Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (23 page)

Thus far, all the accounts are in agreement, but the unexpected turn for the worse in the emperor’s illness, just when he seemed to be out of danger, soon led to rumors that the change was the result of arsenic poisoning. These rumors have persisted and have occasioned painstaking research into the characteristics of death by poison as opposed to smallpox. A curious blank in the official report of his illness, beginning on January 31, has suggested to some scholars that the relevant facts were deliberately erased. Some members of the court expressed doubts, even at the time, about the optimistic prognosis reports issued by the emperor’s doctors. The nobleman Yamashina Tokinaru wrote in his diary that he had heard that the emperor had suffered extreme pain on January 24 and that his illness was spreading to other parts of his body, despite the official announcements that his condition was improving.
¹²

Smallpox was by no means unusual in Japan at that time, but the particularly virulent, nearly always fatal variety (called hemorrhaging pustular smallpox or black smallpox)
¹³
was much less common than the milder forms. Furthermore, the symptoms of the most dangerous forms of smallpox closely resemble those of arsenic poisoning, and this fact induced some scholars to trace step by step the parallels between the course of K
ō
mei’s illness (as recorded in contemporary documents) and the symptoms of arsenic poisoning (as given in medical books). Even before 1945, when it first became possible to discuss such matters freely, a few scholars had expressed the belief that Emperor K
ō
mei was poisoned,
¹⁴
and rumors to this effect go back as far as Sir Ernest Satow, who in
A Diplomat in Japan
, written largely between 1885 and 1887, recalled that in February 1867—not many days after K
ō
mei’s death—at the port of Hy
ō
go,

I met some native traders, who were greatly interested in the approaching opening of the port, and discussed various suitable sites for a foreign settlement. They also conveyed to me the news of the Mikado’s death, which had only just been made public. Rumour attributed his decease to smallpox, but several years afterward I was assured by a Japanese well acquainted with what went on beyond the scenes that he had been poisoned. He was by conviction utterly opposed to any concession to foreigners, and had therefore been removed out of the way by those who foresaw that the coming downfall of the
Baku-fu
would force the court into direct relations with Western Powers. But with a reactionary Mikado nothing but difficulties, resulting probably in war, was to be expected. It is common enough in eastern countries to attribute the deaths of important personages to poison, and in the case of the last preceding Sh
ō
gun rumours had been pretty rife that he had been made away with by Shitotsubashi. In connexion with the Mikado I certainly never heard any such suggestion at the time. But it is impossible to deny that his disappearance from the political scene, leaving as his successor a boy of fifteen or sixteen years of age, was most opportune.
¹⁵

Satow’s remarks make it clear why scholars over the years have been attracted to the theory that some person or persons, despairing of progress under so reactionary a monarch, decided to get rid of K
ō
mei by poisoning him. It is obvious, as Satow said, that if K
ō
mei had continued to block the efforts of those who sought to overthrow the shogunate and create a new form of government in Japan, it certainly would have been far more difficult, perhaps even impossible. His successor, a fifteen-year-old boy, was quite another matter. Some of the leaders of the Restoration referred to him as a
gyoku
, a jewel in their hands that made possible the revolutionary changes they planned. Scholars, reflecting on this fact, have found the sudden death of a still young and energetic emperor too great a piece of luck to accept without skepticism; surely, they argue, it could not have been an accident.

But if K
ō
mei was poisoned, the question is, who did it and how? Nezu Masashi, the most outspoken of the exponents of the assassination theory, believed that the poisoning was the work of nobles who had accepted bribes from the shogunate to promote the marriage of Kazunomiya; these men included Chancellor Kuj
ō
Hisatada, Minister of the Interior Koga Tatemichi, Iwakura Tomomi, and Chigusa Arifumi.
¹⁶
He believed that these men suborned a court lady to administer the poison.

The name that most frequently appears in discussions of possible poisoners is Iwakura Tomomi. One story has it that Iwakura, knowing that K
ō
mei was in the habit of licking his writing brush when pondering his words, put poison on two new brushes that were presented to the emperor the day before his mortal illness began.
¹⁷
But this theory conflicts with other evidence concerning the progress of the emperor’s illness. If his illness was initially caused by poison that had an immediate and terrible effect, he would not have gradually shown symptoms of smallpox, nor would it have seemed a few days later that he was on the way to recovery. Obviously, this theory is hard to sustain.

More common is the theory that Iwakura’s younger sister, Horikawa Motoko, administered the poison; but she entered Buddhist orders in 1863 and never returned to service in the palace, making it improbable that she could have gained access to K
ō
mei’s sickroom. Several other court ladies have been implicated, but it is not clear why only a woman could have fed the emperor the fatal dose.
¹⁸

The conjecture that Iwakura must have been behind the poisoning was doubtless inspired by his reputation as a schemer,
¹⁹
but there is otherwise no evidence that he planned the assassination or even that the death of K
ō
mei was welcome to him. Indeed, it has been argued that Iwakura was confident that he could manipulate the emperor, a man whom he nevertheless respected and believed to be absolutely essential to the court’s reform. It is said that on learning of K
ō
mei’s death, his first thought was, “I am finished!” and he considered completely withdrawing from the world.
²⁰

Haraguchi Kiyoshi, the leading proponent of the “death by illness” theory, has taken great care to establish that it was not in Iwakura’s interests for K
ō
mei to have died at this time.
²¹
He has also painstakingly examined all the evidence concerning the symptoms of the emperor’s illness, as recorded in contemporary documents (including some used by proponents of the assassination theory), and compared these symptoms with those observed during the smallpox epidemic in Nagoya in 1946, when close to 18,000 persons were stricken.
²²
His conclusion was that K
ō
mei died of illness; consequently, no one administered poison and no one planned the deed. It is unlikely we shall know the cause of K
ō
mei’s death unless permission is granted to examine his remains for possible traces of arsenic.

During the early stages of the emperor’s illness, Prince Mutsuhito had been in attendance each day at his father’s bedside, dressed in brightly colored clothes, perhaps to cheer the sick man. But once the doctors decided that the malady was smallpox, the emperor commanded that for fear of contagion, the prince not visit his sickroom until he had recovered. Mutsuhito, however, had been vaccinated against smallpox. Years before, when he was still living in the house of his grandfather, Nakayama Tadayasu, the latter asked a doctor of Dutch medicine to vaccinate the boy. When the emperor on his deathbed was informed, he expressed relief that there was no fear of contagion. Needless to say, K
ō
mei himself had refused to be vaccinated.
²³

Emperor K
ō
mei’s death was kept secret for several days, perhaps because his illness had been so sudden that the court was not prepared for the funeral rites. During these days, the grief-stricken Prince Mutsuhito could not go into mourning—or succeed to the throne. Although the accession would have to take place soon, an unexpected problem immediately arose: the prince had not yet had his
gembuku
, and it was therefore unclear what costume he should wear when the accession ceremony was performed. An official commanded to search for precedents discovered that Emperor K
ō
kaku, who had come to the throne in 1779, had his accession ceremony while costumed as a boy. Accordingly, Mutsuhito’s hair was arranged in a suitably youthful style.

The sudden death of his father must have come as a profound shock to the prince, and his daily life immediately changed. His clothes and food and even the place where he slept were unfamiliar, which must have been disquieting as well. On February 4 the emperor’s death was at last announced, and a period of mourning began. The following day the body of the late emperor was placed in a coffin, and the prince paid his final respects.

Determined that the funeral conform to ancient precedents, members of the court asked Toda Tadayuki, an expert in such matters, to investigate. He reported that ever since middle antiquity, it had been the practice to cremate deceased emperors and to erect nothing more than a small stone pagoda at the spot where his ashes were buried. However, after the death of Emperor Gok
ō
my
ō
in 1654, a more impressive funeral service had been held, consisting of a pretended cremation followed by burial. It was decided that K
ō
mei’s body would also be buried, within the precincts of the Senny
ū
-ji in Ky
ō
to.
²⁴

The new emperor’s accession took place on February 13, 1867. The ceremony was surprisingly simple. The prince appeared at four in the afternoon and seated himself at the prescribed place in the Hall of State Ceremonies. Two court ladies had already placed the regalia to the right of the emperor’s seat. The emperor commanded the former chancellor to serve as regent and to perform in his stead the duties of his office. Following this, the emperor withdrew to his private quarters. Announcements were read to the assembled nobles concerning their privileges and prerogatives, which were to remain unchanged from the previous reign. Gifts were offered in honor of the accession by the widow of the shogun Iesada and by the wife of Tokugawa Yoshinobu but not by Princess Chikako, who was still in mourning for her husband, the shogun Iemochi.

Perhaps the happiest person on this occasion was Nakayama Tadayasu. Like Fujiwara no Michinaga some 850 years earlier, he rejoiced that he was now the grandfather of an emperor. No doubt he was saddened by the death of Emperor K
ō
mei, but grief was probably not his prevailing emotion. He sent this poem to his daughter, Nakayama Yoshiko, describing his feelings:

The young emperor also composed poetry on this occasion. Most of the forty
tanka
evoked his grief over his father’s death, but three also mentioned the heavy weight of responsibility he felt on becoming emperor. He showed the poems to Nakayama Tadayasu, who was moved to tears.
²⁵
Unfortunately these poems have been lost, but from this time on until the end of his life, poetry was very nearly the sole outlet for Emperor Meiji’s personal feelings.

Chapter 12

The year 1867 did not begin happily for Emperor Meiji. The court was in mourning, and the usual New Year’s festivities were canceled. Naturally, the young emperor felt grief over the death of his father, Emperor K
ō
mei. It is not clear to what degree the son and father had been spiritually compatible, but they saw each other frequently: for years it was the prince’s practice to go every afternoon to pay his respects to his father and to ask for criticism of his poetry. He had no reason to anticipate that K
ō
mei, still only thirty-six, would suddenly die; and his education, in the traditional mode, had not prepared him adequately for the responsibilities of the position of emperor, especially at this difficult time. The strain he experienced may account for the nightmares that troubled his sleep at this time. Letters and diaries by members of the court allude to his insomniac suffering. The courtier Chigusa Aribumi wrote to Iwakura Tomomi, “Night after night, something comes beside the pillow of the new emperor and threatens him, causing him great anxiety. Yesterday, as I told you, he commanded prayers to be said. The rumor seems to be true.”
¹