents, Spring and Autumn Annals, and the Book of Rites.

  11. Higashikuze, Ishin, p. 33. Gagaku is the ancient ritual music still performed in the imperial palace and at some shrines. It is often accompanied by bugaku dances.

  12. Higashikuze, Ishin, p. 33. The seven shrines were Ise, Iwashimizu, the two Kamo shrines, Matsuo, Inari (Fushimi), and Kasuga; the seven temples were Ninna-ji, Tōdai-ji, Kōfuku-ji, Enryaku-ji, Enjō-ji, Tōji, and Kōryū-ji. It is noteworthy that all the Buddhist temples were affiliated with the old Nara sects or the Tendai and Shingon sects, not with the sects that arose to prominence in the Kamakura period or later.

  13. Higashikuze, Ishin, p. 34.

  14. Ibid., p. 35.

  15. Ibid., p. 35.

  16. The shogun’s chief representative in Kyōto.

  17. She did not actually become his wife until January 10, 1848 (Kōmei tennō ki, 1, p. 764). Asako was born in 1834, but because this was an unlucky year, her birth was officially put back to 1833 (Fukuchi, Kōmei tennō, p. 35). Even after she was recognized as Kōmei’s consort, her title remained junkō, or “next after the empress.” There are several variants of this title, of which the most common was jusangū, meaning “next after the three princesses”—the grand empress dowager, the empress dowager, and the empress. She was Meiji’s official mother, and after he ascended the throne, her title was changed to empress dowager (kōtaikō).

  18. Kōmei tennō ki, 1, p. 255. Further descriptions of the emperor’s message, from the Buke densō kiroku and other sources, are given on pp. 255–58.

  19. Kōmei tennō ki, 1, p. 370.

  20. Ibid., 1, p. 371. Of course, Kōmei had in mind the kamikaze that had destroyed the fleet of the Mongol invaders in the thirteenth century.

  21. Fukuchi, Kōmei tennō, p. 44. On November 30 even ordinary people were admitted to the Gosho. According to Yamashina Tokinaru, whose diary Tokinarukyō ki is a major source of information on this period, the crowds of miscellaneous visitors who came to see the decorations for the coronation were “as dense as clouds, as dense as mist,” and the congestion was so great there was not a empty space (Kōmei tennō ki, 1, p. 432).

  22. Kōmei tennō ki, 1, p. 512. This tanka was composed on the twenty-fifth day of the second month of 1848 at an anniversary service for Sugawara no Michizane. The plum tree (ume) was the first to blossom, which may be why it is mentioned; but there was also a traditional connection between Michizane and plum trees.

  23. Kōmei tennō ki, p. 950. For an interesting account of the prohibition of narimono (noisemakers) after the death of a member of the imperial or shogunal family, see Fujita, Bakumatsu, pp. 30–32.

  24. Kōmei tennō ki, 2, p. 39.

  25. Ibid., 2, p. 81.

  Chapter 2

  1. Court officials, five or six in number at this time, who waited on the emperor and transmitted his words to members of the nobility.

  2. Imperial court officers, two in number at this time, who maintained liaison with the shogunate. They carried ceremonial messages and received shogunal officers at the court.

  3. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 2.

  4. Ibid., 1, p. 3. A knife, called a tekōnagatana, normally used in the gembuku ceremony to cut the hair of a boy who has come of age, substituted in the ceremony for the umbilical cord. The authors of the Meiji tennō ki commented that this was probably a remnant of some “old custom.”

  5. The sardines were of the kind called gomame, and they were considered to be felicitous because their name includes the word mame, meaning “healthy.”

  6. A very simple doll, rather like a modern kokeshi except for the arms, which stick out at right angles from the body, forming a kind of cross. Such dolls were placed beside the bed of an infant to absorb evil influences and thereby protect the child. They were kept by the bed until the child had reached its third year. The doll was about a foot and a half tall.

  7. “Hardhead” is a free translation of kanagashira, otherwise known as the “gurnard.” The choice of this particular fish was dictated by word magic: “hardhead,” the literal translation of the fish’s name, suggested that the baby would be unusually strong. The blue stones had the same significance.

  8. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 27. Obviously, the baby’s declared wishes were supplied by “interpreters” of his infant howling.

  9. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 46.

  10. Hori Tatsunosuke (1823–1892) was a member of a line of official interpreters and translators of Dutch. He later learned English and was the translator of the letter that James Biddle brought to Uraga in 1846. He later founded a school for teaching English and published an important manual for learning English.

  11. This was not a pretext. Tokugawa Ieyoshi (1793–1853) died on July 27. News of his death was kept secret by the shogunate for another month (Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 55).

  12. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 53.

  Chapter 3

  1. Putiatin’s fleet arrived on August 21, 1853, but it took the shogunate about a month to get around to reporting the event to the court in Kyōto (Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 57). For a good account of the background of Putiatin’s mission, see Wada Haruki, Kaikoku.

  2. For the background of the Russian government’s decision, which Putiatin learned of while in the Bonin Islands, see Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 89–91. The Russian appraisal of Japanese feelings was correct: the Japanese who dealt with the Russians favorably contrasted their peaceable ways with American brashness (p. 101).

  3. For an account of Putiatin’s movements at this time, see Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 109–11. He was anxious for word from Russia because it seemed likely that war would soon break out between Russia and Turkey and possibly also with Turkey’s allies, England and France. While in Shanghai, Putiatin
wrote to Commodore Perry, then in Hong Kong, proposing that they join forces and asking to be lent 40 tons of American coal in Shanghai. Perry politely refused an alliance but agreed to lend the coal. Once the coal was loaded, Putiatin sailed back to Nagasaki, having learned by this time that war had broken out in Crimea.

  4. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 57. See also Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 99–100.

  5. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 58.

  6. Ibid., 1, p. 60.

  7. Ibid., 1, p. 62.

  8. Fujita Satoru, Bakumatsu no tennō, pp. 11–12.

  9. Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 157–58. See also Komei tennō ki, 2, pp. 155–56, and Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 64.

  10. At the time, Shimoda was a village of some 1,000 houses with a population of 4,000 to 5,000. It was difficult to reach except by sea and was situated in an area often struck by typhoons.

  11. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 78. The date corresponds to May 11, 1854.

  12. If Putiatin’s fleet of three ships had gone as before to Nagasaki, there would have been trouble: a fleet of four British ships was anchored there, and since this was the time of the Crimean War, they probably would have attacked the Russian ships. Putiatin headed instead for Hakodate, a port that had been opened to the Americans. It was there he learned of the British fleet in Japanese waters from a grateful Japanese whom he had returned the previous year to Japan. Putiatin informed the Japanese that he was proceeding to Ōsaka, but his letter was not delivered until after his ships had appeared (Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 133–35).

  13. See Kawaji Toshiakira’s comments in my Travelers of a Hundred Ages, pp. 393–94.

  14. For an account of the complicated negotiations, interrupted by the loss of the Diana during another storm, see Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 146–60.

  15. The seven names considered by the scholars, together with the source for Ansei in Hsün Tzu, are given in Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 88. Burton Watson translated the sentence: “And once the common people feel safe, then the gentleman may occupy his post in safety” (Hsün Tzu, p. 37).

  16. Meiji tennō ki, 1, pp. 89–90.

  17. The relevant excerpts from Kawaji Toshiakira’s diary are quoted in Wada, Kaikoku, pp. 153–54. An example of the more favorable treatment accorded the Russians was the opening of three ports (Nagasaki, Shimoda, and Hakodate), as opposed to the two opened to the Americans.

  18. Meiji tennō ki, 1, pp. 98–99. The ship was built at Heda on the western coast of the Izu Peninsula and was accordingly named the Heda. After the wreck of the Diana, the Russians salvaged diagrams showing how a warship was constructed at Kronstadt; these were used as models by the Japanese when building their first ship to European specifications. The Russians who took passage on the German ship were taken prisoner by the British, who intercepted the ship off Sakhalin.

  19. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 91.

  Chapter 4

  1. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 113.

  2. Ibid., 1, p. 117.

  3. Ibid., 1, p. 118. “Child of the sun” (hi no miko) was a poetic name for the emperor or a prince, and because “sun” is mentioned, the poem opens with the related word “rising” (noboru). The term ama no iwahashi, literally “stone bridge of heaven,” refers to the actual bridge the prince crossed but suggests such terms as ama no ukihashi, “the floating bridge of heaven” (connecting heaven and earth), and ama no iwato, “the stone chamber of heaven,” the cave where the goddess Amaterasu hid herself.

  4. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 120. This account is derived from Japanese sources, including Higashibōjō Tokinaga nikki and Dai Nihon komonjo. It does not accord with Harris’s own version of the events, as found in his diary. He wrote on August 22, 1856, the day after his arrival in Shimoda, that he went ashore and visited the village of Kakizaki, opposite Shimoda. “The temple of this place—Yokushen [Gyokusen] of the Shinto sect—is set apart for the accommodation of Americans. The rooms are spacious and very neat and clean, and a person might stay here for a few weeks in tolerable comfort …. The Temple Rioshen [Ryōsen] at Shimoda is also set apart for the use of Americans—perhaps I may have to reside in it until a house can be prepared for me” (Mario Emilio Cosenza, ed., The Complete Journals of Townsend Harris, pp. 203–4). Harris mentions on August 27 the officials’ efforts to persuade him to “go away and return in about a year,” but he resisted all such attempts. On August 28 he was informed by the “vice governor” “that he was ready to receive me with all the honors due to my high place, and to assign me the only place that was habitable for my residence—the Temple of Jocksend [Gyokusen-ji] at Kakizaki” (pp. 209–10). It is possible that the government in Edo was deliberately misinformed about the local resistance put up to Harris’s landing and residence in Shimoda.

  5. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 121.

  6. Ibid., 1, p. 121.

  7. Erwin Baelz, Awakening Japan, trans. Eden Paul and Cedar Paul, p. 124.

  8. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 124.

  9. This was a small building situated north of the Tsune goten, or ordinary palace of the emperor. From 1840 it was more often called Tōgū goten, or Crown Prince’s Palace, but in this instance the older name was used, perhaps because Sachinomiya had not yet been designated as crown prince.

  10. Baelz, Awakening Japan, p. 101.

  11. Diary entry, September 16, 1901, in ibid., p. 144.

  12. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 126.

  13. While still living in the Nakayama household, Meiji was vaccinated by command of his grandfather, Nakayama Tadayasu (Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 454). For the spread of vaccination elsewhere in the country, see my Travelers of a Hundred Ages, p. 382, where the diarist Iseki Takako (1785–1845) gives her favorable opinion of vaccination, introduced by Dutch doctors in Nagasaki.

  14. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 129.

  15. Ibid., 1, pp. 127–28. This is a translation from the Japanese translation of the original letter written in Dutch.

  16. For an account of the demonstrations around the Gosho, see Fujita Satoru, Bakumatsu no tennō, pp. 55–70.

  17. Gosakuramachi is reported to have distributed 30,000 apples, one to a person, on the afternoon of a single day (Fujita, Bakumatsu, p. 60).

  18. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 130. For more detailed reports, see also Komei tennō ki, 2, pp. 644–45.

  19. The text is in Cosenza, ed., Complete Journals, pp. 573–74. See also Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 131.

  20. At the time, there was probably no one who could interpret directly from English to Japanese or vice versa; instead, Harris’s words were translated into Dutch by Heusken and then from Dutch into Japanese by a Japanese who had been trained in Dutch, the only European language in which Japanese were fluent. For an account of Heusken (especially concerning his death), see Reinier Hesselink, “The Assassination of Henry Heusken.”

  21. Cosenza, ed., Complete Journals, p. 412. See also Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 136.

  22. For a description of the audience in Harris’s words, see Cosenza, ed., Complete Journals, pp. 468–80.

  23. Ibid., p. 475. The Japanese text of the shogun’s remarks is reproduced photographically on p. xxx.

  24. Meiji tennō ki, 1, pp. 137–38. Harris’s version of the meeting with Hotta, although it follows the same lines, is much less specific; there is no mention made, for example, of possible British and French territorial ambitions. See also The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 5, p. 278.

  25. Kōmei tennō ki, 2, p. 708; Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 140. Harris’s version is contained in Cosenza, ed., Complete Journals, pp. 496–500.

  26. This translation follows Meiji tennō ki 1, p. 142. The original letter is much more extensive (Kōmei tennō ki, 2, pp. 725–26).

  27. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 139. The poem was discovered after her death among Nakayama Yoshiko’s effects with a note in her handwriting giving the time of composition. For the poem, see chapter 5.

  Chapter 5

  1. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 143.

  2. Ibid., 1, p. 142. The original letter is in Kōmei tennō ki, 2, p. 730.

  3. The lette
r is translated in full in W. G. Beasley, ed. and trans., Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 180–81.

  4. This title has been variously translated as “regent,” “chancellor,” “president of the councillors,” and the like. The meaning of the term changed with time, but the position was essentially that of the senior “elder,” the most powerful adviser of the shogun.

  5. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 148. The text of letter is in Kōmei tennō ki, 2, p. 856.

  6. The text is in Kōmei tennō ki, 1, p. 892. See also Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 150. This was only one of several similar semmyō composed by Kōmei on this occasion.

  7. The English text is in Mario Emilio Cosenza, ed., The Complete Journals of Townsend Harris, pp. 578–84.

  8. He mentions in the letter san shinnō (three princes of the blood) but gives only two names, Fushimi and Arisugawa. Fushimi referred to Fushiminomiya Sadanori; Arisugawa, to Arisugawanomiya Takahito and his son Taruhito. All three men had been adopted by the emperor Ninkō and had subsequently been given the title of shinnō, apparently in order to ensure continuance of the imperial line, even though their connections with the blood line of the imperial family were distant (Asukai Masamichi, Meiji taitei, pp. 77, 207).

  9. Kōmei tennō ki, 2, pp. 923–24.

  10. Tōyama Shigeki, ed., Ishin no gunzō, pp. 56–57.

  11. A treaty with France was signed in the ninth month.

  12. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 153.

  13. He wrote in a letter dated November 1 to the minister of the left (Konoe Tadahiro) that he was too exhausted to meet Manabe (Kōmei tennō ki, 3, p. 102).

  14. Kōmei tennō ki, 3, pp. 155, 156.

  15. Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 170.

  16. The text is in Kōmei tennō ki, 3, p. 227. A summary is in Meiji tennō ki, 1, p. 171.

  Chapter 6

  1. The 100,000 tanka he composed were written on scraps of paper and then transcribed onto more suitable paper by a court lady. Afterward, the original manuscript was destroyed (Hanabusa Yoshimoto, “Sentei Heika ni kansuru tsuioku,” p. 322). The only comment made on Meiji’s handwriting by members of the court was that it was extremely difficult to decipher (Hinonishi Sukehiro, Meiji tennō no go-nichijō, pp. 54–55, 181, 187).