Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

7. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 505.

  8. Ibid., 8, p. 510.

  9. It stood on the site of Hiroshima Castle, erected in 1589 by Mōri Terumoto, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s generals. At the time when Meiji resided in Hiroshima, all that was left of the castle was the five-story keep.

  10. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 511. Viscount Hijikata Hisamoto recalled that the emperor’s private quarters consisted of two rooms, one of eight mats and the other of ten mats. He used one for sleeping and the other for state business. It was extremely cramped: “In such crude surroundings His Majesty lived, read telegrams that arrived from the front in a steady stream, and gave endless audiences to officers about to go overseas. He was extremely busy, but showed no sign of weariness” (“Eimei kurabenaki daikōtei,” p. 70).

  11. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 512.

  12. Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 83.

  13. Ibid., p. 516.

  14. Some prints depicting Harada in action are reproduced in Shumpei Okamoto, Impressions of the Front, p. 24. See also Henry D. Smith, Kiyochika, p. 86.

  15. Donald Keene, Nihonjin no biishiki, pp. 149–50.

  16. Donald Keene, “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and Japanese Culture,” p. 280; Muneta Hiroshi, Heitai hyakunen, pp. 109–14.

  17. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 517.

  18. Although the tonnage of the Japanese and Chinese ships was small by modern standards, for their time these ships were by no means inconsequential, as one can gather from the account in L’Illustration for August 11, 1894, which anticipated: “Une lutte dans laquelle tous les engins les plus puissants et les plus perfectionnés de la science moderne seront, pour la première fois, mis aux mains de deux nations, non pas certes barbares, mais d’une civilisation complètement différente de la nōtre” (“Iryusutorashion” Nihon kankei kiji shū, 2, p. 166).

  19. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 518–20. Ten nishikie depicting the battle of the Yellow Sea (also known as the battle off Takushan and as the battle of Hai-yang-tao) are given in Okamoto, Impressions, pp. 25–30.

  20. Keene, “Sino-Japanese War,” p. 280. A nishikie by Kobayashi Kiyochika depicting the dying sailor is reproduced in Okamoto, Impressions, p. 28.

  21. The noted journalist Tokutomi Sohō stated that the Sino-Japanese War had caused not only the military but the entire people to draw closer to the imperial household (Shirai, Meiji kokka, pp. 89–91).

  22. Hinonishi Sukehiro, Meiji tennō no go-nichijō, p. 44. Hinonishi described himself as futsutsuka, an incompetent.

  23. Hinonishi Sukehiro, Meiji tennō no go-nichijō, p. 27.

  24. The collection Shinshū Meiji tennō gyōshū (1, p. 252) contains only two tanka that allude to the war. However, Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 528–29, includes a war song (gunka) not in the collection and mentions two others (on the victories on the Yellow Sea and at Pyongyang).

  25. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 529.

  26. Horiuchi Keizō related how Katō, on hearing the story of Shirakami Genjirō’s bravery, was immediately inspired to write a poem and set it to music (Ongaku gojūnen shi, pp. 155–56). He first tried blowing the tune on a clarinet, but his breath gave out. Next he tried a baritone trumpet, but again his breath failed. Finally, he scribbled the words on a blackboard. Still in this white-hot fury of creativity, but with the help of another musician, he completed music and words in half an hour.

  27. I have unfortunately been unable to examine this work. See Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 529, where mention is also made of the gunka (war song) on the victory at Pyongyang composed by the empress (at the emperor’s request) when she visited him in Hiroshima. Sakurai also supplied the music for the empress’s poem.

  28. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 524–25, 549.

  29. Ibid., 8, p. 568. The nō plays performed were suitably martial in tone—Ōeyama and Eboshiori. The kyōgen was Utsubosaru (p. 569).

  30. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 571.

  31. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 138. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 576.

  32. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 139.

  33. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 577.

  34. Meiji tennō ki gives “more than 10,000” (8, p. 589), but Shirai gives a figure of 15,000 (Meiji kokka, p. 141).

  35. Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 143. For an eyewitness account of the battle, see Kamei Koreaki, Nisshin sensō jūgun shashinchō, pp. 172–77. Kamei, the first Japanese war photographer, kept an extremely detailed war diary that included information from other sources. He quotes the report of the battle by an observer, a foreign officer who accompanied the Second Army on pp. 172–73.

  36. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 140. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 594.

  37. Inoue Haruki, Ryojun gyakusatsu jiken, pp. 25–26. I owe much of the following to Inoue’s brilliant, scholarly book. The British “rear admiral” was probably Vice Admiral Sir Edmond Robert Fremantle, the commander in chief of the China station. He went ashore in Port Arthur on November 25, soon after the Japanese victory (p. 127).

  38. Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 26–27. On November 24 Kamei Koreaki photographed coolies digging a hole in which to bury the Chinese corpses shown in the foreground of the picture. His description of the piles of corpses littering the streets is even more horrible than Cowen’s, but he clung to the explanation that every male in Port Arthur over fifteen had been ordered to resist the Japanese army and that it was impossible to distinguish civilians from soldiers (Kamei, Nisshin sensō, pp. 197–99).

  39. Inoue described how Central News, a Japanese-owned news agency, fed “information” to newspapers abroad (Ryojun, p. 29). For example, in response to Cowen’s first article, it stated that not one Chinese had been killed except for those lawfully killed in warfare.

  40. Inoue, Ryojun, p. 72. The Japanese were not always successful in their attempts to bribe the foreign press. On December 6 during the course of an interview with Cowen, Itō Miyoji, the president of the progovernment newspaper Tōkyō nichinichi shimbun, stated that the Japanese government would pay his expenses and would not charge the Times for telegrams, regardless of the length (p. 98). Cowen refused.

  41. Notably Francis Brinkley, the owner of the Japan Mail in Yokohama, which published various English-language newspapers. Brinkley not only received a monthly grant from the Japanese government during the Sino-Japanese War but was decorated for his services and given 5,000 yen (Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 31–32).

  42. Inoue, Ryojun, p. 40.

  43. The World, a newspaper owned by Joseph Pulitzer, was at this time known mainly as a scandal sheet, but this did not prevent Creelman’s articles from being believed.

  44. English text is in Inoue, Ryojun, p. 55.

  45. Ibid., p. 58.

  46. James Allan, a British writer, described seeing “the bodies of the Japanese soldiers, killed in encounters with the enemy as they closed on the place, were often found minus the head or right hand, sometimes both, besides being ferociously gashed and slashed. Corpses were still hanging on the trees when the fortress fell, and it is not surprising that their former comrades should have been maddened by the sight, though of course the officers are greatly to blame for permitting the fearful retaliation which ensued to be carried to such lengths” (Under the Dragon Flag, p. 67).

  Inoue states that the heads of three Japanese soldiers who had been taken alive in the fighting near Tu-ch’eng-tzu three days before the battle for Port Arthur were suspended from a willow beside the road. The noses had been cut off, and their ears were missing. A little farther on, two more heads were suspended on wires from the eaves of a house. The Chinese had also decapitated the corpses of Japanese of the Second Army who had fallen at Tu-ch’eng-tzu. The bellies were slit open and filled with stones; the right arms and the testicles were also cut off. The Chinese government had offered rewards for the heads of Japanese soldiers, and one foreign journalist told Creelman that he had seen the money being paid (Ryojun, pp. 146–47).

  47. Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 82, 85. It was reported in the December 20 issue of the Ōsaka mainichi shimbun that 6,000 to 10,000 Armenians had bee
n killed.

  48. Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 153, 157, 176.

  49. Ibid., p. 64. Prisoners did reach Japan, but they were not necessarily captured at Port Arthur.

  50. Inoue, Ryojun, p. 186. The decision not to take prisoners was also justified in terms of the amount of food that would be needed to feed them.

  51. Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 202–4. Mutsu quotes Dr. T. E. Holland, described as “a leading English authority on international law and a man who had hitherto been unstinting in his praise of Japan’s wartime conduct,” as having said in an article, “At last but thirty-six Chinamen were left alive in the city. They had been spared only to be employed in burying their dead countrymen, and each was protected by a slip of paper fastened in his cap, with the inscription: ‘This man is not to be killed’” (Kenkenroku, p. 75).

  52. Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 48, 189, 192.

  53. Donald Keene, Dawn to the West, 1, p. 100.

  54. Inoue, Ryojun, p. 195.

  55. Ibid., p. 86.

  56. A Japanese soldier gives a brief account in a letter written to a friend describing how, after some initial distaste, he quickly acquired the knack of cutting off Chinese heads (Inoue, Ryojun, p. 187).

  57. For example, an English-language newspaper in Bombay printed an editorial saying of the Japanese that “their enlightenment was only skin-deep, and with time they have shown their true natures as barbarians” (Inoue, Ryojun, p. 102).

  58. Walter Q. Gresham, the secretary of state, expressed his gratitude to the World for having printed Creelman’s articles. At first, he had supposed that Creelman must have exaggerated, for it seemed improbable that no representative of the American government would have informed him of so major an event. However, he interpreted Mutsu’s telegram as a confirmation of Creelman’s articles, and he now realized that the atrocities after the fall of Port Arthur were even worse than at first reported (Inoue, Ryojun, p. 70).

  59. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, pp. 75, 76.

  60. Inoue, Ryojun, p. 222.

  61. The tanchōzuru was captured at Chin-chou. For mention of the emperor examining war booty, see Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 606. The same work mentions that the emperor examined booty from Ryojun and elsewhere that was placed on display in the garden (p. 610). He also looked at photographs of the battle of the Yellow Sea and at Chinese nishikie.

  62. Viscount Horikawa Yasutaka, who about this time was in charge of cataloguing the imperial treasures in the Shōsōin.

  63. For the anecdote about Horikawa and the camels, see Hinonishi, Meiji tennō, p. 27. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 607. Hinonishi mentioned that Chinese prisoners were shown to the emperor but said merely that “he looked on them from above.” This suggests he was curious to see what Chinese looked like but did not wish to get too close.

  64. Inoue, Ryojun, pp. 191–92.

  65. Shinshū Meiji tennō gyoshū, 1, p. 252. The second tanka originally ended semi-otoshitaru / totsugeki no koe. The poems were composed in 1895, probably some months after the fall of Port Arthur.

  Chapter 46

  1. Mutsu Munemitsu, Kenkenroku, trans. Gordon Mark Berger, p. 128.

  2. Ibid., pp. 128–29. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 600–601.

  3. Shirai Hisaya, Meiji kokka to Nisshin sensō, p. 145.

  4. The text of the rescript is in Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 601. See also Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 146. Yamagata received the rescript on December 8 and on that day sent a telegram to Prince Taruhito stating that he had been recalled, would turn over command of the First Army to Major General Nozu, and would leave for Japan on December 9 (Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 602).

  5. The counterattacks took place on January 17, January 22, February 16, February 21, and February 27 (Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 642–43, 645–46, 679, 687, 695).

  6. Shirai, Meiji kokka, pp. 146–47.

  7. Reproductions of some of the prints that evoke the cold and snow are in Tamba Tsuneo, Nishikie ni miru Meiji tennō to Meiji jidai, pp. 160–65.

  8. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 604.

  9. Ibid., 8, p. 617.

  10. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, pp. 152–57. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 658.

  11. Weihaiwei was a much larger military harbor than Port Arthur and was heavily fortified. At the time of the Japanese attack, eight warships and smaller vessels were at anchor (Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 637).

  12. For details of the attack, see Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 665–66. Shirai says that a torpedo boat attack had been attempted on January 30, but the temperature was 30 degrees below zero (Celsius) (Meiji kokka, pp. 161–62). Waves breaking over the decks of the boats froze, and icicles formed over the mouths of the torpedo-launching tubes making an attack impossible.

  13. Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 162.

  14. The text is in Miyake Setsurei, Dōjidaishi, 3, p. 44; the translation, in Shumpei Okamoto, Impressions of the Front, p. 44.

  15. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 684.

  16. Trumbull White, The War in the East, p. 641, quoted in Okamoto, Impressions, p. 44.

  17. On December 12, while the emperor was playing kemari, he was struck by a ball kicked by a chamberlain, who was appalled by what he had done. However, the emperor said with a smile, “The navy has fired a torpedo.” He did not blame the poor chamberlain (Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 609).

  18. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 653.

  19. Ibid., 8, p. 648.

  20. For example, it was reported that the emperor was obliged by the lack of suitable female attendants to cut his own fingernails and toenails.

  21. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 721.

  22. Ibid., 8, p. 717.

  23. Li was in a sedan chair (kago) when the assailant fired. The bullet grazed his right cheek under the eye, injuring him only slightly. For details from the Japanese press, see Ishida Bunshirō, Meiji daijihen kiroku shūsei, pp. 225–28.

  24. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 730–32. The complete text of the rescript is in Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 174.

  25. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 175. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 738–39.

  26. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 176.

  27. Ibid., p. 178.

  28. The armistice did not include Taiwan or the Pescadore Islands. The latter islands were occupied by Japanese forces between March 24 and 26 (Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 733).

  29. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 168.

  30. Ibid., pp. 186–87. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 751–53.

  31. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 756.

  32. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 199.

  33. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 773.

  34. Ibid., 8, p. 774.

  35. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 203. The German and French governments sent roughly the same notes. See also Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 776, and Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 183.

  36. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 778. See also Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 182.

  37. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 211; Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 183.

  38. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 780–81. See also Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 207.

  39. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 781. See also Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 207.

  40. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 780.

  41. Mutsu, Kenkenroku, p. 210.

  42. Meiji tennō ki, p. 806.

  43. Ibid., 8, p. 817.

  44. Ibid., 8, p. 822.

  45. Ibid., 8, p. 849.

  46. Ibid., 8, p. 920.

  47. For a table of casualties during the Sino-Japanese War, see Fujimura Michio, Nisshin sensō, p. 183. During the campaign on the Asian mainland, the Japanese lost a total of 2,647 men; during the Taiwan campaign, there were 10,841 casualties.

  48. He was known at various times of his career as Michinomiya, Kōgen, Rinnōjinomiya, and Kitashirakawanomiya (chapter 17). He died on October 28 in Tainan (Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 923–24).

  49. The text of the eulogy is in Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 932.

  50. Ibid., 8, pp. 622–23. Later, the same article compares Emperor Meiji with the rulers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, England, France, and the United States, each time deciding that the emperor is superior. The
article also compared him with such historical figures as Augustus in Rome, King Alfred of England, Napoleon, and Wilhelm I, all of whom fell far short.

  51. Donald Keene, “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and Japanese Culture,” p. 294.

  52. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea, p. 7.

  Chapter 47

  1. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 807, 829.

  2. Woonsang Choi, The Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, pp. 26–27.

  3. Meiji tennō ki. 8, p. 846.

  4. Ibid. He also offered an alternative plan that, although less welcome to the royal house and the government, would probably lessen the burden on the common people.

  5. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 851. Joseph H. Longford wrote, “The worst rogues and bullies of Japan—and Japan produces an abundance of both types—poured into the unfortunate country, and robbed and browbeat the terrified natives in a way that filled European witnesses with indignation and horror, and increased tenfold the traditional hatred of the natives of the very name of Japan” (The Evolution of New Japan, p. 118).

  6. For example, Choi contrasted Inoue with his successor, Miura Gorō, in these terms: “Unlike Count Inoue, who was a man of great ability and had done much for the reform of Korea, Miura proved to be lacking in every quality of constructive and administrative statesmanship” (Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, p. 27).

  7. Queen Min in principle never appeared before foreign men, but she met foreign women. Takeko, who was a year older than the queen, was the only Japanese woman to meet her. The famous traveler Isabella L. Bird also met the queen and left this description: “Her Majesty, who was then past forty, was a very nice-looking slender woman, with glossy raven-black hair and a very pale skin, the pallor enhanced by the use of pearl powder. The eyes were cold and keen, and the general expression one of brilliant intelligence” (Korea and Her Neighbours, 2, p. 39). See also Tsunoda Fusako, Minbi ansatsu, pp. 278–79.

  According to Kuzuo Yoshihisa, when Inoue had audiences with the king, the queen’s voice could be heard from behind a curtain giving the king directions (Tōa senkaku shishi kiden, 2, p. 521). Gradually she showed half her face and finally, opening the curtains completely, joined in conversation with the king and Inoue. This account, as far as I know, is not confirmed by other writers.