Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (24 page)

Prince Asahiko also mentioned the nightmares in his diary entry for February 9:

Something strange has been happening of late. I gather that persons close to the late emperor are gossiping to the effect that a figure, looking like Sh
ō
ki in popular depictions, has been making appearances. He has a sword that he wears at his side. The following morning [the new emperor] has a fever.
²

On February 15 Prince Asahiko wrote in his diary:

My
ō
sen’in has returned to the capital and I have heard many stories from him. According to one of his accounts, the new emperor is not well. In the past few days his cold has become worse. Ever since his accession to the throne the former emperor has appeared in the antechamber before the new emperor—and only him—day and night alike.
³

If, recalling
Hamlet
, we accept the possibility of K
ō
mei’s ghost coming back to this world to inform his only son that he has been murdered and to command the son to avenge him, we can only conclude that this ghost was far less persuasive than the ghost of Hamlet’s father. The ghost kept the boy emperor from sleeping, but it did not rouse him to avenge his father’s unnatural death, nor (judging from his subsequent actions) did he even become distrustful of persons at the court who might have administered the fatal dose of poison.

The ghost may have been the young emperor’s chief cause of distress as the new reign began, but other members of the court were too busy disposing of the previous reign’s unfinished business to worry about the ghost. One urgent problem was rectifying the unfortunate situation in the women’s quarters of the palace. Nakayama Tadayasu sent a letter at this time to the minister of the interior, Konoe Tadafusa, emphasizing the need to enforce strict discipline in the women’s quarters. He deplored the laxness that had come to prevail as the result of inadequate supervision of the palace ladies during the final years of K
ō
mei’s reign.

If we can believe Tadayasu’s comments, the atmosphere in the women’s part of the palace resembled that of the licensed quarter.
⁴
Tadayasu believed, however, that the tender years of the emperor, who was not yet interested in a harem, provided a unique opportunity for removing offenders and restoring palace traditions. The senior palace lady (Tadayasu’s grandmother, Nakayama Isako) was so extremely debilitated that she had to be replaced immediately. Other ladies who had served the late emperor were to be given generous gifts of money (depending on the length of their service) and asked to retire. Female attendants who were still young—in their early twenties or younger—were to be encouraged to marry into suitable families. Women of twenty-four or twenty-five and older would be permitted either to remain in their present posts or to shave their heads. Tadayasu’s daughter, Nakayama Yoshiko, at first expressed the intention of entering Buddhist orders so that she might consecrate her remaining years to prayers for the repose of Emperor K
ō
mei; but she was persuaded to “remain in this world” because so many court ladies who had served K
ō
mei entered Buddhist orders after his death that it was feared there would not be enough ladies left at court who were familiar with the ceremonies. Yoshiko reluctantly agreed and subsequently devoted herself mainly to the education of her son, the new emperor.
⁵

On February 19 an amnesty was proclaimed as part of the mourning for the late emperor and the celebration of the accession of the new emperor. Seven nobles who had been disgraced for their roles in incidents of 1863 and 1864 were pardoned and permitted to attend court again. Ten days later the amnesty was extended to cover four nobles of the
j
ō
i
faction who were then living under house arrest, including Prince Taruhito.

On February 23 the court issued a directive to the shogunate commanding it to disband the expeditionary army that had been sent to punish Ch
ō
sh
ū
. The failure of an army composed of troops from many domains to defeat a single domain had plainly revealed the shogunate’s weakness. Morale was low, and the death of the shogun Iemochi further contributed to the lack of enthusiasm for the shogunate’s cause. The shogunate, at last abandoning all hope of successful prosecution of the war, ordered its troops to return to their original commands, saving face by giving as the reason the death of the late emperor.
⁶

Emperor K
ō
mei was buried on March 5 at the imperial burial ground at the Senny
ū
-ji in Ky
ō
to. In keeping with the provisions of his will, the traditional funeral rites after the death of an emperor—the proclamation of days of national mourning, the wearing of mourning dress, the employment of professional keeners to bewail the death, and so on—were not observed, but precautions against disturbances in the cities were taken. For a period of one year, festivities and the wearing of expensive clothes were forbidden.
⁷
The new emperor could not leave the palace to accompany the late emperor’s coffin to the grave, but he saw off the funeral cortege from the Gekka Gate.

At the beginning of March, the first changes in the new emperor’s daily life were made. He moved on March 7 to the Hall of Mourning (
iroden
), a temporary building of simple construction where, dressed in coarse clothes and surrounded by only the humblest articles, he prayed for the repose of his late father. He remained there for two weeks when, after putting aside his clothes of mourning and undergoing rites of purification, he returned to the main palace building. On the following day, various state officers came to pay their respects to the new emperor and to offer presents. The new reign had begun.

The posthumous name K
ō
mei, derived from a passage in the
Classic of Filial Piety
, was bestowed on the late emperor on March 21,
⁸
but the
neng
ō
was not changed with the new reign. Following the precedent of K
ō
mei’s reign, when the
neng
ō
K
ō
ka was retained for about a year after K
ō
mei succeeded to the throne, the
neng
ō
was not changed until October 23, 1868, almost two years after K
ō
mei’s death. At this time it was decided that in the future each emperor’s reign would have only one
neng
ō
.
⁹

The beginning of a new reign was, of course, a matter of the utmost concern to the various foreign powers. The French government consistently supported the shogunate in what it anticipated would be a struggle for power. On March 29 the shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu gave an audience to the French minister plenipotentiary Léon Roches in
Ō
saka Castle and asked his opinion concerning reform of the shogunate. Roches warned that the shogunate must not seek to scrap any of the treaties it had concluded. He noted that various domains, alleging that the shogunate did not really wish to open the country, had entered into independent negotiations with the British to open ports they controlled. The French, with the interests of the shogunate in mind, believed that it was necessary to open the ports of Shimonoseki and Kagoshima in place of Hy
ō
go and Niigata (which had long been the subject of dispute). Opening these ports would demonstrate the shogunate’s sincerity and at the same time would seize the initiative from the Kagoshima and Ch
ō
sh
ū
domains. Roches also urged the shogun to educate and guide the young emperor and to display firmness in dealing with the many daimyos. He promised that France would stand by the shogunate; this assurance should permit the shogunate to carry out decisively and fearlessly its announced policy of opening the country. Yoshinobu was impressed by Roches’s advice and from this time often summoned him for consultation.
¹⁰

On April 11 the shogun asked nine major domains their opinions on the desirability of opening the port of Hy
ō
go. Urging their support for this action, he said he was well aware that the late emperor had strictly forbidden opening the port; but, he added, it would by no means be easy to alter treaties already signed with the foreigners that promised to open Hy
ō
go. Even before he received responses from the nine domains, he requested imperial authorization, pointing out the many changes in the situation since K
ō
mei had refused permission. Not only had there been the war with Ch
ō
sh
ū
and the death of the shogun Iemochi, but the foreigners had become far more vocal in demanding that Japan carry out the provisions of the treaties. The country had no choice but to comply. Rather than passively acquiescing, the Japanese should look with fresh eyes at the world situation. In the spirit of the old dictum “Within the four seas all men are brothers; all men should be treated with equal benevolence,” a renewal of the country should be initiated at the outset of the new reign. In this way the evil practices that had lingered from the past would be purged, and within a few years the nation would prosper. The glory of the imperial country would redound to the four seas, and the imperial mind would be set at ease.
¹¹

The different domains were divided in their opinions, and it was by no means certain that the shogunate could win over its feudatories to the policy of opening the country. Most important, the court was not persuaded by Yoshinobu’s arguments. The reply received from the court stated that in view of the previous emperor’s opposition, opening the port of Hy
ō
go would not be feasible; the new emperor was reluctant to show disrespect for his father’s wishes. The shogun was asked to reconsider.
¹²

Yoshinobu, however, was unwilling to abandon his plan. On April 29 he sent a memorial once more asking for imperial authorization. He apologized for insisting, even after having received a refusal, and he was fully aware that subjects should bow before the wisdom of the former emperor; but he could not remain silent in view of the urgency of the situation, which affected the destiny of the country. Although he was aware that by advocating the observance of the treaties, he risked incurring the displeasure of the court, he asked, in the interests of national safety and prestige, that the court reconsider its opposition to opening the port of Hy
ō
go. The court’s reply to this letter was a reiteration of its refusal. The shogunate was further directed to inform the court of its obedience to this command.
¹³

Even the court could not ignore indefinitely the menace of foreign intervention. On July 24 the regent, Nij
ō
Nariyuki, sent a message to Yoshinobu stating that in view of the opinions expressed by the shogun and other important figures, the court had no choice but to give imperial sanction to opening Hy
ō
go.
¹⁴

Presumably the young emperor had little or nothing to do with these decisions by the court. Indeed, it is not clear if any attempt was made to acquaint him with policy decisions. One of the rare references to his education at this time is the mention by Nakayama Tadayasu in his diary of delivering lectures to the emperor on
Kimpish
ō
, a thirteenth-century study of court practices and usages, and
Tz
ū
zoku sangokushi
, a seventeenth-century Japanese translation of a Chinese account of warfare at the end of the Han dynasty.
¹⁵
These two works formed part of the traditional education of a ruler but hardly provided the kind of knowledge the emperor needed at this moment. Apparently Tadayasu did not consider that the emperor’s increased political importance necessitated a different kind of education. Perhaps he hoped that Meiji, unlike his father, would confine his interests (like the emperors who reigned earlier in the Tokugawa period) to poetry, matters of protocol, and the literature of the distant past.

Although the supporters of
sonn
ō
had declared their reverence for the emperor, their allegiance to his cause was usually expressed in terms of opposition to the shogun rather than in terms of the benefits they expected to accrue after the overthrow of the shogunate. Little thought was given to the role the emperor would play once the throne had been restored to power. Surely no one assumed that he would become an absolute dictator, imposing his will on the population. Probably Tadayasu and the others around the young emperor hoped that the place of the shogunate in governing the country would be taken by the nobility, under the vaguely defined aegis of the emperor.

Although Roches had recommended that special attention be given to the young emperor’s education, his words seem not to have been heeded. Meiji’s mother, Nakayama Yoshiko, continued to supervise his calligraphy and his composition of
tanka
, and he also had instruction in these subjects from Prince Takahito and Prince Taruhito.
¹⁶
But not for another year or more, when Kido Takayoshi first concerned himself with the emperor’s education, was any thought given to the kind of scholarly preparation appropriate to a modern monarch.

Even after its defeat in the war with Ch
ō
sh
ū
, the shogunate remained the only effective central government. The most the court could do was to refuse to consent to plans made by the shogunate, especially with regard to foreign relations; it did not initiate plans of its own. The shogunate was, of course, far more experienced than the court in dealing with foreigners, but it was now faced with problems it had not encountered as long as
sakoku
lasted.