Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (180 page)

10
.
Ō
saka shimp
ō
, May 29, 1880, in T
ō
yama,
Tenn
ō
, p. 94.

11
. T
ō
yama,
Tenn
ō
, pp. 94–95. The article by Takizawa Shigeru, describing the Niigata segment of the
junk
ō
, confirms that the expenses were met by local rich people (“Hokuriku junk
ō
to minsh
ū
t
ō
chi,” p. 36). Because they were enjoined not to be extravagant in their reception of the emperor, many falsified their expense reports. In the most extreme case, real expenses of 45,000 yen were reported as a mere 90.30 yen.

12
. T
ō
yama,
Tenn
ō
, p. 88.

13
. Historians speak of the Six Great Imperial Tours (
roku daijunk
ō
). Not all travels by the emperor were known as
daijunk
ō
. Of his three later lengthy journeys, the one in 1881 (to northern Honsh
ū
and Hokkaid
ō
) and the one in 1885 (to Yamaguchi, Itsukushima, Hiroshima, and Okayama) are counted among the
daijunk
ō
, but the emperor’s voyage in 1890 to Kure, Etajima, and Sasebo is not so termed, perhaps because it was made by sea rather than land.

Meiji also made numerous day excursions to the race track in Yokohama, to maneuvers in Chiba, and to the launching of ships at Yokosuka, and so on, and he spent much of 1894 and 1895 in Hiroshima during the Sino-Japanese War. These travels were of course quite dissimilar in character to the
junk
ō
.

14
. T
ō
yama,
Tenn
ō
, p. 90.

15
. Ibid., p. 101.

16
. See especially T. Fujitani,
Splendid Monarchy
: “Through these pageants and various written and nonwritten representations of them the people could begin to imagine that the emperor was at the apex of a panoptic regime and that he was the Overseer who disciplined the realm and the people within his gaze” (pp. 55–56). For a somewhat different interpretation of the facts, see Takizawa Shigeru, “Hokuriku junk
ō
to minsh
ū
t
ō
chi,” pp. 24–25.

17
. For example, on April 11, 1881, when the emperor went to the horse races at the Fukiage Garden, he was accompanied by more than 160 persons (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 328).

18
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 87.

19
. Ibid., 5, p. 93.

20
. Ibid., 5, p. 128. See also
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 2, pp. 76–77.

21
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
5, p. 144. Meiji was known as Sachinomiya until he received the name Mutsuhito.

22
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 164.

23
. Ibid., 5, pp. 171–73.

24
. Perhaps the worst example of extravagance was the Naval Ministry, which eagerly bought whatever new weapons were invented in Europe and America, sometimes getting quite different items from what they thought they had ordered (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 182).

25
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 179.

26
. Watanabe Akio detected an “extremely dense coloring” of the views of Motoda and Sasaki in Meiji’s pronouncements on the need for economy (“Tenn
ō
sei kokka keisei toj
ō
ni okeru ‘tenn
ō
shinsei’ no shis
ō
to und
ō
,” p. 2). This was also true of his other proclamations at this time.

27
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 176. See also Sakamoto,
It
ō
, p. 37.

28
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 181.

29
. The highest political organ of the state, established in 1871 and abolished in 1877. It consisted of the
daj
ō
daijin
, the
sadaijin
, the
udaijin
, and the
sangi
.

30
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 3, p. 696. Meiji’s command to Prince Taruhito, directing him to frame a constitution, was issued on September 7, 1876 (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 245).

31
.
Guranto sh
ō
gun to no go-taiwa hikki
, p. 17. See also
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 4, p. 722.

32
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 168.

33
. Ibid., 5, p. 234. See also Sakamoto,
It
ō
, p. 43.

34
. He advocated borrowing the content from England, the United States, and France but borrowing the form from Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 246).

35
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 49.

36
. Kasahara Hidehiko,
Tenn
ō
shinsei
, p. 174.

Chapter 34

1
. Sasaki Takayuki,
Hogo Hiroi
, 10, pp. 1–2.

2
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 254.

3
. On January 7, when it was customary for him to hear his first lectures of the year, the emperor went to Yokohama to inspect the Italian warship aboard which the duke of Genoa was about to leave Japan (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 257).

4
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 259. This was even fewer than the twenty-three delivered in 1880, itself an extremely low figure. Soejima lectured on the Confucian classic the
Doctrine of the Mean
. Nishimura may have lectured on moral philosophy, a subject that preoccupied him at the time. Motoda attended all lectures, even when he did not speak.

5
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, pp. 265–66. See also Sasaki,
Hogo Hiroi
, 10, pp. 66–68. Sasaki’s own account gives many more details of the conversation.

6
. Mori Senz
ō
,
Meiji jimbutsu yawa
, pp. 19–20. See also
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, pp. 281–82.

7
. The music of the anthem had been borrowed from a foreign woman who had served as a missionary in Hawaii by American Consul General Robert Walker Irwin (a descendant of Benjamin Franklin), who had in turn passed it on to the Japanese military band (Aramata Hiroshi,
Karakaua-
ō
no Nippon gy
ō
ten ryok
ō
ki
, p. 70).

8
. William N. Armstrong,
Around the World with a King
, p. 37.

9
. Ibid., p. 39.

10
. Ibid., pp. 47–48.

11
. Ibid., p. 50.

12
. The exchange of rings was probably intended to signify the emperor would not break his unwritten promise. Apparently, Meiji did not give Kalakaua his ring.

13
. This account of the secret meeting between Meiji and King Kalakaua is taken from
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, pp. 294–98. It is not found in Armstrong’s
Around the World with a King
, evidence that Kalakaua did not reveal to members of his suite what he had proposed. Armstrong expressed annoyance with the king for his mysterious departure from their quarters: “It was a neglect of his own suite which was entirely contrary to etiquette. Its secrecy puzzled us, as he usually placed the fullest confidence in us” (p. 62).
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
gives no fewer than thirteen sources for its account, but the letters of Inoue Kaoru and the report of Nagasaki Seigo (the interpreter) probably provided the bulk of the information about the secret meeting.

14
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 296. Yamashinanomiya Sadamaro (1865–1921) was the son of Prince Fushiminomiya Akira. His letter to Kalakaua, dated January 14, 1882, in which he explains why he cannot marry Princess Kaiulani, is in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. The prince revealed that he had been engaged as a small child and that he was therefore not at liberty to consider marriage to the princess. Although the prince did not say so, there was undoubtedly opposition to a member of the imperial family’s marrying a foreigner. According to Armstrong, “The emperor received his suggestion with excellent humour and politeness, but declared that it required much reflection and would be a startling departure from Japanese traditions” (
Around the World
, p. 63). (Prince Yoshihisa, who had married a member of the German nobility while residing in Europe, had been forced to divorce her.) Armstrong, who dismissed the planned marriage as something conceived by the king in “the curious recesses of his Polynesian brain,” was sure that “had the scheme been accepted by the emperor, it would have tended to make Hawaii a Japanese colony; a movement distasteful to all of the Great Powers.”

15
. Aramata,
Karakaua-
ō
, pp. 298–300. There were two problems connected with the cable. The first was the lack of Japanese funds for such a project; the second was the prior request by an American, Cyrus Field (who had successfully laid the Atlantic cable linking the United States and Great Britain), which would have to be given preference (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 674).

16
. There was one exception. Inoue Kaoru enthusiastically accepted the king’s request that Japanese be encouraged to emigrate to Hawaii (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 674; Aramata,
Karakaua-
ō
, p. 151).

17
. On January 24, 1882, Meiji sent Kalakaua a letter in which he expressed his appreciation of Kalakaua’s proposal that he head the league of Asian monarchs, and his wholehearted support of the project; but he reiterated his belief that it would be exceedingly difficult to create a league because of the diversity of the countries involved. He also declined, in deferential language, to head the league. The letter is preserved in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu (Kapiolani-Kalanianaole Collection) (Aramata,
Karakaua-
ō
, pp. 299–300).

18
. Aramata,
Karakaua-
ō
, p. 139;
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 298.

19
. Hugh Cortazzi, “Royal Visits to Japan in the Meiji Period,” p. 84. The source of this information is
The Cruise of Her Majesty’s Ship ‘Bacchante’ 1879–1882
, compiled from the two princes’ journals, letters, and notebooks.

20
. Quoted in Cortazzi, “Royal Visits,” p. 85.

21
. Quoted in ibid., pp. 85, 87.

22
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 567.

23
. Ibid., 5, p. 417.

24
. He also stayed at the houses of rich men, Buddhist temples, a museum (in Yamagata), county offices, a medical school (in Fukushima), and the like.

25
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 506. At Yonezawa he heard a middle-school honor student lecture on
Nihon gaishi
and an elementary-school honor student lecture on
Nihon ryakushi
(p. 521).

26
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 535.

27
. Ibid., 5, p. 536.

28
. The founder of the Mitsubishi enterprises; he was said to have been annoyed not to have had the opportunity to purchase government assets that were being sold.

29
.
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 5, p. 548.

30
. I do not know in what way Kawamura irritated the emperor. Edward James Reed and his son visited Japan in January 1879. He had supervised the building of three Japanese warships in England—the
Fus
ō
, the
Kong
ō
, and the
Hiei
. When he visited Japan, he was given an audience by Meiji, who praised Reed’s part in the launching of ships that were to become the backbone of the Japanese navy (
Meiji tenn
ō
ki
, 4, pp. 596–97.