Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (17 page)

On April 21 the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi arrived in the capital with more than 3,000 retainers. He proceeded to Nij
ō
Castle, the official residence of the shogun in Ky
ō
to. The visit was potentially dangerous. The city was filled with partisans of
sonn
ō
j
ō
i
, and any one of them might have staged a suicidal attack on the shogun. On the following day, Iemochi sent Tokugawa Yoshinobu to the palace to express his apologies for the incompetence he had displayed in governing the country ever since becoming shogun. He nevertheless asked that the emperor, following time-honored custom, renew his authorization to rule. His wish was granted.
¹⁰

On April 24 Iemochi himself went to the palace to pay his respects. The emperor granted the shogun an audience, graciously welcoming him and offering a ritual cup of saké. Later the emperor summoned Iemochi to his study, where the two men chatted. The emperor’s manner of receiving the shogun was polite but not deferential: the court had decided that the shogun ranked below the minister of the center (
naidaijin
), the fifth highest rank in the court government.

The reverence with which Iemochi begged the emperor to grant the benefit of his divine wisdom if ever any action of the shogunate failed to meet with his approval also contrasted strikingly with the arrogance displayed by Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1634 during the last visit of a shogun to the capital. At that time the Tokugawa family was at the height of its power and the shogun was accorded higher rank than the chancellor.
¹¹
This time the meeting was dominated by the presence of the emperor.

During his audience, K
ō
mei made his usual request—that Iemochi carry out the announced policy of
j
ō
i
. After the audience ended, Iemochi visited Prince Mutsuhito’s residence, where he left rich gifts, including a fine broadsword, 500 pieces of silver, twenty pieces of gold, two hanging scrolls, a flower vase, and bolts of brocaded silk. On the following day, the emperor sent an envoy to Nij
ō
Castle with return gifts from himself and the prince.

Once the formalities of the occasion were over, the emperor was again tormented by anxiety and indignation over the continued presence of foreigners in the country. On April 28 he voluntarily left the Gosho for the first time in his life
¹²
in order to offer prayers at the two Kamo Shrines for the realization of
j
ō
i
.
¹³
He was accompanied by the
kampaku
, the minister of the right, and various lesser nobles. The shogun was also in attendance, together with Tokugawa Yoshinobu, various daimyos, as well as experts in protocol. It rained that day, but when the imperial palanquin passed before Iemochi and the others, they all leaped off their horses, discarded their umbrellas, and knelt along the road.
¹⁴
Vast numbers of Ky
ō
to’s inhabitants turned out for a rare glimpse of the emperor, or at least of his palanquin.
¹⁵
It has often been recounted that Takasugi Shinsaku (1839–1867), a extremist
j
ō
i
proponent from Ch
ō
sh
ū
, called out sarcastically as the shogun passed, “
Seii taish
ō
gun
!” alluding to the shogun’s inability to live up to his title of “conqueror of barbarians.”

Iemochi’s visit proved to be a great success for Emperor K
ō
mei. Savoring his triumph, he was reluctant to allow his guest to leave. However, on April 7 Iemochi, having spent far longer in the capital than the originally planned ten days, announced that he was returning to Edo. Members of the court were disappointed. At the time the courtiers were divided into two main factions: those who sought to promote
k
ō
bu gattai
and those who believed Iemochi’s presence in the capital provided an opportunity to discomfit him and perhaps eventually to overthrow the shogunate. Their reasons differed, but both factions hoped Iemochi’s stay would be prolonged, enabling them to realize their goals; but the shogunate was frantically eager for him to return to Edo to deal with the repercussions of an incident that had occurred in the autumn of the previous year.

An Englishman, Charles Richardson, along with three companions, had ridden past the procession of the daimyo of Satsuma, Shimazu Hisamitsu, allegedly without showing proper respect. Richardson was killed at a place called Namamugi, and the British demanded reparations from both the shogunate and the Satsuma clan. The shogunate eventually complied with the British demands, but at the time of Iemochi’s visit to Ky
ō
to, the matter had not yet been settled, and he was urgently needed in Edo for the negotiations.

When Iemochi informed K
ō
mei of his forthcoming departure, the emperor said that he would be unable to control his feelings of desolation if Iemochi returned to Edo. He begged Iemochi to reassure him by remaining a while longer. Iemochi, deeply moved, acceded to the emperor’s wishes. The grateful emperor showered Iemochi with gifts, and Prince Mutsuhito, accompanying his father, appeared for the first time before the shogun.

On May 28 K
ō
mei traveled to the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine to pray for deliverance from the foreign menace. Originally the journey had been planned for a week earlier, and the emperor had commanded the shogun to accompany him. These plans were upset when Nakayama Tadamitsu (1845–1864), the seventh son of Nakayama Tadayasu, suddenly resigned his office and, alleging illness, fled the capital.
¹⁶
Reports had it that Tadamitsu, along with some
r
ō
nin
from Ch
ō
sh
ū
, was planning to intercept the procession on its way to Iwashimizu and to kill the shogun. On May 17 the emperor, getting word of the plot, ordered a postponement of the pilgrimage. Tokugawa Yoshinobu advised that the visit be dropped altogether, and the emperor himself manifested increasing reluctance to go, but he was forced by extremists to make the journey as planned.

K
ō
mei described the circumstances in a letter he sent to Prince Nakagawa on May 29. He had decided on a further postponement because he was suffering from vertigo, his chronic complaint, and was apprehensive about the long journey. The chancellor, Takatsukasa Sukehiro, replied to the emperor that although a postponement was reasonable under the circumstances, it would be difficult to change plans; so he advised the emperor to resign himself to going. Soon afterward, Sanj
ō
Sanetomi requested an audience with the emperor. He said that he had come to see whether the emperor was really ill or only pretending. He refused to hear of a postponement but insisted that the emperor make the journey, regardless of whether he was ill. Afterward, other officials joined the discussion, some saying that the emperor was pretending to be ill because he was unwilling to make the journey and others declaring that if the emperor withdrew to his private quarters, they would drag him out and put him bodily into the imperial palanquin. The emperor, all fear and trembling, had no choice but to yield. The chancellor was deeply upset by what had happened, but he, too, was powerless to alter the situation. Neither the emperor nor the chancellor was a match for the “hot-blooded nobles” (
kekki no d
ō
j
ō
). K
ō
mei urged Prince Nakagawa to ask Shimazu Hisamitsu to help persuade the irresponsible nobles to open their eyes, for if they continued to have their own way, it would surely lead to disaster.
¹⁷

Other sources relate that places where the emperor might rest had been provided on the way in case he was stricken with illness on the journey. He certainly was unwell. When he went to pray in the main shrine building at Iwashimizu, he stumbled and had to be lifted to his feet; and persons in his retinue supported him throughout as he made the round of fifteen lesser shrines.

It is ironic that K
ō
mei’s adversaries, members of the
sonn
ō
j
ō
i
faction, were pledged to revere the emperor; yet they blatantly disregarded his wishes and even threatened him with physical violence if he refused to visit Iwashimizu. They were willing to die for him, but on their own terms.

The nobles had arranged for Iemochi to accompany the emperor to Iwashimizu and for the emperor to present him there with a
sett
ō
, an ornamental sword worn as a sign that the wearer was a surrogate of the emperor. Acceptance of the sword would have put the shogun in a difficult position by compelling him to carry out the emperor’s policy of expelling the barbarians, a step the shogunate was reluctant to take. Iemochi seems to have learned what was in store for him. He declined, on grounds of illness, to take part in the pilgrimage, sending Tokugawa Yoshinobu in his stead; but when Yoshinobu was summoned to the shrine to receive the sword, he pleaded sudden illness and refused to leave his lodgings.
¹⁸
We can imagine how upset K
ō
mei must have been by this double rebuff. Perhaps his own illness was psychosomatic. It was understandable in terms of natural apprehensions not only over what was for him a distant journey but also over the possibility of abduction or even murder on the way.

The men who threatened the emperor were not assassins or even uncouth samurai but members of the upper ranks of the nobility, men belonging to a class that is usually depicted as corrupt and effete rather than as hot-blooded. K
ō
mei looked for succor not to members of his court or to the shogun but to someone who might be described as a hothead, Shimazu Hisamitsu, the de facto ruler of Satsuma, who in the previous year had sent troops to Ky
ō
to to suppress radical loyalists in the Terada-ya incident. While at the Iwashimizu Shrine, the emperor prayed for
j
ō
i
, but he may also have prayed for deliverance from those who most vociferously supported him, the
sonj
ō
faction, as the
sonn
ō
j
ō
i
adherents came to be called.

There is no evidence as to how much Prince Mutsuhito knew of these developments. He was still only eleven years old and probably did not discuss political matters with his father. When K
ō
mei left for Iwashimizu, the prince (and the empress) saw him off and welcomed him back, but the prince was probably unaware what an ordeal the visit to Iwashimizu had been for his father. It is likely, however, that he knew something of the activities of Nakayama Tadamitsu, his youthful uncle.

Tadamitsu was appointed as a
jij
ū
, or chamberlain, in 1858, at the age of thirteen. His main function as chamberlain was apparently to serve as the playmate of his nephew, Mutsuhito, seven years younger than himself. In the same year he became a chamberlain, Tadamitsu participated in the protest staged by eighty-eight nobles against the treaty of trade and amity with foreign powers signed by the shogunate. He was guided in his precocious advocacy of
j
ō
i
by the teachings of such patriots as Takechi Zuisan (1829–1865), Kusaka Genzui (1840–1864), and Yoshimura Toratar
ō
(1837–1863), men who would perish in the fighting of the last days of the shogunate.
¹⁹

The dominant figure in Tadamitsu’s education as a patriot was Tanaka Kawachinosuke (1815–1862), a retainer of the Nakayama family who had known Tadamitsu from childhood days. Like Tadamitsu’s other mentors, Tanaka was involved in the incident at the Terada-ya. He was arrested by Satsuma troops, and on the ship bearing him to captivity, he and his adopted son were stabbed to death and their bodies thrown into the Inland Sea. Perhaps the chief lesson Tanaka taught Tadamitsu was that loyalty, hitherto associated with particular domains, was more properly directed at the
kokutai
, the national essence, as embodied in the person of the emperor.

On September 30, 1862, Tadamitsu visited Takechi Zuisan’s lodgings. He informed Takechi that he had decided that Iwakura Tomomi must be killed and that he needed Takechi’s help. His reasons for killing Iwakura were not stated, but Takechi’s diary mentions Tadamitsu’s belief that Iwakura planned to poison the emperor or at least to place a curse on him.
²⁰
Takechi told Tadamitsu to give up his plan, but Tadamitsu replied that once he had made up his mind to do something, he could not stop until he had accomplished it. Takechi, at a loss how to argue with someone in Tadamitsu’s overwrought state, agreed to discuss the plan with his associates. One of them, the extremist noble Anegak
ō
ji Kintomo, said he had heard that Tadamitsu often behaved in a wild and disorderly manner. He added that he was not sure whether or not Tadamitsu was really an “advocate of justice” who was upset over the times.
²⁰

Takechi informed Sanj
ō
Sanetomi of the plot, and the latter probably told Nakayama Tadayasu. Late that night Tadamitsu went to Takechi’s lodgings to say that he had been obliged to call off the attack. Apparently Tadayasu forbade Tadamitsu to take part in the plot. Tadamitsu threatened to commit suicide, to which Tadayasu replied, “If you are so intent on it, I don’t suppose you’ll stop, no matter what I say to stop you. But killing him, there’s no getting around it, would be a reckless act. You should first denounce his crimes to the appropriate official, and if that official refuses to look into the matter, you may take matters into your own hands. If you are unwilling to listen to reason, kill your father first.”
²¹