Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (26 page)

The main issues facing the shogunate at the beginning of 1867 were the opening of the port of Hy
ō
go and the disposition of the rebellious Ch
ō
sh
ū
domain. For some months the court kept up its bitter opposition to opening Hy
ō
go to foreign ships, but on June 26 high-ranking nobles were summoned to the palace to hear discussion of the matter. The acting major counselor Daigo Tadaoki expressed the opinion that even though Emperor K
ō
mei had forbidden opening the port, under present conditions it could not be avoided. He pointed out that K
ō
mei had in fact authorized the opening of three ports (though not Hy
ō
go because of its proximity to Ky
ō
to) and that there really was no major change. His eloquence swayed the other nobles, and in the end imperial authorization for opening the port was granted. It was also decided to treat Ch
ō
sh
ū
leniently.
¹

Now that the long-debated issue of the port of Hy
ō
go had at last been settled, on July 7 the shogunate further decided to permit foreigners to conduct business in Edo and
Ō
saka. With this, full compliance with the provisions of the treaties signed with the foreign nations had been achieved. This did not signify that all the shogunate’s problems had been solved: major and minor problems constantly arose, and increasingly the young emperor was obliged to take part in decisions.

One minor problem arose as a direct consequence of the foreign settlements. On July 14 the Nagasaki magistrate arrested and imprisoned sixty-eight Christians. Christianity had been prohibited in Japan for about 250 years, but “hidden Christians” in the region of Nagasaki had preserved the religion without guidance from ordained priests or even from Christian books. Over the years the beliefs of these Christians had steadily drifted from orthodox teachings, and by now the hymns they sang, originally in Latin, had become gibberish, memorized by believers who had no idea of the meanings. Most of the Christians were poor fishermen and peasants. If suppressing such a cult had been a purely religious matter—if, say, it involved a heterodox Buddhist sect—it could have been achieved without difficulty, but the suppression of a Christian sect immediately involved the foreign powers, which were highly sensitive to attacks on their religion.

As far back as 1857, as the result of negotiations between Townsend Harris and the senior councillor Hotta Masayoshi, it had been agreed that foreigners should be able to practice their religions without hindrance, and the Americans obtained permission to erect a Protestant church in the foreign settlement. At the same time French priests were active in promulgating Catholicism, especially in the area of Nagasaki. The hidden Christians, overjoyed by the arrival of coreligionists, openly visited the church erected by the French and appealed to the French minister for support. Some, rejoicing that their hour had at last come, flaunted their new importance, leading to conflicts even within families.
²
Buddhists, angered by the government’s slowness in punishing the Christians, even though the religion was still prohibited, threatened to take matters into their own hands and kill the Christians. The latter responded by arming themselves with bamboo spears. After the arrests on July 14 the French and Portuguese consuls in Nagasaki demanded the release of the Christians and, when this was refused, reported the matter to their legations, urging them to negotiate with the shogunate for release of the prisoners.

On August 24 Tokugawa Yoshinobu granted the French minister Léon Roches an audience in
Ō
saka Castle. Roches had previously asked the shogunate to free the Christians, only to be informed that they had violated a national law and so their arrest was unavoidable. The meeting between Yoshinobu and Roches was arranged at Roches’s request, ostensibly to discuss trade. The shogunate had become increasingly dependent on France as a source of weapons, and the French were in a strong position to make demands with respect to the Christian prisoners. In the hopes of making an even more powerful impression on Yoshinobu, the French invited him aboard a French warship to observe blank firing and the maneuvering of the ship. The next day he began negotiations for the release of the prisoners.

On September 3 the councillor Itakura Katsukiyo (1823–1889) met with Roches to discuss the issue. Two days later Yoshinobu sent a letter to Napoleon III explaining that Christianity had long since been prohibited in Japan and that the arrest of the Christians had been obligatory. He asked that French priests cease proselytizing among Japanese subjects. Finally he agreed to free the imprisoned Christians. They would be placed in the custody of village officials and encouraged to move to other localities.
³

This action did not end the repressive measures directed against the hidden Christians. In April 1868 when the signboards erected by the shogunate listing five prohibitions imposed on the populace were replaced by injunctions of the new imperial government, the prohibition on Christianity remained unaltered. The third injunction stated: “The Christian heretical sect is strictly prohibited. Anyone arousing suspicion should be reported to the village office. A reward will be bestowed.”
⁴

Even Emperor Meiji became involved in the discussions of how the Christians were to be brought under control. On May 9 princes of the blood, nobles of high and low ranks, and various daimyos were summoned into the imperial presence and commanded to express their opinions concerning the disposition of the Christian believers in Nagasaki. They were informed that despite the prohibition newly issued in the previous month, the number of Christian believers had continued to grow and that there were now more than 3,000. If no punitive action were taken, this might well have serious consequences. For this reason the chief justice of the Nagasaki courts had been given permission to dispose of the Christians as he saw fit.

Earlier Councillor Inoue Kaoru (1835–1915) had gone to Nagasaki to observe the situation with respect to the Christian believers and had been greatly upset. After his return to Ky
ō
to, he had discussed the situation with Kido Takayoshi, who subsequently conferred with the vice president (
fukus
ō
sai
), Sanj
ō
Sanetomi. They concluded that the best course would be to explain patiently their errors to the leaders of the believers. Those who responded to the command to abandon the forbidden faith would be required to discard their pictures of Jesus and swear an oath before the Japanese gods. Those who refused to yield to persuasion would be put to death. This opinion, reported to the throne, was the occasion for the gathering in the emperor’s presence.
⁵
On the following day those who had attended the meeting submitted their recommendation: the majority favored death for all Christian believers.

The British minister Sir Harry Parkes was enraged when he learned that even on the new signboards, Christianity was prohibited. Parkes was famous for his terrible temper, and it is not difficult to imagine his fulminations when on May 4 he called on Sanj
ō
Sanetomi to protest against the wording of the signboards and the disposition of the Christian believers in Nagasaki. Iwakura Tomomi, Prince Akira, and the councilor
Ō
kuma Shigenobu were also present;
Ō
kuma was eventually able to calm Parkes.

On May 27 Meiji summoned Kido and commanded him to go to Nagasaki to dispose of the matter. The signboards were changed: the word “heretical” in the phrase “heretical Christian sect” was deleted, but a separate item was added proscribing heresy.
⁶
On June 14, 1868, 114 Christian leaders were turned over to the Hagi, Tsuwano, and Fukuyama domains for imprisonment. More than 2,400 believers were eventually imprisoned under extremely harsh conditions in seventeen different places. About 500 of them recanted under pressure from the authorities and were released, but the rest persistently refused to change their faith, displaying great strength in their convictions. Many of those who recanted subsequently reverted to their old beliefs. All prisoners were finally released and allowed to return to their homes in March 1873 after the government decided that further imprisonment would serve no useful purpose.
⁷

The suppression of Christianity was not one of the major problems facing the shogunate during the closing months of its existence. It could not have been of great importance to members of the court either, preoccupied as they were with efforts to overthrow the shogunate. Nevertheless, they felt it advisable to have the debate over the disposition of the Christians take place in the presence of the emperor. He also participated in most of the future discussions of state policy, although the official records never indicate his reactions.

The most pressing problem facing the shogunate was, of course, its continued existence. Because the mounting opposition to the shogunate is a subject already treated by many historians, suffice it to say here that the alliance between Ch
ō
sh
ū
and Satsuma, formerly bitter enemies, was the key factor in galvanizing the opposition to the shogunate. The anti-shogunate domains, mainly in west Honsh
ū
, Ky
ū
sh
ū
, and Shikoku, had become increasingly dissatisfied with the shogunate’s monopoly of the highly lucrative foreign trade. But when discussing their grievances, they normally did not mention this; instead, they spoke of the need to restore imperial rule. A contemporary historian has written, “It needs hardly be said that the internal disturbances at the time of the Restoration were definitely not caused by loyalist convictions. Fundamentally, they resulted from the aspirations of the major domains in the southwest, headed by Satsuma and Ch
ō
sh
ū
, to be independent of the shogunate.”
⁸

Even if these were the real aspirations of Satsuma, Ch
ō
sh
ū
, and the other domains that ultimately overthrew the shogunate, they needed a rallying cry, and “Restore power to the emperor!” served this purpose. The shogunate under Tokugawa Yoshinobu, especially after its humiliating defeat in the war with Ch
ō
sh
ū
, took desperate measures to stave off collapse. With France’s help, it rapidly increased its store of modern weapons, and under Yoshinobu’s leadership, many reforms were launched. Senior shogunate statesmen, notably Oguri Tadamasa (1827–1868), attempted to push through plans for making the shogunate into an absolutist regime, believing this was the only way it could ensure its authority over rebellious domains.
⁹
As early as 1866 Oguri privately discussed the advisability of abolishing the domains and replacing them with prefectures, a measure that eventually was adopted by the Meiji government in 1871, but the shogunate lacked sufficient support to carry out so daring a plan.

The daimyos of the major domains, especially in the west and south, joined forces in alliances. But for all the reverence they professed for the court in Ky
ō
to, their chief concern seems to have been preserving their own power. Initially at least, they seem not to have hoped to substitute the absolute authority of the emperor for the authority of the shogunate,
¹⁰
as hardly any of the daimyos or their retainers rose above anxiety over the survival of their particular domains to consider what was desirable for the country as a whole.
¹¹

The shogunate’s authority was weakened also by populist uprisings calling for change, at their height during the summer of 1866 during the war with Ch
ō
sh
ū
.
¹²
These uprisings, stemming from anger over the skyrocketing prices of food, especially rice, had the effect of creating opposition to the shogunate at a time when it desperately needed unity in its struggle with Ch
ō
sh
ū
.
¹³

In the meantime, men from the major domains in Ky
ū
sh
ū
, Shikoku, and western Honsh
ū
were consolidating plans for restoring power to the court. In March 1867 Got
ō
Sh
ō
jir
ō
(1838–1897), a councillor (
sansei
) of the Tosa domain, met Sakamoto Ry
ō
ma (1835–1867), a renegade of the same domain, in Nagasaki. Got
ō
was duty bound to arrest Sakamoto, but instead he listened to the views of a man known for his advanced political ideas. The two men agreed that the only way out of the impasse in which the government found itself was for the shogun voluntarily to relinquish his powers to the court.
¹⁴

Four months later, in July 1867, Got
ō
, with two other Tosa men, Sakamoto and Nakaoka Shintar
ō
(1838–1867), in attendance, met in Ky
ō
to with three leaders of the Satsuma domain—Saig
ō
Takamori (1828–1877),
Ō
kubo Toshimichi (1830–1878), and Komatsu Tatewaki (1835–1870)—and drew up a pact between the two domains. The language and political ideas embodied in this pact closely resemble those originally expressed by Sakamoto in his
Sench
ū
hassaku
(Eight Proposals Composed Aboard Ship), written while on his way from Tosa to Ky
ō
to several weeks earlier.
¹⁵