Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (156 page)

Those serving him had begged him to listen to the doctors’ advice. At the time of the Grand Maneuvers in Kurume, his extreme fatigue was apparent to everyone. On the way back, going from Mitajiri to Nagoya, the rocking of the train had bothered him. He blamed the clumsy engineer for making the train go too fast. “Tell him to go slower,” he commanded. Chamberlain B
ō
j
ō
Toshinaga, who was in attendance, said that the train was traveling at normal speed, to which the emperor responded sharply, “You’re taking the side of the railways.” The train slowed down, and it arrived an hour late in Nagoya.
²⁹

Such outbursts by the emperor were extremely rare. Whatever physical pain he might be experiencing, he had endured, trying not to let others see. His stoical acceptance of suffering, like his indifference to summer heat or winter cold, was an integral part of his conception of what it meant to be an emperor. Moreover, he felt that he must not only accept hardship but also deny himself pleasure. He once told Saionji Kinmochi, “I love Ky
ō
to. That’s why I don’t go there.”
³⁰
But inevitably there were moments of weariness. In the privacy of his private quarters he was heard to say after his return from Ky
ū
sh
ū
, “What will become of the world when I am gone? I wish I were already dead.”
³¹

Meiji’s interpretation of how a Confucian ruler should behave explains his sometimes puzzling behavior. His determination to observe the maneuvers in Kurume at a time when he was suffering from a heaviness in his limbs that made walking, let alone climbing, difficult, is otherwise hard to understand, but he willingly accepted physical pain as a part of his duties. He did not feel sorry for himself, and when he refused to accept the proposed easy schedule for the maneuvers in Kawagoe, he was not being masochistic. Rather, he was convinced that it was his duty to share the hardships of his soldiers. The long journey to Ky
ū
sh
ū
made little sense in terms of what he actually did while observing maneuvers. Although he was the supreme commander, he did not utter a word of command or try in any way to display his knowledge of warfare. He went because he believed that his position demanded it and because he knew the effect that his presence would have on the maneuvers. The soldiers, aware that he was watching, would do their best, determined not to disgrace themselves in his presence. He knew that he could inspire them without resorting to oratory or insisting on his own importance. Duty was his primary concern: he had no desire for glory and did not worry about how history would judge him.

The emperor’s end occurred shortly after midnight on the morning of July 30, 1912. The immediate cause was heart failure. The news was announced jointly by the minister of the imperial household and the prime minister. At one in the morning, the home minister went to the Hall for State Ceremonies bearing the sacred sword and jewel, the imperial seal, and the seal of state. The ceremony of transmission of the sword and jewel was performed, and the new emperor in an imperial rescript announced that his reign-name would be Taish
ō
.
³²

The next morning, B
ō
j
ō
Toshinaga helped Emperor Taish
ō
put on his clothes for the accession ceremony. He had been wearing a lieutenant general’s uniform but changed now to that of the supreme commander. After the ceremony the new emperor went to an inner room where he prayed before his father’s remains. Empress Sh
ō
ken, who was now the dowager, wished to yield the place of honor in the room to her son, considering that he ranked higher than herself. He insisted that she keep her place, but she said in gentle but firm tones, “You have acceded to the position of the sovereign of the entire realm, and you must sit in the place of honor.” Although Taish
ō
wished to manifest to the full his respect for his mother, he quietly bowed and took his seat in the place of honor, from which he delivered a few words on ascending the throne.
³³

Soon after Meiji’s death, men who had known him best were asked to relate their recollections.
³⁴
All commented on his insistence on simplicity, his exceptional powers of memory, his concern for other people, but their comments somehow failed to create a portrait of the man. The reason is probably to be found in the statement made at the time by the politician and diplomat Makino Nobuaki:

The emperor had almost no private side to him. He also had no preferences. There was nothing to choose between his living quarters and those of the aristocracy. If anything, his were simpler. They merely served his needs. When he made a journey, it was never for pleasure but always for the sake of the country. He initiated public works but never because of his own tastes; everything was done because it was necessary for the nation. He did not give permission for public buildings to be erected unless they were needed to receive foreign visitors or for state business. He did not buy things because he wanted them but in order to encourage industry or protect art. He led almost no life apart from his work.
³⁵

Chapter 62

There were no religious or other ceremonies on the day of Emperor Meiji’s death, but Viscount Fujinami Kototada obtained permission from the empress dowager to measure the late emperor’s height. The emperor had always refused to be measured even when new clothes were made for him. The tailor would cut a suit that was more or less the right size, and the emperor would try it on, saying that one place was too tight or another too loose, and alterations were made without actually taking measurements.
¹
The emperor’s height, as measured by Fujinami, proved to be 5
shaku
5
sun
4
bun
, or about 5 feet, 4 inches.
²

It is not clear why Fujinami asked to measure the emperor. Asukai Masamichi, who believed that Fujinami may have been Meiji’s only friend, wrote that it was thanks to Fujinami that the exact height of the emperor, not found in any other document, is known.
³
Descriptions of the emperor generally mentioned that he was tall,
⁴
but his tallness was relative; It
ō
Hirobumi, Nogi Maresuke, T
ō
g
ō
Heihachir
ō
, and other prominent figures of the period would probably seem very short by contemporary Japanese standards. The emperor’s weight was not taken at this time, but we know from various accounts that he had been overweight for years and was sensitive on the subject.

On July 31 the new emperor, empress, and empress dowager went to the room in the palace where Emperor Meiji was lying in state on a platform covered with pure white
habutae
silk. His body was also enshrouded in a burial garment made of the same kind of silk. Members of the imperial family, including the three young sons of Emperor Taish
ō
, bade farewell to the late emperor, and they were followed by 171 other mourners, members of the nobility, and high-ranking officials who had personally served the late emperor. At eight that evening the ceremony of placing Meiji’s body in the coffin was performed. A decree was issued suspending court activities for five days, during which period criminals would be spared penal servitude, the death penalty and whipping of criminals halted, and singing, dancing, and playing music forbidden.

On August 1 the late emperor’s coffin was sealed. Even after the five-day ban on music and dancing had been lifted, the inhabitants of the city continued to refrain from making music or indulging in other entertainments. The streets were silent and passersby few.

On August 6 it was announced that the funeral services would take place from September 13 to 15. Breaking the long tradition of Buddhist rites after the death of an emperor, the observances would be purely Shint
ō
in character, although the lack of precedents would require the invention of suitably “ancient” rituals.
⁵

It was further announced that the place of interment would be Koj
ō
-san (Old Castle Mountain), south of the city of Ky
ō
to. The selection of this site for the emperor’s tomb was said to have been in keeping with his wishes. Meiji apparently made this decision in April 1903 when he was in Ky
ō
to for the naval Grand Maneuvers and the opening of the Fifth National Industrial Exhibition. One night, while having dinner with the empress, during a conversation about the former capital, he suddenly said that he had decided that after he had lived out his “hundred years,” his tomb should be at Momoyama. The
gon no tenji
Chigusa Kotoko, who was then waiting on the emperor, was so struck by these words that she wrote them down in her diary. When the emperor’s condition took a serious turn for the worse, the empress, apparently recalling his wish, commanded that the tomb be situated on Momoyama.
⁶

Momoyama had been the site of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Fushimi Castle. It was a place of exceptional scenic beauty, but during the Tokugawa period, the deserted castle had fallen into ruins and become overgrown. All that was left to show that a castle had once stood on the spot was the name, Old Castle Mountain. Later, the peach trees planted on the site had given the mountain a new name, Momoyama. This name, though euphonic, was judged to be rather mundane for the site of the emperor’s tomb, so it was capped with Fushimi, the name of a nearby village often mentioned in poetry, and the mountain came to be known as Fushimi Momoyama.

As soon as they learned of the gravity of the emperor’s illness, many people in T
ō
ky
ō
petitioned the authorities to choose some spot of special purity near their city for his tomb, but their prayers went unanswered. The wish of the late emperor to be buried in Ky
ō
to had the force of an imperial command.
⁷
The creation of the Meiji Shrine in T
ō
ky
ō
was probably intended to soothe the wounded feelings of the inhabitants.
⁸

The late emperor’s coffin was moved on August 13 to an
arakinomiya
(temporary burial hall) where it remained, worshiped daily by the emperor, empress, and empress dowager, as well as many officials, until September 13, when it was placed aboard the imperial hearse. On August 27 the late emperor was officially given his posthumous name, Meiji. This was the first time in either Japan or China that the posthumous name of an emperor had been taken from the
neng
ō
. Indeed, the
neng
ō
Meiji was so closely linked to the extraordinary events of his reign that no other name seemed suitable.
⁹

In the meantime, newspapers all over the world carried tributes to the late emperor. Two large volumes of Japanese translations of tributes that had appeared in the foreign press were published a year after the emperor’s death. Needless to say, the comments were uniformly laudatory, regardless of the country where they were published. Some newspapers devoted their accounts mainly to a description of the amazing changes that had occurred in Japan during Meiji’s reign, but the emperor’s personal contribution to this progress was also praised. The British editorials were the most perspicacious, as the following (from the
Times
) may suggest:

An opinion prevailed among outsiders that the
fainéant
tradition of old times was still observed, and that the Emperor did not take any active part in the management of State affairs. It was a notion based on ignorance. Those who were in a position to know bore unanimous witness to his Majesty’s zeal in the discharge of administrative duties. He possessed a remarkable faculty of judging character, and where his confidence had once been given, occasion to recall it never occurred. He possessed also a rarer trait, absolute willingness that others should wear the laurels of success, for he asked of the nation nothing except that it should honour and trust the Throne’s servants, reserving to the Throne only the reverence born of prestige. Thus his own efforts were never obtrusive. But they were none the less earnest.
¹⁰

The
Globe
echoed these sentiments:

How far the wonderful progress of Japan was due to the personal ability of the late Mikado, and how far to the wisdom and foresight of the statesmen by whom he was surrounded in his early years, it is impossible for Westerners, with their still imperfect knowledge, to estimate with exactitude. But it would probably be accurate to say that but for the personality of the Monarch the statesmen would have been able to accomplish very much less, and to do it much more slowly. Among the qualities attributed to him are the power of judging character—probably the most valuable that a Sovereign can possess; great assiduity in business, as was shown by his invariable attendance at the Conferences preceding the grant of a Constitution; a wonderful memory for detail; great courage, both physical and moral; and complete disregard of his own personal comfort.
¹¹