Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  8. Miura Gorō, Kanju shōgun kaiko roku, p. 269.

  9. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 866. Waeber is said to have sent this message to the Korean court with the American Charles W. LeGendre, who had formerly been employed by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. He was hired by the Korean government in 1890 (Meiji tennō ki, 3, p. 586; Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 180).

  10. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 866. This action is puzzling, considering Pak’s pro-Russian views; however, he was a longtime advocate of reforming the country, and this made people suppose he was actually pro-Japanese. After escaping from Seoul, Pak found refuge once again in Japan (p. 891).

  11. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 867. The Kaehwadang was also known as the Progressive Party.

  12. Miura, who was from Chōshū, was recommended by three members of the Chō-shū clique—Itō Hirobumi, Yamagata Aritomo, and Inoue Kaoru. With such backing, he could hardly fail to be appointed.

  13. Miura, Kanju shōgun, pp. 266–67.

  14. Okamoto Ryūnosuke, Fūun kaiko roko, pp. 222–23.

  15. Miura was in fact a devout Buddhist. Not long before, he had been called on to mediate a dispute between two factions of the Sōtō sect of Zen Buddhism (Miura, Kanju shōgun, pp. 245–65).

  16. Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 283; Kojima Noboru, Ōyama Iwao, 4, p. 237.

  17. Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 284; Kojima, Ōyama Iwao, 4, p, 238. Kuzuo says Miura was called nembutsu kōshi, but as a believer in Zen Buddhism, Miura probably did not say the nembutsu (Tōa, 1, p. 517).

  18. Pak Jong-keun, Nisshin sensō to Chōsen, p. 241.

  19. Another unit of some 500 men, called the Self-Defense Unit, had been formed in June 1895. It was trained by an American officer, William M. Dye, to defend the royal palace, but most members were unarmed. It was anti-Japanese (Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 241).

  20. Even the commanding officer of the second battalion of the Training Unit, a Korean, was not informed of the plan. On October 7 he hurried to the Japanese legation to inform Miura that the king had privately ordered the dissolution. He arrived just as Miura and two others were drawing up final plans for the attack. This would have been a natural moment to inform him of plans for the following day, but he was led to another room and was told nothing. Apparently, even a pro-Japanese Korean was not trusted to keep the secret (Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 235).

  21. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 909. See also Kobayakawa Hideo, Binkō ansatsu, p. 318. Another Japanese visitor to the taewon’gun, the consul Horiguchi Kumaichi, went in the guise of a Japanese tourist and carried on a conversation with the taewon’gun in classical Chinese with writing brushes (Gaikō to bungei, pp. 118–31). The tae-won’gun entertained Horiguchi with champagne and Havana cigars, but most appreciated of all was his promise that if Miura helped him, he would resume his old position in the government (p. 130).

  22. Kobayakawa Hideo wrote this in Binkō ansatsu, p. 318. Kuzuo was of the same opinion (Tōa, 1, p. 523).

  23. Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 233. Pak believed it was impossible that the taewon’gun accepted all four promises without changing a word. His actions immediately after the murder showed he was by no means willing to yield his political authority.

  The photographs of the taewon’gun suggest that he was indeed a very old man, but Horiguchi, who saw him shortly before Queen Min’s murder, wrote that his complexion was that of a young man and his eyes were piercing. He seemed overflowing with energy. Horiguchi thought the taewon’gun was in his early fifties but looked much younger; in fact, he was over seventy (Gaikō, p. 119).

  24. Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 300.

  25. Adachi Kenzō, Adachi Kenzō jijoden, p. 57. Adachi was an important political figure in Kumamoto, his native place; Kumamoto was known for its toughs. Miura used the word sōshi, but Adachi’s account changed it to wakai mono (young people). Adachi did not date this conversation, but it was probably at the beginning of October.

  26. The uniforms and hats were taken from Korean guards at the taewon’gun’s palace (Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 237). Some sōshi were dressed in Japanese clothes; others, in Western clothes. Some carried a broadsword on their shoulders, some a Japanese sword at their waist; others, pistols (Kobayakawa, Binkō ansatsu, p. 330).

  27. Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 237. Kobayakawa, who was present when the taewon’gun was roused from sleep, stated that he happily accepted the proposal that he accompany the Japanese to the royal palace (Binkō ansatsu, p. 333).

  28. Kobayakawa, Binkō ansatsu, p. 337.

  29. “Official Report on Matters Connected with the Events of October 8th, 1895, and the Death of the Queen,” p. 126.

  30. Kobayakawa, Binkō ansatsu, p. 352.

  31. Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 321. Choi gives a somewhat different account: “Okamoto, after cutting down the Queen, had three other palace ladies identify the dying Queen, then murdered them all to leave no evidence and to make sure of his work” (Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, p. 34).

  32. Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 246. XX is, of course, Queen Min. Some believe that although the murderer was a Japanese army officer, the authorities blamed the sōshi.

  33. Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 247.

  34. However, a highly favorable account of Queen Min is presented by Isabella Bird, who visited Korea four times between 1894 and 1897. She was granted several audiences with the king and queen. She described the king as rather ordinary but sensed that the queen exerted great influence over the king. Miss Bird was also impressed by the queen’s enemy, the taewon’gun, though she mentioned with disapproval the murder by his orders of 2,000 Korean Catholics in 1866 (Korea and Her Neighbours, 2, pp. 39–49).

  35. Choi, Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, p. 30.

  36. Katano Tsugio, Richō metsubō, p. 159. There is a story to the effect that when a Japanese officer noticed General Dye, he told Horiguchi Kumaichi, a consul, to order the foreigner to leave. Horiguchi passed on the message to Dye in French, but the general did not understand French. Another man repeated the message in English, but the general replied, “I am an American. I don’t take orders from a Japanese” (Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 320). Adachi Kenzō, though, wrote that the normally arrogant Dye was so frightened by the Japanese that he removed his hat and bowed, an ingratiating look on his face. Adachi found this change “extremely ludicrous” (Adachi Kenzō, p. 61).

  The discovery of the diary kept by Alexander Sabatin was reported in 1995. Although Sabatin did not actually see Queen Min killed, he saw Japanese in plainclothes drag court ladies by the hair from the building where they and the queen slept and was within a few feet of the actual murder. The discovery was made by Professor Kim Rekho of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Asahi shimbun, June 20, 1995, p. 29).

  37. Miura, Kanju shōgun, pp. 282–83.

  38. The article is reproduced photographically in the front matter of Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu.

  39. Kojima, Ōyama Iwao, 4, p. 261. Kojima’s account of the murder of Queen Min is most detailed, but unfortunately he does not give his sources (pp. 250–83).

  40. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 911. The message, as given by Kojima, was simply, “Last night there was an incident in the royal palace. The whereabouts of the queen are unknown” (Ōyama Iwao, 4, p. 263).

  41. Kojima, Ōyama Iwao, 4, p. 263.

  42. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 914.

  43. Ibid., 8, p. 917.

  44. Inoue had an audience with the king on November 5 at which he expressed the emperor’s deep concern over the incident. He also offered the gifts from the empress and emperor (Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 930). Inoue (and Komura) had another audience with the king on November 15, before Inoue’s return to Japan. The king expressed regret that Inoue could not remain longer, and when they parted, the king shook Inoue’s hand (p. 935).

  45. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 921.

  46. “Official Report,” p. 133. The text of the king’s condemnation of the queen is given in full along with the names of the officials who signed the document, in Bird, Korea and Her Neighbours, 2, pp. 69–70. See a
lso Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 943. The king signed this edict on October 10. At the time he was still unaware that the queen had been killed. (Mourning for Queen Min was not decreed until December 5.) When first confronted with the edict and told he must sign it, the king said he would rather have his hands cut off than sign (Bird, Korea and Her Neighbours, 2, p. 69; Shirai, Meiji kokka, p. 215). He finally yielded to pressure from Miura, who promised in exchange to remove Japanese troops from the palace area (Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 250). The message was sent to the various legations. Miura, in response, expressed profound shock and distress that the queen, whose actions had been inspired by regard for the royal line and the well-being of the people, should be so treated. Dr. Allen, the representative of the United States, replied in a single sentence, “I cannot recognise this decree as coming from His Majesty” (“Official Report,” p. 135).

  On the following day, a compromise was reached: it was announced that out of consideration for Queen Min’s status as the mother of the crown prince, she would be raised from the ranks of commoners to pin, or concubine (Tsunoda, Minbi ansatsu, p. 333). On November 22, 1897, she was given an elaborate state funeral and a posthumous title. She was remembered now chiefly as an unfortunate victim (Kojima, Ōyama Iwao, 4, p. 266).

  47. Meiji tennō ki, 8, p. 943.

  48. Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 249.

  49. Tsunoda, Mimbi ansatsu, p. 334. See also Bird, Korea and Her Neighbours, 2, p. 73. The king’s fears were not groundless; on September 12, 1898, the king and crown prince were poisoned at dinner (Meiji tennō ki, 9, p. 497).

  50. Pak, Nisshin sensō, p. 260.

  51. He was better known, however, as the author of Kajin no kigū (Chance Meetings with Beautiful Women), a novel that enjoyed great popularity in the 1890s (Donald Keene, Dawn to the West, 1, pp. 82–86).

  52. Pak, Nisshin sensō, pp. 260–61. Pak quotes Adachi Kenzō as saying that he was given the money (200 yen for each man) by Sugimura, a secretary of the Japanese legation, strongly suggesting that the money came from Miura, not from the taewon’gun.

  53. Kojima, Ōyama Iwao, 4, pp. 271–74. Kojima gives a vivid account of a wild drinking party held in Seoul on October 17. When Yamada Ressei, one of the sōshi, suggested that they might be accused of premeditated murder or of conspiracy, he was greeted with raucous laughter. Another sōshi answered him: “We acted under the direction of Minister Miura, the representative of our empire. We responded to the trust of the taewon’gun. We fought for our country. We had nothing to do with premeditated murder or conspiracy.”

  54. Miura, Kanju shōgun, p. 286.

  55. “Official Report,” p. 123.

  56. Ibid., p. 141. Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 20–21, differs from this report in important details. It states, for example, that the prime minister of the pro-Japanese cabinet (Kim Hong-jip) and the minister for agriculture (Chong Pyong-ha) were arrested and executed with swords. Kojima states that the two men were traveling to the palace in sedan chairs when they were surrounded by a mob that killed them and left their bodies on the street. Kojima also states that about fifty Russian soldiers, who had slipped into the palace late at night, escorted the king and crown prince to the Russian legation (Ōyama Iwao, 4, p. 279). According to Choi, Yi Pom-jin and Yi Wan-yong, the leaders of the pro-Russian party, arranged with Carl Waeber, the Russian minister, to land 100 marines from a Russian warship at Inch’on under the pretext of guarding the Russian legation (Fall of the Hermit Kingdom, p. 37). Yi Pom-jin then went to see the king and urged him to seek asylum at the Russian legation. Choi added that “the palace ladies also brought hot food to the guards. Such acts of kindness naturally lulled their vigilance towards the ladies’ chairs” (p. 50).

  57. Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, trans. Edward W. Wagner, p. 301.

  Chapter 48

  1. Meiji tennō ki, 9, p 11.

  2. Nobuko, the eighth daughter of the emperor, does not appear in these and other mentions of her sisters, probably because she was reared separately from her sisters by Viscount Hayashi Tomoyuki (Meiji tennō ki, 7, p. 899).

  3. Meiji tennō ki, 7, p. 172.

  4. Ibid., 7, p. 120. The emperor deigned, however, to accept the presents the two princesses had brought—pictures of the detached palace and some sweet potatoes—and it brought Sasaki some consolation to hear that these gifts had pleased the emperor.

  5. He was certainly not an indulgent father. His daughter Kitashirakawa Fusako, who later became the presiding dignitary at the festival of the Ise Shrine, recalled that the first time she ever heard Meiji laugh aloud was when she took her infant son to the palace and the child misbehaved (“Meiji tennō to sono kyūtei,” p. 44).

  6. At the end of 1897, Princess Fusako was taken ill. Sasaki wished to report the progress of her illness to the emperor, but he was told that the emperor had so many other worries on his mind that unless the illness was extremely serious, he should not be informed until the princess had recovered. However, the empress was given a detailed report on the illness (Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 365–66).

  7. Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 94–95.

  8. Ibid., 9, pp. 71–72. The king did not leave the Russian legation until February 20, 1897 (Katano Tsugio, Richō metsubō, p. 165).

  9. Meiji tennō ki, 8, pp. 746–47.

  10. For the negotiations that led to the treaty, see Count Sergei Iulevich Witte, The Memoirs of Count Witte, trans. Sidney Harcave, pp. 227–38.

  11. Meiji tennō ki, 9, p. 88.

  12. He resigned on May 30, 1896, and died on August 24, 1897 (Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 80, 292).

  13. Meiji tennō ki, 9, p. 112. Matsukata was from Satsuma; Ōkuma, from Hizen.

  14. I have not found this quotation, but Kaiser Wilhelm II made many similar remarks. He told the Prince of Wales, “I am the sole master of German policy and my country must follow me wherever I go” (quoted in John C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser and His Court, p. 12).

  15. Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 119–20.

  16. Röhl makes it clear how much more of a despot the kaiser was than Meiji: “It must be remembered that not a single appointment to an official position, and no political measure, could be undertaken without the express consent of the Kaiser. Each statesman and official, each army and naval officer, each political grouping within the ruling elite, each member of the court society, all were condemned to try to enlist the favour of the ‘All-Highest Person’” (Kaiser and His Court, p. 117).

  17. Meiji tennō ki, 9, p. 123.

  18. Ibid., 9, pp. 152–53.

  19. Ibid., 9, p. 160.

  20. Ibid., 9, p. 177.

  21. Ibid., 9, p. 180.

  22. Ibid., 9, p. 183.

  23. If a grand dowager empress, dowager empress, or empress had entered Buddhist orders, she would usually be known by a title ending -mon’in or -in, like Kenreimon’in. However, this empress dowager had not entered Buddhist orders, and such a title would have been inappropriate. There were only three cases of a posthumous title (shigō or okurina) being given to a grand dowager empress, dowager empress, or empress, all from the Nara period, more than a thousand years earlier. The official in charge opposed giving the present empress dowager a posthumous title, preferring her to be known simply by her surname, followed by a posthumous name (imina). Later, he was willing to allow a shigō, provided it was the name of the place where she lived; he proposed Aoyama Kōtaigō (Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 194–95).

  24. The concluding line of the poem is “Luxuriant clusters of blossom reflect in the dark waters of the pool.” The name Eishō means literally “blossoms reflect.” Li Tê-yu was better known as a statesman than as a poet.

  25. Meiji tennō ki, 9, p. 199.

  26. The non-Buddhist nature of the empress dowager’s funeral established a precedent for the imperial family. When Prince Akira, an adopted son of Emperor KMmei, died in February 1898, his family wished him to have a Buddhist funeral in accordance with his wishes, expressed in his testament, but this request was rejected. The vice president of
the Privy Council, Count Higashikuze Michitomi, ruled that funerals of members of the imperial family must be carried out in accordance with ancient examples—meaning Shinto. The emperor supported this ruling (Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 397–98).

  27. Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 200–201, 207, 343. Queen Min was elevated to the rank of empress as the result of the proclamation by the king of Korea on October 12 that he was henceforth to be the emperor of Korea. The name of the country was changed from Choson to Taehan (Great Han), and the reign-name to Kwangmu (p. 319).

  28. Meiji tennō ki, 9, pp. 256, 291. Hinonishi Sukehiro, who served as a chamberlain from 1886 until the emperor’s death in 1912, recalled that when Meiji was in Kyōto in April 1897, the chamberlains were worried about the emperor’s delay in returning to Tōkyō. Just at this time, a great storm caused train service to be suspended. The emperor, with a pleased expression, said, “Low pressure system, is it? Yes, a low pressure system is just fine.” Train service was presently restored, but in the meantime an epidemic of measles had broken out in Tōkyō. This led to a second postponement of the emperor’s departure. Not long afterward, word was received that the epidemic had died down, but the emperor said, “I’m sure there must still be some cases. Investigate.” The chamberlains investigated and found there were two cases of measles in Tokyo. When this was reported to the emperor, he said, “You see! Didn’t I tell you that there would still be cases?” It was no easy matter persuading him to return to Tōkyō (Hinonishi Sukehiro, Meiji tennō no go-nichijō, pp. 173–74).

  29. Meiji tennō ki, 9, p. 218.

  30. Ibid., 9, p. 225.

  31. Ibid., 9, p. 233.

  32. Ibid., 9, p. 260.

  33. Ibid., 9, p. 345.

  34. Donald Keene, Dawn to the West, 1, p. 90.

  35. Hinonishi, Meiji tennō, p. 98. I am reminded of the story of the emperor Ōjin, related in the Kojiki. When he stood on a hill and, looking out over a village, noticed that no smoke was coming from the chimneys, he realized that the people did not have enough money to cook food. He accordingly remitted taxes. When next he stood on the hill and surveyed the village, he was happy to see smoke rising from the chimneys, a sign that it was now prosperous.