Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (191 page)

40
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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” (
Ō
yama Iwao
, 4, p. 263).

41
. Kojima,
Ō
yama Iwao
, 4, p. 263.

42
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
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 also
Meiji tenn
ō
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 sens
ō
, 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,
Ō
yama Iwao
, 4, p. 266).

47
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 8, p. 943.

48
. Pak,
Nisshin sens
ō
, 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 tenn
ō
ki
, 9, p. 497).

50
. Pak,
Nisshin sens
ō
, p. 260.

51
. He was better known, however, as the author of
Kajin no kig
ū
(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 sens
ō
, pp. 260–61. Pak quotes Adachi Kenz
ō
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,
Ō
yama 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
s
ō
shi
, suggested that they might be accused of premeditated murder or of conspiracy, he was greeted with raucous laughter. Another
s
ō
shi
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 sh
ō
gun
, p. 286.

55
. “Official Report,” p. 123.

56
. Ibid., p. 141.
Meiji tenn
ō
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 (
Ō
yama 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 tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
ki
, 7, p. 899).

3
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
to sono ky
ū
tei,” 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 tenn
ō
ki
, 9, pp. 365–66).

7
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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,
Rich
ō
metsub
ō
, p. 165).

9
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
ki
, 9, p. 88.

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

13
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 9, p. 112. Matsukata was from Satsuma;
Ō
kuma, 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 tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
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 (
shig
ō
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
shig
ō
, provided it was the name of the place where she lived; he proposed Aoyama K
ō
taig
ō
(
Meiji tenn
ō
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 Eish
ō
means literally “blossoms reflect.” Li Tê-yu was better known as a statesman than as a poet.

25
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
ki
, 9, pp. 397–98).

27
.
Meiji tenn
ō
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 tenn
ō
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 Ky
ō
to in April 1897, the chamberlains were worried about the emperor’s delay in returning to T
ō
ky
ō
. 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 T
ō
ky
ō
. 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 T
ō
ky
ō
(Hinonishi Sukehiro,
Meiji tenn
ō
no go-nichij
ō
, pp. 173–74).