Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (155 page)

Although the Japanese did not change their opinion that a constitutional monarchy was the best form of government for China, they realized that Japan could not be the only country to insist that China remain a monarchy, nor could Japan continue indefinitely to worry about China’s future. On November 27 the emperor opened the twentieth session of the Diet. In his rescript, he referred to the unrest in China: “I am deeply concerned over the disturbances in China. I hope that order will be promptly restored and peace prevail.”
¹⁵
His constant references to his desire for peace in East Asia (as opposed, say, to Kaiser Wilhelm’s insistence on German glory) surely reflected his real feelings. That was why such men as An Chung-gun and K
ō
toku Sh
ū
sui, despite their hatred of the Japanese government, had respected him.

On December 28, 1911, the Manchu government issued a statement appealing for an end to hostilities and calling for a fair election to determine whether the people desired a constitutional monarchy or a republic. The following day, without reference to this appeal, an election was held in Nanking for the president of the provisional republican government. Sun Yat-sen was elected and took office on January 1, 1912.

In the meantime, the Japanese minister plenipotentiary to China, Ij
ū
in Hikokichi (1864–1923), and the Confucian scholar K’ang Yu-wei, who led the movement for creating a constitutional monarchy on the lines of the Meiji government, called on Yüan Shih-k’ai. They said they had been informed that no progress had been made in the negotiations between governmental and revolutionary forces. There were also rumors that the emperor would abdicate. They asked what was really happening. Yüan answered that negotiations with the revolutionary army had indeed reached a stalemate. The two sides could not agree even on where to open a parliament. The government proposed Peking, but the revolutionaries strongly objected. In any event, the government army’s financial situation was growing more desperate by the day, and there was no way to replenish the funds available for military expenses. Civil organizations and local officials in Shanghai and Hong Kong were demanding the speedy abdication of the emperor and the establishment of a republican form of government.

Faced with this opposition at home and abroad, the cabinet abandoned hope for a constitutional monarchy. Opinion among the nobles was divided, and the situation was chaotic. Yüan concluded by asking Ij
ū
in to offer his advice.
¹⁶

Ij
ū
in replied that Japan had no easy solution to offer, but he conveyed the Japanese hope for a constitutional monarchy, even if this reduced the emperor to being a mere figurehead. He added that the Japanese government was unlikely to recognize any government unless it demonstrated it was capable of suppressing disturbances. Until such time, Japan would have no choice but to treat China as a country without a government. This response upset Yü an greatly.
¹⁷

The end of the Manchu dynasty, after 300 years of rule, came a few weeks later. On February 12, 1912, the six-year-old Emperor Hsüan T’ung announced his abdication. Yüan Shih-k’ai formed a provisional republican government and was granted full powers to negotiate with the people’s army on unification. On the thirteenth Sun Yat-sen, recognizing Yüan’s military capability, offered his resignation as president to the Assembly in Nanking and proposed that Yüan Shih-k’ai be the new president. The Assembly agreed, and on March 10, in a ceremony held in Peking, Yüan took the oath of office as the first president of China.

Emperor Meiji’s reactions to the abdication of the Chinese emperor are not recorded, but he was undoubtedly more affected than, say, when he heard that the king of Portugal had been driven from his throne. Not only was China far closer than any European country, but his respect for China lingered despite the decisive defeat Japan had administered in the Sino-Japanese War. China may have lost its preeminence among the nations of East Asia, but when letters were exchanged between the emperor of China and the emperor of Japan, they both wrote in Chinese, and Meiji’s rescripts were dotted with Chinese words and phrases borrowed from Confucian texts.

Nationalists did not hesitate to say that the Japanese, rather than contemporary Chinese, were the true heirs to the ancient glories of Chinese civilization. The fall of the Chinese monarchy, breaking traditions of more than 2,000 years since the first emperor, could not be dismissed as most Japanese had dismissed the fall of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
an or the Korean monarchy as the unavoidable fate of a weak country in the modern world. During the next forty years or so, China was subjected by the Japanese military to humiliation and the ravages of war, but it continued to exercise a powerful attraction on Japanese intellectuals who felt that the Chinese past was in large part their own.

Although the emperor’s physical condition had plainly deteriorated, he maintained an active interest in the affairs of state. In October 1911, when the chief of the general staff, Oku Yasukata, who had been suffering from deafness, was about to retire, Yamagata Aritomo suggested to the emperor that Oku be succeeded by Nogi Maresuke. The emperor sent word the next day to Yamagata that he feared it might prove difficult to find a successor for Nogi as president of the Gakush
ū
-in. This in fact may have been the emperor’s true opinion; he may have hoped that while at the Gakush
ū
-in, his three grandsons would have the benefit of Nogi’s guidance.
¹⁸
But the emperor was surely aware that Nogi would have been far happier to be appointed as chief of the general staff, the highest post to which a military man could aspire, than to remain as principal of the Gakush
ū
-in. To deny Nogi this promotion was an unkindness. Perhaps the emperor still had not forgiven Nogi for the enormous loss of life at Port Arthur. Although Nogi was idolized by the Japanese public as the hero of the Russo-Japanese War and foreign governments had decorated him, he had been shunted aside to an educational post for which he had no qualifications apart from the excellence of his character.
¹⁹
The emperor’s refusal to appoint Nogi as chief of the general staff was, of course, final, and Yamagata, withdrawing his recommendation, asked that General Oku be permitted to remain in his post.
²⁰

The new year, 1912, was the forty-fifth of the emperor’s reign. This year Meiji would celebrate his sixtieth birthday.
²¹
In view of his ailments, however, there was not much likelihood of festivities.

The traditional New Year’s events were observed. The lectures of the year opened with one on Aristotle’s
Politics
. Arrangements for the first poetry gathering were complicated by the emperor’s dislike of the two topics suggested by Takasaki Masakaze: “Cranes by the Sea” and “Cryptomeria Before the Shrine.” Takasaki submitted two more topics, but the emperor did not like these either. He chose to compose a
tanka
on a topic of his own, “Crane in the Pines.”
²²

The most unusual feature of this particular gathering was the participation of the
gon no tenji
Sono Sachiko. The
gon no tenji
, the least prominent members of the court, normally did not take part in court functions, but perhaps the emperor wished to show special favor to Sono, who had given birth to his four surviving daughters. Perhaps also he sensed that this might be his last poetry gathering and wished it to be memorable. Three days later, his personal physician, Oka Genkei, recommended that, for the time being, the emperor not eat meat or fowl, shellfish, mushrooms, eels, or Western food, and orders to this effect were passed on to the imperial kitchen.
²³

The emperor continued to observe his daily routine of granting audiences to members of the cabinet and foreign visitors, though in his weakened physical condition, this had become taxing. He also bestowed money on deserving and suffering people and attended such public functions as the graduation exercises at military schools. In April he (and 2,040 other people) attended the cherry-blossom viewing at the Hama Detached Palace.

In May the emperor attended graduation exercises at several navy and army colleges and on July 10 went to the exercises at T
ō
ky
ō
Imperial University. The effort to climb stairs seemed to exhaust him, and he used his sword to support him.
²⁴
On the morning of the fourteenth when his physician paid his usual call, the emperor mentioned that he had felt some pain early that morning and was heavy in the stomach. He also complained of fatigue in his limbs and dozed off from time to time. All the same, he did not forget to send a palace officer to Prince Yi Eun with a message praising his diligence in his studies and urging him to keep up the good work while on summer vacation.

On July 15 a secret treaty between Japan and Russia was signed in St. Petersburg, setting boundaries on the spheres of influence of the two countries in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Before the meeting of the Privy Council at which the treaty was to be discussed, the emperor summoned Yamagata Aritomo and gave him a rescript expressing pleasure that the causes for conflict between Japan and Russia were to be removed, thereby ensuring peace in East Asia. Despite his indisposition, he attended the session of the Privy Council. Normally, the emperor’s bearing was solemn and serene, and once he had taken his seat, he hardly stirred for long periods, but today his posture was slovenly, and at times he dozed off, to the consternation of ministers and advisers. After the emperor returned to the palace, he told people that he had made the effort to attend the meeting because the subject of discussion was of particular urgency, but he was so fatigued that without realizing it, he had fallen asleep two or three times.
²⁵

From this day on, the emperor’s pulse was irregular and skipped beats, but even though he was not feeling well, he continued to go as usual to his office. His periods of drowsiness, however, became more pronounced. When he was offered refreshments in the afternoon or his favorites tunes were played on the phonograph, he did not take his usual pleasure in either. He looked absolutely exhausted.
²⁶

On July 17 he was examined by Dr. Oka, who noted skipped beats in his pulse, hardening of the liver, and pain in the legs beneath the knees. The emperor walked extremely slowly but went as usual to his office.

From July 18 the emperor suffered a loss of appetite. He did not attempt to go to his office, spending the entire day in a daze. In the evening he asked that the phonograph be played and seemed to enjoy it, but kept dozing off. At night, however, he did not sleep soundly.

The emperor’s suffering was intensified by the exceptionally hot summer. For days, the temperature did not drop below 90 degrees, and on the nineteenth it reached 94 degrees. At the dinner table after drinking two glasses of wine, he complained of pain in his eyes. He left his chair, only to stagger and fall. Everyone was alarmed, and a temporary bed was quickly made where he fell. He was running a high fever and in a coma. At two in the morning, the empress and three officials were sent for.

The next morning, the empress suggested that two physicians (both professors at T
ō
ky
ō
University) who had not previously examined the emperor be summoned. They diagnosed his illness as uremia. The two physicians, along with the chief of the Court Medical Bureau, informed the assembled
genr
ō
, ministers, members of the Privy Council, generals, and admirals of the emperor’s condition. That afternoon, they issued a statement disclosing to the nation for the first time that the emperor was seriously ill. The report mentioned that he had suffered since 1904 from diabetes, to which in 1906 chronic hepatitis had been added. These two ailments had continued to afflict him, sometimes acutely. Since July 14 he had been suffering from gastroenteritis and since the fifteenth from a tendency toward lethargy, which had grown more pronounced. There had been a loss of appetite, and from the nineteenth, brain fever had left him in a state of daze. His temperature, urination, and breathing were described in detail.

From that day, his four daughters and the crown princess took turns watching by his bedside. The crown prince could not be present because he was suffering from chicken pox. The empress sent the court ritualist Miyaji Iwao to the Ise Shrine to pray for the emperor’s recovery, but his condition continued to deteriorate. There was a steady stream of visitors, but he was incapable of speaking to them. Everyone blamed the emperor’s physicians for not having prescribed treatment after his illness of 1904. The physicians defended themselves, claiming that although they went every morning to the palace intending to examine him, he always refused, saying he did not need an examination. They had not dared to oppose his commands.
²⁷

Even when the emperor, realizing that he was definitely suffering from some ailment, had consented to let a doctor examine him, he was always an unwilling patient. Chamberlain Hinonishi Sukehiro recalled that he had been taken ill while in Hiroshima during the Sino-Japanese War. “We thought it was just a cold, but later on we discovered it was pneumonia.” Hinonishi continued, “He had had trouble with his eyes and teeth from some time back, but he never complained to anyone. He had difficulty seeing things at a distance…. When he ate he was always very careful about what he put in his mouth and absolutely refused anything hard. But he never had any dental care. He put up with the pain…. He avoided doctors as much as possible.”
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