Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (19 page)

Sanj
ō
Sanetomi and his confederates were relieved of their posts and replaced by such partisans of
k
ō
bu gattai
as Nakayama Tadayasu and
Ō
gimachisanj
ō
Sanenaru. A further edict stated that the emperor’s journey to Yamato had been called off and that although there had been no change in the policy of
j
ō
i
, this was not an appropriate time for the emperor to assume personal command. The
j
ō
i
faction quickly grasped that their hour of glory had ended; and when the Ch
ō
sh
ū
samurai left Ky
ō
to to return to their province, seven nobles, including Sanj
ō
Sanetomi, went with them.
⁹
The
k
ō
bu gattai
faction was now in control of the court.

These momentous events ushered in a period of relative tranquillity at the court. On November 3 a birthday party was held for Prince Mutsuhito, modestly celebrated with an exchange of presents, mainly fish, followed by a smaller gathering at which Nakayama Tadayasu read a congratulatory message to Nakayama Yoshiko, his daughter and the mother of the crown prince. That day, in his own house, Tadayasu drank a toast to the long life and health of the prince. He nostalgically recalled the past when the prince lived in his home. The prince was now twelve years old (by Japanese count). The years that had passed had misted over like a dream, and the changes in the times had occurred in the twinkling of an eye. No doubt Tadayasu was thinking of the kaleidoscopic changes in his own situation at the court as first one faction and then another acquired control. Later that month Tadayasu’s wife, Aiko, had an audience with her grandson, the prince. It was the first time in seven years she had seen him, and she was moved to tears, recalling the past.

On December 26 Mutsuhito’s companion Uramatsu Tarumitsu, having reached the age of fourteen, asked permission to bid farewell to boyhood days and wear the clothes and hair style appropriate to an adult. Permission was granted, and the occasion was celebrated with gifts from the emperor, the empress, and the prince, who (in addition to more practical gifts) gave his friend illustrated editions of traditional books of warfare and prodigies.
¹⁰
The prince had colored in some of the illustrations and scribbled in some of the books, evidence that he had read them, perhaps as an escape from the Confucian texts he was forced to read.
¹¹

The prince’s study of
tanka
continued, at first under the guidance of his father and later (from February 1864) under the court poets, Reizei Tametada (1824–1885) and Yanagihara Mitsunaru (1818–1885). Not knowing that the prince had already received instruction from his father (and occasionally from the court lady Hirohashi Shizuko), Tametada considered it his duty to inform the emperor that it was high time for the prince, now in his thirteenth year, to begin the study of
tanka
. The emperor was too busy at first to respond. On February 19 Tametada composed two poems explaining why he thought the prince’s
tanka
lessons should begin. The second was

In February 1864
¹²
the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi visited Ky
ō
to by command of the emperor. Six days after he arrived at Nij
ō
Castle (on February 22), the emperor appointed him as minister of the right and general of the right guards. Iemochi went to the palace to express his gratitude.

The emperor’s reply was by no means cheerful: “Alas! wherever you look, in the conditions that obtain today, you will see that the dangers threatening us are great and imminent indeed. At home, the scene is virtually one of disintegration and collapse: public order has broken down, high and low are disunited, and the people suffer extremes of distress. Abroad, we are subjected to the insults of five arrogant powers; conquest by them seems certain to be our fate. Thinking of this, I can neither sleep by night nor yet swallow food. And alas! however one regards these facts, the responsibility is not yours. The fault is mine and lies in my own want of virtue.”
¹³

Although conventional in phraseology, the emperor’s words seem to come from the heart. And when later in the letter he declared that he loved the shogun as his own son and asked that the shogun love him as a father, he revealed personal affection for Iemochi. He urged Iemochi to live up to his title of “subduer of barbarians,” adding, “The subjugation of the hated foreigner is the greatest of the national tasks facing us. It will finally become possible only if we raise forces with which to chastise them. However, it is not my wish that the expulsion of foreigners be carried out recklessly. I ask you, rather, to evolve a suitable plan with due deliberation and report it to me.”
¹⁴

The letter, written in more direct language than most documents of the time, forcefully stated K
ō
mei’s position. He favored cooperation with the shogunate in restoring the country’s stability and prosperity by driving out the ugly barbarians, but he did not approve of the rash assaults on foreigners of the kind committed by the Ch
ō
sh
ū
samurai. He conveyed his concern about the urgency of the situation by using two old locutions,
ruiran
and
sh
ō
bi
:
ruiran
is a pile of eggs that will tumble over at the least provocation, and
sh
ō
bi
is danger so close that it singes one’s eyebrows.

Iemochi’s visit was otherwise pleasant and leisurely, lasting until the fifth month. There were many occasions for giving and receiving presents, and Iemochi was invited to all the feasts and entertainments held in the palace. The
j
ō
i
faction at the court had lost its strength as the result of Sanj
ō
Sanetomi’s flight to Ch
ō
sh
ū
, and there was also something of a lull in antiforeign activities elsewhere in the country.

The first incident to disrupt the calm took place on July 8. The Ch
ō
sh
ū
domain had sent a petition to the court asking that Sanj
ō
Sanetomi, the daimyo M
ō
ri Yoshichika, and his son Sadahiro be pardoned and allowed to return to the capital. The court refused to intervene, leaving the matter to the shogunate to decide. The
r
ō
nin
of the domain, learning of the refusal, were incensed. Some of them secretly gathered in Ky
ō
to at a restaurant called the Ikeda-ya to plan the next step. But the shogunate got word of this gathering and sent the celebrated Shinsengumi, an elite band of swordsmen organized by the shogunate and led by Kond
ō
Isami (1834–1868), to attack the place. All the
r
ō
nin
were either killed or captured.
¹⁵

When news of the Ikeda-ya incident reached Hagi, the domain, furious, sent a force of more than 1,000 soldiers to Ky
ō
to under Fukuhara Echigo (1815–1864). Their numbers were augmented by
r
ō
nin
of like convictions, and they camped in different areas around the city. They sent a petition to the court and the shogunate, once again asking for pardon. The Court Council decided on July 27 that either M
ō
ri Yoshichika or his son would be permitted to visit the capital; and if he stated that he repented of his actions, the court was prepared to relent. At the request of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the court also insisted that the Ch
ō
sh
ū
forces around the capital withdraw from their positions and return to Ch
ō
sh
ū
. These terms were rejected. Instead, the Ch
ō
sh
ū
domain drew up its own plan: to set fires in Ky
ō
to on a day of strong winds. In the ensuing confusion, the forces would kill Matsudaira Katamori, the Ky
ō
to military governor, and Prince Nakagawa; persuade the emperor to move to Ch
ō
sh
ū
; attack the Shinsengumi; replace the Aizu daimyo with the Ch
ō
sh
ū
daimyo in the office of the Ky
ō
to military governor; and compel the shogun to carry out
j
ō
i
.
¹⁶

The particular enmity displayed toward Prince Nakagawa and Matsudaira Katamori probably originated in rumors circulating at the time that these two men had adopted the proposal of Sakuma Sh
ō
zan (1811–1864) that the emperor be moved to Hikone. This was not the first time there had been such a rumor. In July 1863, Ogasawara Nagamichi (1822–1891), a member of the Council of Elders and an advocate of opening the country, had sailed from Edo to
Ō
saka with 1,500 shogunate troops. It was rumored that he intended to force the court to open the country and that if it did not, he would set fire to the capital, tie up the nobles, and, in one mighty blow, destroy the city. It was further rumored that the shogunate intended to move the capital to Hikone.
¹⁷
Now, a year later, similar rumors reached the ears of the Ch
ō
sh
ū
patriots.

The Confucian scholar Sakuma Sh
ō
zan, as the supposed originator of the plan and as an advocate of opening the country, was especially hated by the
r
ō
nin
, and they assassinated him in Ky
ō
to on August 12.
¹⁸
This rash action on the part of Ch
ō
sh
ū
men aroused other domains to demand a punitive expedition against that domain.

Pro- and anti-Ch
ō
sh
ū
forces gathered around the capital. The Court Council sent a message on August 19 to the Ch
ō
sh
ū
domain asking it to withdraw immediately all forces from the area. It promised also that if the domain obeyed the imperial command and then appealed for a pardon, its plea would be seriously considered. But the Ch
ō
sh
ū
samurai refused to obey; instead, they submitted a memorial to the court listing Matsudaira Katamori’s crimes and their determination to wreak divine punishment on him. Messages explaining why the domain had no choice but to open hostilities were tossed into the nobles’ houses.

The court was thrown into a panic. The chancellor, Prince Nakagawa, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, and others were received in audience by the emperor, who issued a edict ordering the subjugation of Ch
ō
sh
ū
. By this time, fighting had begun at Fushimi, and gunfire could be heard even in the palace. Yoshinobu ordered all gates to the palace closed.

By seven the next morning rebel soldiers were pressing close to the palace gates. Fukuhara Echigo’s troops were repulsed by soldiers of the
Ō
gaki domain, but other rebels managed to get as far as the Hamaguri and Nakadachiuri Gates. The noise of the fighting was described as resembling 10 million bolts of thunder, and the palace buildings shook as if in an earthquake.
¹⁹
The main rebel effort was concentrated on the Hamaguri Gate, defended by the Aizu domain. A fierce battle ensued, and the rebels had all but broken through the gate when reinforcements from Kuwana and Satsuma arrived and joined the forces to attack and rout the Ch
ō
sh
ū
forces. Success at the Hamaguri Gate encouraged the loyalists, and by the time the battle was over, five hours after it began, the rebels had been crushed.
²⁰

Great consternation had been aroused in the palace by the fighting. By order of the emperor, Prince Mutsuhito was moved from his own quarters to the “residential palace” along with the empress and Princess Sumiko. Boarded palanquins (
itagoshi
) were ready to evacuate members of the imperial family in case of an emergency. The emperor, in full court dress, sat impassively, seemingly unruffled by the furious activity around him.
²¹
Courtiers were dressed for fighting, their sleeves tied back and their feet shod in straw sandals, quite unlike their normal appearance. The palace grounds swarmed with soldiers in armor, and shells smashed the doors of the palace gates, at times staining them with blood. Suddenly flames shot up outside the gates and spread in all directions. The fierce fires burning along Karasuma Avenue threatened to engulf the palace. The confusion inside the palace was indescribable, as members of the court wondered where they should flee. Only the intervention of Matsudaira Katamori, who insisted that they must not attempt to escape, saved them from being caught between the two warring armies.
²²

The next day, taking advantage of their success, the loyalists executed more than thirty men of the
sonn
ō
j
ō
i
faction who were being held in the Rokkaku prison. Bodies of the dead were piled up and exposed for three days outside the palace gates, a place that for more than 250 years had not seen warfare. Some 28,000 buildings in the capital, including temples and shrines, were destroyed by fire during the fighting. The fires were not extinguished for days.