Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (27 page)

After promising to do everything in their power to restore rule to the emperor, the two domains agreed to eight articles. The first article declared that all powers for deciding the administration of the country resided with the court. Subsequent articles expressed their belief in the necessity to erect (with money provided by the various domains) a parliamentary building in Ky
ō
to from which would emanate the laws governing the entire country. The parliament would consist of two chambers, and the members of the lower house of this parliament, selected for their righteousness and blamelessness, would include persons from all walks of life, ranging from high-ranking nobles to samurai and even commoners. Daimyos would take their places in the upper chamber. But before these changes could occur, the shogun would have to resign his office, resume his status as a daimyo, and return his political powers to the court. New treaties should be concluded with foreign countries that would provide for fair commercial practices.
¹⁶

In October of the same year, Satsuma and Ch
ō
sh
ū
concluded a pact that was specifically aimed at overthrowing the shogunate.
Ō
kubo Toshimichi and
Ō
yama Tsunayoshi (1825–1877), central figures in Satsuma, traveled to Yamaguchi, where they communicated to M
ō
ri Takachika (1819–1871), the daimyo, the frustration of their own daimyo over his failure to persuade the shogunate to mend its ways. They declared that there was no way to solve the nation’s problems except by using military force to overthrow the shogunate. They asked that Ch
ō
sh
ū
send troops to support their own in Ky
ō
to, where they were guarding the imperial palace.
¹⁷

Impressed by
Ō
kubo’s arguments and his straightforward answers to the questions put to him by members of the Ch
ō
sh
ū
domain, M
ō
ri Takachika agreed without hesitation to support Satsuma and to send troops to
Ō
saka. He added, however, that guarding the imperial palace was a heavy responsibility, and if by some mischance, the emperor were captured by the enemy, everything would be lost.

There was contact also between the Ky
ō
to aristocrats and the samurai who were planning the overthrow of the shogunate. Iwakura Tomomi, still living under house arrest at Iwakura Village, had maintained relations with the principal Satsuma leaders, and he was otherwise kept abreast of recent developments by visitors from the various domains. In July, Nakaoka and Sakamoto called on him and urged him to make up his differences with Sanj
ō
Sanetomi, his personal enemy. Iwakura agreed, and Nakaoka was also able to persuade Sanj
ō
to forget old grievances. In this way the loyalist nobles were united both in their opposition to the shogunate and in their support of the major domains.
¹⁸

In November 1867 Yamauchi Y
ō
d
ō
(1827–1872),
¹⁹
the former Tosa daimyo, sent a letter to Tokugawa Yoshinobu urging him to return the government to the court. Y
ō
d
ō
was by no means a militant supporter of the restoration of imperial authority, but Got
ō
Sh
ō
jir
ō
adroitly persuaded him that Yoshinobu himself would welcome such a proposal. In this way Y
ō
d
ō
would show his respect for the emperor and his compassion for the shogun. Got
ō
also stressed that Satsuma and Ch
ō
sh
ū
were planning military action against the shogunate and that the best way to avoid warfare was for the shogun to resign his office. Y
ō
d
ō
was so determined to avoid such a conflict that he declared he would not send one Tosa soldier to Ky
ō
to. This was a disappointment to Got
ō
, who had promised Saig
ō
and
Ō
kubo to return to Ky
ō
to with Tosa troops, but he had obtained the desired letter from Yamauchi Y
ō
d
ō
.
²⁰

The letter itself, apart from its reiterations of awe and dread over the propriety of addressing such a missive to the shogun, and an account of Y
ō
d
ō
’s recent illness, contains a vaguely worded expression of the belief that the time had come to change a system that had lasted for hundreds of years and to restore rule by the emperor. It concludes with Y
ō
d
ō
’s confession that worry over the predicament in which the country found itself had caused him to shed tears of blood.
²¹

An appended proposal, signed by Got
ō
Sh
ō
jir
ō
and three others of the domain, was more specific. It listed seven points, some derived from Sakamoto’s recommendations and others from the Satsuma–Ch
ō
sh
ū
pact, opening with the proposal to establish a parliament in two chambers in which all classes of society would serve. The second article urges the establishment of schools in the cities where students would be instructed in the arts and sciences. The third article calls for new treaties and the establishment of fair trading practices.
²²
The next article stresses the importance of land and sea defenses. Military installations should be built between the capital and Settsu Province, and the court itself must be defended by well-equipped troops under the emperor’s personal command. The fifth article calls for basic reforms of old evils and not mere surface changes. Some court practices, sanctioned by centuries of observance, would have to be completely altered before Japan could stand independent among the nations of the globe. Finally, members of the parliament would have to be impartial and fair in their judgments and not get bogged down in arguments over trivialities.
²³

The letters were received by Itakura Katsukiyo of the Council of Elders and delivered to Yoshinobu. Got
ō
had been instructed to obtain Satsuma’s approval for Y
ō
d
ō
’s proposal, but at first Saig
ō
refused, saying that plans for attacking the shogunate had been completed and that it was too late to give advice to the shogun. He said that he could not prevent Tosa from carrying out its plans but that Satsuma would act as it thought best. Got
ō
, not discouraged by the refusal, approached other Satsuma men and found them willing to support the letter. In the end Saig
ō
and
Ō
kubo agreed to postpone military action.
²⁴

On November 9, 1867, a secret imperial command was issued to Satsuma and Ch
ō
sh
ū
ordering them to subjugate Tokugawa Yoshinobu:
²⁵

Imperial Edict. Minamoto
²⁶
Yoshinobu, borrowing the authority of successive generations and depending on the strength of his pack of bandits, has wantonly impaired the loyal and the good and has frequently disobeyed imperial commands. In the end, not fearing to distort the edicts of the late emperor and not caring that he has plunged the populace into an abyss, his all-pervasive evil threatens to overturn the Land of the Gods. We are father and mother of the people. If We fail to strike down this traitor, what excuse shall We have to offer to the spirit of the late emperor? How shall We make Our profound amends to the people? This is the cause of Our grief and indignation. It is unavoidable that the period of mourning be disregarded.
²⁷
Implement the wishes of Our heart by slaughtering the traitorous subject Yoshinobu. When you have speedily accomplished this great deed to save the nation, you will enable the people to enjoy the lasting peace of the mountains. This is Our wish. See to it that you are prompt in carrying it out.
²⁸

The edict is highly unusual in its strong, even violent, language. It is strange that although it is written in the first person (using the imperial pronoun
chin
), it is signed by three noblemen.
²⁹
For this reason the document has been labeled by some as a forgery, and by others as a pseudoedict inspired by Iwakura Tomomi but in fact composed by Tamamatsu Misao (1810–1872), a learned, former Shint
ō
priest who served as Iwakura’s “brain.”
³⁰
According to Iwakura himself, the edict was shown to the emperor by Nakayama Tadayasu and approved by him before being sent to the two domains.
³¹
But it is doubtful that Tadayasu would take to the emperor a document that was kept extremely secret (it was not shown even to the regent).
³²

This edict was followed the next day by a much shorter one, ostensibly from the emperor himself, commanding Satsuma and Ch
ō
sh
ū
to kill Matsudaira Katamori and Matsudaira Sadanori.
³³
Although both domains sent replies promising complete obedience to the best of their abilities, neither edict led to the prescribed murders.

On November 8 Tokugawa Yoshinobu addressed a letter to the court requesting permission to return his authority to the court, and this prompted the emperor to call off the edicts issued to Satsuma and Ch
ō
sh
ū
.
³⁴
Historians have debated why Yoshinobu decided at this point to yield his authority.
³⁵
Within the shogunate itself, many men had recognized that a change was inevitable. On November 8 Yoshinobu assembled at Nij
ō
Castle the senior officials of forty domains with incomes of more than 100,000
koku
to discuss the return of rule to the emperor (
taisei h
ō
kan
). Itakura Katsukiyo showed them the draft of Yoshinobu’s memorial to the throne requesting permission to surrender his office. He asked their opinions. Most of the officials withdrew without committing themselves, but after the meeting, Komatsu Tatewaki from Satsuma, Got
ō
Sh
ō
jir
ō
and Fukuoka Takachika from Tosa, and Tsuji Igaku from Aki lingered behind to thank Yoshinobu for his sacrifice and urge him to take decisive action. They were joined by men from other domains. Yoshinobu at last made up his mind, and that day he gave the memorial to the two military liaison officers.
³⁶

Yoshinobu’s memorial to the throne was couched in familiar language, tracing the long history of his family’s service to the throne and the favors it had received and blaming his scant virtue for the present difficult situation in which the country found itself. In yielding his authority, he looked up to the emperor’s wisdom for guidance. If all joined to ensure the security of the imperial land, he felt sure that Japan would be able to stand on equal terms with foreign countries. On the following day, November 10, Yoshinobu was summoned to the court and informed that the emperor had granted his request to return his powers to the court.

The official proclamation of the resumption of imperial rule was not made until January 4, 1868, but the decision had been made: in principle, the emperor was now the sole ruler of Japan. His reactions to this event are unknown. Not even a poem survives that might give a clue to his feelings, something similar to what Queen Victoria wrote in her journal the day she became queen: “I am very young, and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.”
³⁷
All the same, the emperor was aware that the line of Tokugawa shoguns, begun with Ieyasu in 1603, had ended and that for the first time in more than 500 years, an emperor ruled without a shogun.
³⁸

On the same day Iwakura Tomomi received a pardon from the emperor and permission to attend court once again. Earlier, someone learning of Iwakura’s intention of restoring power to the emperor had compared his plan with that of the Kemmu Restoration—when (in 1333) the emperor Godaigo was empowered to rule without a shogun. Tamamatsu Misao disagreed, holding that the scope of the present restoration was so huge that its only real precedent was the founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
³⁹
It had been more than 670 years since Minamoto Yoritomo first founded his shogunate and more than 260 years since the Tokugawa shogunate was founded.

About a month later foreign envoys in Japan received this communication:

The emperor of Japan announces to the sovereigns of all foreign countries and to their subjects that permission has been granted to the Sh
ō
gun Tokugawa Yoshinobu to return the governing power in accordance with his own request. We shall henceforth exercise supreme authority in all the internal and external affairs of the country. Consequently the title of emperor must be substituted for that of Tycoon, in which the treaties have been made. Officers are being appointed by us to the conduct of foreign affairs. It is desirable that the representatives of the treaty powers recognize this announcement.
⁴⁰

The message (as translated) was dated February 8 by the solar calendar and signed Mutsuhito.