Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (173 page)

32
.
Ō
kubo and It
ō
seemed to believe they had obtained the credentials to negotiate treaty revision with America, but in fact all they were empowered to do was to open negotiations. They were not to modify the treaty with America alone but were directed to meet in Europe with representatives of all countries with which treaties had been signed and negotiate there. Iwakura was sent telegraphic instructions to ask if the Americans would send an envoy extraordinary to the site of negotiations. The emperor on June 19, 1872, sent a message to his “good friends,” the kings and presidents of the various countries, describing the chief members of the embassy who would visit their capitals and who were empowered to conduct negotiations with the aim of achieving ever more peaceful and friendly relations with their countries. He reminded them that it would soon be the time set for treaty revisions and hoped that these revisions would be carried out for the benefit of all (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, pp. 677–79; M
ō
ri,
Meiji
, p. 26).

33
. Miyake Setsurei,
D
ō
jidai shi
, 1, pp. 339–43, quoted in M
ō
ri,
Meiji
, pp. 32–33.

34
. However, Griffis recorded his pleasure over the new promptness of the Japanese in dealing with would-be assassins: “On January 13, 1871, two Englishmen in Tokyo were attacked by three two sworded men and wounded very severely. With Verbeck, I had the pleasure of helping to nurse them back to health. With the utmost promptness, the three assailants were caught and their confessions extorted from them before their punishment was decreed. What surprised and pleased the British Minister was the production of a new criminal code, two out of five volumes being then ready. According to its provisions two of the guilty ruffians were strangled and one sentenced to ten years of hard labor, all three being degraded from the rank of Samurai …. The innovation of putting gentlemanly scoundrels and murderers to death on the common execution ground, where vulgar felons were beheaded, soon made assassination unpopular” (
Mikado
, pp. 183–84).

Chapter 23

1
. Ch
ū
goku referred to the northern shore of the Inland Sea (Hiroshima, Okayama, etc.); Saigoku at this time was another name for Ky
ū
sh
ū
.

2
. In order to take advantage of the high tide, the emperor and his party left the palace at three in the morning, traveled to Hama Riky
ū
, where they boarded the warship
Ry
ū
j
ō
, and sailed to Uraga, reached that evening. The
Ry
ū
j
ō
spent the night anchored in Uraga Bay and then sailed back to Hama Riky
ū
the following morning.

3
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 674.

4
. Taki K
ō
ji,
Tenn
ō
no sh
ō
z
ō
, p. 6.

5
. Baron Alexander de Hubner wrote after an audience with Emperor Meiji, “Conformémentà l’étiquette, l’empereur, en me parlant, ne faisait que murmurer entre ses dents des sons inarticulés età peine saisissables” (
Promenade autour du monde
, 2, p. 16). A. B. Mitford, who was present when “the Mikado” first gave an audience to Sir Harry Parkes, the English minister, wrote, “As might be expected from his extreme youth and the novelty of the situation to one who had only recently left the women’s apartments, the Mikado showed some symptoms of shyness. He hardly spoke above a whisper, so the words were repeated aloud by the Prince of the Blood on his right side and translated by Ito Shunske” (quoted in Hugh Cortazzi,
Mitford’s Japan
, p. 121). Frank Brinkley recalled that he and the other Englishmen “offered him our most profound salutations, but His Majesty sat erect, not so much as blinking his eyes. He did not vouchsafe a word …. Some wondered if he might not be a doll, he was so god-like in his attitude” (“Sentei heika,” p. 46).

6
. For example, Hugh Cortazzi quotes an article dated August 15, 1872, from
The Far East
in which it mentions “a slight stiffness in his gait, as if unused to boots” (
Victorians in Japan
, p. 81). Lady Brassey, who saw the emperor in November 1873, wrote, “He is a young, not very good-looking man, with rather a sullen expression, and legs that look as though they did not belong to him—I suppose from using them so little, and sitting so much on his heels; for until the last few years the Mikado has always been considered far too sacred a being to be allowed to set foot on the earth” (quoted in ibid., p. 333).

7
. Taki,
Tenn
ō
, p. 9.

8
. Ibid., p. 10.

9
. Peter Burke,
The Fabrication of Louis XIV
, p. 11.

10
. Ibid., p. 44.

11
. Baron de Hubner wrote of his audience with Meiji, “Excepté en nous addressant la parole, Sa Majesté se tint immobile comme une statue” (
Promenade
, p. 15).

12
. Burke,
Fabrication
, p. 180.

13
. Ibid., p. 61.

14
. Norbert Elias,
The Court Society
, p. 126.

15
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, pp. 675, 683. Needless to say, no one had previously sat on chairs in the Gosho.

16
. The costume is more fully described in
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 691: the basic material is black wool embroidered on the chest with gold thread in the shape of chrysanthemum blossoms and leaves. On the back at the waist there is an embroidered phoenix. The trousers are of the same black wool with a stripe about an inch wide of gold braid. The cocked hat, of black velvet, is embroidered on both sides with phoenixes of gold thread and is bordered by a stripe of gold braid. The “hooks” (
hokku
) seem to refer to the fastenings of the upper garment.

The emperor was measured for Western clothes on May 13 by a European tailor from Yokohama. This may have been the only time that he was ever measured (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 666).

17
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 711.

18
. Ibid., 2, p. 691.

19
. At this point,
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 695, sounds a cautionary note: “It is said that the crying of
banzai
in the modern period began in 1889 at the time of the proclamation of the constitution. The statement given here that the citizens of
Ō
saka cried
banzai
is based on records of the time, but did the people in fact cry
banzai
? Or was it merely that the records used the expression ‘cry
banzai
,’ often found in classical texts of both Japan and China, to indicate a state of joyfulness? This is still not clear. There is also a text stating that in the ninth month of 1870, at the ceremony performed by the navy in honor of the emperor’s birthday, everyone lined up on deck in order of ranks at eleven in the morning and shouted
banzai
.”

20
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 696.

21
. Princess Sumiko, the third daughter of Emperor Nink
ō
, was a member of the Katsuranomiya family; this high-ranking princely family came to an end with her death in 1881.

22
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 700.

23
. Ibid., 2, p. 711.

24
. Asukai Masamichi,
Meiji taitei
, p. 150.

25
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 719.

26
. I am thinking of Philemon and Baucis, but also of such Japanese examples as the receptions given in humble cottages to Saimy
ō
ji
ny
ū
d
ō
Tokiyori, who had a habit of visiting people in disguise.

27
. So reported in
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 726, which further says that similar reports were transmitted from the other places visited by the emperor as exemplifying the people’s worship of the imperial house.

28
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, pp. 727–28. In recognition of Saig
ō
Takamori’s unique qualities of leadership, the emperor appointed him as a marshal soon after his return to T
ō
ky
ō
(p. 733).

29
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, pp. 735–37.

30
. Ibid., 2, pp. 744–47. The Japanese would profit by this gratitude during their negotiations with the Chinese in February 1873.

31
. M
ō
ri Toshihiko,
Meiji rokunen seihen
, p. 40.

32
. William Elliot Griffis,
The Mikado
, p. 226.

33
. For an account of Dickins as a scholar of Japanese literature, see Kawamura Hatsue,
F. V. Dickins
. In 1866 Dickins published a translation of the collection of poetry
Hyakunin isshu
.

34
. M
ō
ri,
Meiji rokunen
, pp. 52–54.

35
. The text is in ibid., pp. 54–55. See also
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, pp. 767–68.

36
. For a brief description of the Wakan and the reasons for its existence, see Kamigait
ō
Ken’ichi,
Amenomori h
ō
sh
ū
, pp. 90–93. A somewhat more detailed description is in Kang Bom-sok,
Seikanron seihen
, pp. 16–19. Kan makes interesting comparisons between the Wakan and the Dutch “factory” on Deshima.

37
. The Korean government was informed in January 1869 by Higuchi Tetsushir
ō
, a senior officer of the Tsushima clan sent as its envoy by the Japanese government, of the restoration of imperial rule and the termination of the shogunate (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 944; see also Kang,
Seikanron
, p. 11).

38
. Asukai Masamichi, “Saig
ō
Takamori wa heiwa shugisha datta ka,” p. 109. He states that from the Korean standpoint, the Meiji government had overthrown by force the government of the Tokugawa shoguns and was therefore a usurper. The Koreans also considered that the use of such words as
k
ō
(emperor) and
choku
(rescript) by the new government was an unsanctioned use of words that were properly used only of the Chinese emperor. Kido Takayoshi wrote in his diary that he favored sending an envoy to Korea to question officials about their discourtesy. “If they do not acknowledge their fault, let us proclaim it publicly and launch an attack on their territory to extend the influence of our Divine Land across the seas to cover their territory” (diary entry, January 26, 1869, in Sidney DeVere Brown and Akiko Hirota, trans.,
The Diary of Kido Takayoshi
, 1, p. 167). See also Kang,
Seikanron
, p. 11.

39
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 741.

40
. Ibid., 2, p. 742. There were seven articles in all; others dealt with such matters as the return to Japan of Japanese officials who were not essential to the station, the discontinuance of the annual ship from Tsushima, and the return of castaways to Korea.

41
. Kido, who was in London at the time, had read in the New York newspapers that Korea had detained one Japanese envoy and expelled another. He wrote in his diary, “The stupidity and obstinacy of that country is detestable.” He added, “Moreover, when our trade with the West is beginning to flourish, Asian countries which lie near us must make a successful advance toward civilization or else we cannot fully achieve our future purposes.” He implied that if the Koreans were unwilling to modernize their ways, this would be detrimental to Japanese interests and that war might be the only course open to the Japanese (diary entry, September 1, 1872, in Brown and Hirota, trans.,
Diary
, 2, p. 206).

42
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, p. 755.

43
. The text of the
mikotonori
is in ibid., 2, p. 756. It opens with a declaration of the emperor’s authority as the heir to the 10,000 ages of unbroken imperial authority and the vast area he ruled. The edict goes on to state why the Ry
ū
ky
ū
king was being honored. His country shared the same customs and language with Japan and was long tributary to Satsuma. The king himself had demonstrated his loyalty. Finally, it commanded the
han-
ō
to give due weight to the responsibilities of his domain and to assist the imperial house.