Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912

Chapter 1

There are two portraits of Emperor Kōmei (1831–1867). The first, often reproduced, shows him sitting on a raised tatami (the gyokuza, or jeweled seat), dressed in court costume and wearing the distinctive headgear of an emperor, a hat with a tall, projecting plume-like band. His oval face, turned somewhat to the right, is composed and utterly without expression, in the typical manner of formal court portraits. Nothing (except perhaps the angle of the plume) indicates that this portrait was painted in the nineteenth, rather than, say, the thirteenth century, and no attempt was made to suggest in the depiction of Kōmei’s features his long suffering during an unusually turbulent reign. Judging by this portrait, Kōmei differed little from his ancestors, the emperors of the previous 200 years, most of them figureheads who contributed little to the nation. During their lifetimes, their existence was unknown to most Japanese; today even their names have been forgotten. Kōmei, however, despite the blandness of his features in this portrait, is distinctly remembered.¹

The second portrait creates quite a different impression. The face reveals a strong personality of which wrath seems to be the principal component. Kōmei was indeed angry throughout much of his life. His surviving letters and other documents make it plain that almost every development during his reign infuriated him, and his response to each was not merely anger but frustration over his inability to prevent the impending changes in the government and society.

Kōmei was born on July 23, 1831. His father was Emperor Ninkō, the 120th emperor according to the official chronology. His mother was not the emperor’s consort but a gon no tenji, or lady of the bedchamber, the daughter of the nobleman Ōgimachi Sanemitsu. Officially, however, Kōmei was considered to be the empress’s own child. As the fourth son of Ninkō, he normally would not have succeeded to the throne, but all his elder brothers had died by the time he was born. The mortality rate among children of the imperial family at this time and even much later was astonishingly high. Of Ninkō’s fifteen children, only three lived past their third year; of Kōmei’s six children, only one (Meiji) survived him; and of Meiji’s fifteen children, only five lived to be adults.² It is not clear why the mortality rate should have been so much higher at the imperial court than among contemporary Japanese peasant families;³ but it has been ascribed to various causes, such as excessively early marriage (the heir to the throne normally married by his sixteenth year), the backward state of medicine as practiced by the court physicians, and the unhealthy, gloomy atmosphere prevailing in the palace. Perhaps also—though this is rarely suggested—the extremely limited choice of women of the nobility as mothers of imperial children tended to promote inbreeding.

Especially after the beginning of the eighteenth century, emperors did not live long, although there were a few exceptions. Sakuramachi died at thirty; his successor, Momozono, at twenty-one; Go-Momozono, at twenty-one; Ninkō (Kōmei’s father), at forty-six; and Kōmei himself, at thirty-six. Accession to the throne was accordingly early: Kōmei’s grandfather, Emperor Kōkaku, ascended the throne at nine; his son, Ninkō, at seventeen; Kōmei, at fifteen; and his son, Meiji, also at fifteen. Under other circumstances, the accession of an inexperienced boy emperor might have created severe problems in the country’s administration, but in fact it hardly mattered to the Japanese state whether the emperor was a venerable exemplar of monarchical wisdom or a mere child; he took no part in the government, and his only public activities were the performance of prescribed rituals and ceremonies.⁴ The shogun did not have to ask the emperor’s advice when planning a course of action, and once he had made a decision, he did not seek the emperor’s consent. This situation would change with Kōmei.

Kōmei grew up in the Gosho, the area in the center of the city of Kyōto (about 220 acres) where the buildings of the palace were situated and where most of the kuge (nobles) lived; this was the imperial family’s entire world. According to Higashikuze Michitomi (1833–1912), it was the policy of the shogunate to cloister the emperor as if he were some sort of living god removed from the world of mortals, and it was strictly forbidden to inform him of new or unusual happenings.⁵ Higashikuze, who was selected to be Kōmei’s playmate when he was ten years old, related in his old age everything he could remember about Kōmei’s boyhood, fearing that unless he set down his remembrances, the old traditions might be lost forever. His memory was extraordinary, extending to minute details of the many ceremonies he witnessed—exactly who was present, how they were dressed, what gifts were offered, and so on. Here is his account of a typical ceremony:

On the seventh day of the sixth month, his ninth birthday,⁶ there was the ceremony of first reading. It was not that the prince had never read anything before he was nine. He had in fact already read the Classic of Filial Piety and the Great Learning—Takatsukasa, the general of the left, was his tutor—and the ceremony was purely a formality. The prince sat at the middle level wearing an ordinary court costume, his sleeves held back by threefold purple cords and laced trousers with violet hexagonal patterns. The middle counselor Koga Takemichi brought forward a desk and placed it before the prince. Then Kiyohara Arikata of the third rank came forward and seated himself before the desk. He read the preface to the old text of the Classic of Filial Piety three times. The prince immediately afterward read through this text in the same way. Kiyohara of the third rank withdrew, and Koga, coming forward, removed the desk. The prince then withdrew to the inner quarters.⁷

The education of a prince consisted largely of reading aloud, with the aid of a tutor, Confucian texts such as the Classic of Filial Piety. At first he would read the words without understanding their meaning, but eventually he would be able not only to read texts in classical Chinese but to compose poetry in that language. Calligraphy was an equally indispensable attainment of a prince, and the selection of the proper calligraphy tutor was a matter of crucial importance. Finally, a prince was expected to be able to compose Japanese poetry in the classic verse form, the tanka.

Apart from these elements of a traditional education, a prince seems to have learned little else from books—perhaps no more than the essentials of Japanese and Chinese history and geography. Some emperors were fond of reading Japanese fiction, and others enjoyed such entertainments as the bugaku dances performed at the court as they had been for a thousand years; there are records also of nō being performed in the imperial palace. But these avocations were considered to be merely diversions, distinct from the serious study that the shogunate had enjoined on the imperial household as its principal occupation.

In 1615 a code of approved behavior for the nobility was drawn up by the former shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, his son Hidetada (the titular shogun), and the nobleman Nijō Akizane, who had served as kampaku, or chancellor. This code, known as Kinchū narabi ni kuge shohatto (Regulations for the Imperial Palace and Nobility), consisted of seventeen articles, presumably in imitation of the Seventeen Article Constitution drawn up by Prince Shōtoku in 604. The first and most important article enjoined the emperor and his courtiers to devote themselves to scholarship and the arts. The emperors of the Tokugawa period seem to have taken this to heart: scholarship (the study of a limited number of Confucian classics) and the arts (chiefly tanka and calligraphy) were the central elements of their education. The Confucian classics were studied not in the hopes that a prince might one day rival scholars of the Tokugawa period in reinterpreting the texts; it was enough for members of the court to be familiar in general with the teachings of Confucius and to be able to quote his words at appropriate times. The remainder of the seventeen articles dealt with specific matters, such as appointments to court offices, inheritance of property by nobles, precedence among the various noble houses, and the treatment of members of the nobility who had entered priestly orders.

Even if they resented the supremacy of the shogunate and recalled nostalgically the distant past when the emperor reigned supreme, most emperors and members of the aristocracy did not chafe under the regulations to which they were subjected. The world they lived in was tiny, but they seemed unaware of its limitations, and matters of the most minute concern could occupy their minds for decades. Even those who resented the interference of the shogunate in their lives and the presence in Kyōto of officials sent from Edo who monitored their every action were well aware that they could not survive without the annual stipends the shogunate paid them.

In the case of the lower ranks of the aristocracy, the stipends they received were often insufficient to maintain their households even at a modest level, and many resorted to working on the side, preferably at pursuits that were not considered to be demeaning, such as making copies of the calligraphy of old masters or painting cards for the New Year’s game of karuta (cards); they counted on the appeal of their illustrious names to sell their handiwork. The family of Iwakura Tomomi (1825–1883), who emerged as the most prominent noble of the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods, was so poor that they had to rent their house as a gambling den, taking advantage of their immunity as nobles from police regulations. But even the poorest of the nobles were proud of their lineage and their social status, and they were respected by society as a whole, although some of them, as we know from the testimony of the nobles themselves, behaved outrageously, stopping at nothing in their desperate eagerness to make money.⁸

The poverty of the emperor and the court has often been exaggerated, especially by popular historians who have fabricated tales of the drastic expedients to which even emperors resorted merely to stay alive. In fact, they lived reasonably well, even by the standards of the daimyos of the time, whose wealth similarly tends to be exaggerated.

The life of an emperor during the Tokugawa period must have been extremely boring, however. Apart from the consolation of nocturnal pleasures (Gomizunoo had thirty-seven children and Gosai, twenty-seven), each day seems to have been occupied mainly with ceremonies, repeated identically from year to year. But perhaps the aspect of an emperor’s life that we would find most oppressive was the narrow confines of the area in which he could move. This had not always been true. Although the emperors never traveled very far from the Gosho, they made occasional imperial progresses to different parts of the city. For example, in 1626 Gomizunoo was entertained for four days at Nijō Castle, the official residence of the shogun in the capital. But from 1632, the year when the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–1651) began to rule in his own right after the death of his father, Tokugawa Hidetada, the shogunate did not permit the emperors to leave the Gosho. On a few occasions, it is true, fires in the Gosho might compel an emperor to take refuge at a temple elsewhere in Kyōto, but it is not much of an exaggeration to say that the successive emperors were prisoners of the state.

Abdicated emperors were freer to travel outside the Gosho. The Shugaku-in, in the hills northeast of the city, was originally built about 1650 as a pleasure resort for the retired emperor Gomizunoo. It was visited from time to time in later years by other abdicated emperors, but it had not been used for many years, and when the retired emperor Kōkaku requested permission in 1823 from the shogunate to visit the Shugaku-in, hasty repairs had to be made before the visit could take place. The occasion passed splendidly:

The cloistered emperor Gomizunoo was the first to visit the tea pavilion of the Shugaku-in, at the foot of Mount Hiyoshi. The cloistered emperor Reigen had also frequently stopped here. After the death of the cloistered emperor Reigen in 1732, for a period of about a hundred years, the place fell into rack and ruin, and the imperial visits ceased. In the autumn of 1824, the military were commanded to make fresh repairs, and reverting to their old practice, they performed this service. Accordingly, on the twenty-first day of the ninth month of 1825 the retired emperor [Kōkaku] paid his first visit. The route he took was as follows: he left the Gosho by the Seiwa-in Gate, proceeded to Masugata, crossed the Kamo River, and then rested a while at Nitta Yamabana. Great crowds of people cheered him, shouting Banzai! They filled the streets, gazing at him reverently. Truly this was proof of an auspicious reign.⁹

Although emperors who had abdicated and entered priestly orders were allowed this degree of freedom by the shogunate, this was not true of reigning emperors; from 1632 until 1863, when Kōmei went to worship at the Kamo and Iwashimizu Shrines, the successive emperors hardly ever left the Gosho, and then only because of some disaster. None of them had seen the sea or Mount Fuji or the city of Edo, where the shoguns reigned. During his entire lifetime, an emperor would never have seen more than a few hundred of his subjects, and virtually none of the Japanese would ever have had even the barest glimpse of him. The people of Kyōto were, of course, aware that the emperor lived behind the walls of the Gosho, but except for such rare occasions as when the retired emperor Kōkaku visited the Shugaku-in, they never saw even the palanquin in which he was borne, let alone the man. He was invisible to all but a handful of high-ranking courtiers, a presence behind curtains who excited awe and reverence but who was remote from the world of human beings.

Higashikuze Michitomi was one of the very few at the court for whom the future emperor Kōmei was both a human being and a friend. He recalled Kōmei’s proficiency in his studies: "He was able to read the Four Books and the Five Classics¹⁰ without difficulty and learned enough even to lecture on them. He did not study Japanese books very much, but he received instruction in composing tanka from his father and composed them every day. His poems were extremely good. In gagaku [music] he received instruction from Hamuro, the major counselor, and he was a skillful player of the flute."¹¹

Kōmei was officially named the crown prince in 1840, when he was in his tenth year. Higashikuze recalled that before the ceremony, imperial commands had been issued to seven Shintō shrines and seven Buddhist temples to pray that the ceremony would not be interrupted by wind or rain.¹² The actual ceremony took place in the Shishinden (Hall for State Ceremonies). At the conclusion, the emperor presented the prince with the tsubogiri no goken, the sword indicating that the recipient was next in the succession.

Higashikuze did not actually become the prince’s companion until 1842, but he knew from reports how Kōmei looked on that occasion two years earlier: "His hair was arranged in the agemaki style, divided on top to left and right in loops over his ears, in the manner of the hair of the two boys in attendance on Prince Shōtoku in the famous portrait. This was because he had not yet had his gembuku."¹³

Probably Higashikuze knew of this ceremony only from other people, but he was present for Kōmei’s gembuku, or initiation into manhood, the second most important rite of the prince’s life, which began on May 11, 1844, with the ceremony of blackening the prince’s teeth. Kōmei disliked this so much that he had to be forced. (It is not hard to imagine the thirteen-year-old boy squirming and perhaps shrieking as the nasty black liquid was rubbed against his teeth.) The next two days were spent rehearsing the ceremony. As Higashikuze explained, This was something that happened only once in an emperor’s lifetime, and there were so few people who could remember what had happened the previous time that everybody had to consult books during the rehearsals.¹⁴

Before dawn on the day of the ceremony the prince was dressed in his costume for the occasion. All the nobles wore formal robes with trailing skirts and carried broadswords inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The emperor appeared, followed by a woman attendant bearing the crown prince’s crown. Inside the Hall for State Ceremonies, the officers of the Imperial Palace Keeper’s Bureau (tonomoryō) opened the curtains. The crown prince’s tutor led him to the platform, whereupon the chancellor, Takatsukasa Masamichi, came up beside the prince. Kujō, the minister of the right, supported the prince’s train. At this solemn moment all the nobles prostrated themselves. Those of lesser rank did the same outside the building. The minister of the center, Konoe Tadahiro, placed the crown on the prince’s head, and Koga Takemichi, the acting middle counselor, bound his hair. Konoe again came forward, removed the crown, and left. Koga came forward and rearranged the prince’s hair. When this was done, the prince withdrew to the inner quarters and changed his costume.¹⁵ The ceremony was over.

Emperor Ninkō, Kōmei’s father, died at dawn on February 23, 1846. Nobody expected him to die: he was in the prime of life (only forty-six years old) and was endowed with an exceptionally strong constitution. He had been suffering from nothing worse than a cold, but one day when he got up to go to the toilet, he discovered that he could not stand. He was supported by court ladies, but they were not able to hold up the heavy man, and he had to crawl to the toilet. On the way he had a fatal attack. His death was not immediately announced; instead, it was stated that he was so severely incapacitated he wished to abdicate. But an emperor could not abdicate without the permission of the shogunate. A fast messenger was therefore sent to Edo by the Kyōto deputy shoshidai,¹⁶ but Ninkō had died long before the reply was received.

The emperor’s death was formally announced on March 13. One week later, there was a simple ceremony to mark Kōmei’s succession to the throne, and on the following day Ninkō was placed in his coffin. Then, on March 30, it was announced that the lady-in-waiting (miyasudokoro) Kujō Asako (1834–1897) had been named nyōgo, the highest rank of court lady below the empress, signifying that Kōmei now possessed the equivalent of a wife.¹⁷

Most of the events described in the official record of the early years of Kōmei’s reign have little historical importance. There were memorial services for the late emperor Ninkō, purification and other Shintō rites, an eclipse of the moon, a cockfight—all reported with equal thoroughness and a wealth of citations. Perhaps the most important event was the opening of instruction at the Gakushū-in (a school for children of the nobility). The entry for October 19, 1846, by contrast, leaps from the page: Word of the coming of foreign ships having reached the capital, the emperor sent a message to the shogunate on sea defenses.¹⁸

This was the first expression in centuries of an emperor’s views on foreign policy and could only have been the result of extreme consternation on the part of the fifteen-year-old Kōmei (or his advisers) on learning of the threat of foreign intrusion. The entry for June 9, 1847, is in the same vein: The counselor Nonomiya Sadanaga was appointed as the imperial envoy to the special festival of the Iwashimizu Shrine. He was asked especially to pray for peace and tranquillity within the four seas, at a time when foreign warships have intruded into Japanese waters.¹⁹

This was the first of many prayers that Kōmei would offer to the gods, asking their assistance in ridding Japan of foreign intruders. Never in his lifetime, however, did Kōmei see any foreigners. Indeed, he probably knew next to nothing about them at the time his prayers were offered at the Iwashimizu Shrine, and he learned little more during the rest of his reign; but he was absolutely sure that the presence of foreigners (or, more specifically, Western foreigners) was an intolerable affront to the Land of the Gods.

The reference to foreign warships in Kōmei’s prayers was probably to the two American warships that entered Edo Bay in the summer of the previous year under the command of Commodore James Biddle, who attempted unsuccessfully to draw up a treaty of commerce with the magistrate of Uraga. A French warship also visited Japan in 1846. Kōmei referred to both in his semmyō (message from the throne) offered to the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, and he prayed that if the foreigners ever came to Japan again, the god of the shrine would raise a wind that would blow them away and leave the country in peace.²⁰

Kōmei never swerved in his antiforeign sentiments, even though at times, powerless to do otherwise, he reluctantly agreed to allow the foreigners to remain in Japan temporarily until the moment had arrived to drive them all into the sea. His xenophobia was formed early in his life and remained with him to the end; surely it was one of the elements that contributed to the fierceness of the expression in his portrait.

On October 31, 1847, the coronation of Kōmei took place in the Hall for State Ceremonies when he was in his seventeenth year. He delivered a semmyō, praying for peace and asking for the assistance of all his subjects. Judging from the surviving accounts, the ceremony was carried out with magnificence, and on the following day persons who were not normally allowed to approach the imperial palace were able to get a glimpse of the splendor of the occasion.²¹

Kōmei’s life after his coronation differed little from the routine that had been established in previous reigns. There were religious observances, poetry gatherings, and the resignations and promotions of palace officials. When necessary, Kōmei would compose a tanka, usually phrased in unclouded language:

The only disturbing events during the next few years were eclipses of the sun and moon, which regularly caused a suspension of all court events. Kōmei attended performances of bugaku and nō in the palace, gazed at the moon at appropriate times, and attended various rites and gatherings. Almost every one of his acts occurred on the prescribed day, the same day each year. Scarcely a personal matter except for a rare illness appears in the pages of the official chronicle. Outside the Gosho, fires and floods destroyed houses and bridges, and the emperor responded to each calamity by ordering prayers for the welfare of his people to be offered at the major shrines.

The increasingly frequent appearance of foreign ships in Japanese waters caused consternation, but the most that Kōmei could do in response to the threat was to send messengers to the usual seven shrines and seven temples with instructions to pray for peace.

Moments of happiness also appear in the official chronicle, as when Kōmei’s consort put on a maternity belt, followed two months later by the birth of his first child, a daughter. Thirteen days later a son was born to a concubine, but mother and infant died the same day, the first example of what became a familiar pattern of births and deaths in the imperial family during Kōmei’s reign. The fact that this son’s mother was not the emperor’s consort did not diminish the importance of his birth, nor did it lessen the emperor’s disappointment over his death, but he lived for so short a time that the usual command to show respect for the dead by abstaining from making noise within the capital was not issued.²³

The record of the events of the early years of Kōmei’s reign is hardly engrossing, but every so often the reader’s knowledge of later events lends interest to a seemingly matter-of-fact statement. For example, the entry for August 8, 1851, states that the emperor sent a messenger to Prince Arisugawa Taruhito (1835–1895) informing him of his consent to the marriage of his sister, Princess Kazunomiya (1846–1877), to the prince.²⁴ She was only five at the time, and the marriage arrangement was based solely on dynastic considerations; but ten years later, when the shogun asked for her hand, this engagement would present a serious obstacle.

Again, the official record for October 15, 1851, states laconically that a prince was born.²⁵ Without prior knowledge of who was born on this day, it would take considerable reading in the pages that follow the bare announcement to realize that the newly born prince was the future emperor Meiji.

Chapter 2

The Record of the Emperor Kōmei supplies minimal information on the birth of the future emperor Meiji, but the Record of the Emperor Meiji is extraordinarily detailed from the moment when the gon no tenji, Nakayama Yoshiko (1835–1907), felt labor pains, beginning about eight in the morning.

At once Yoshiko’s father, the acting major counselor Nakayama Tadayasu (1809–1888), sprang into action. In the hour of the serpent (9 to 11 A.M.) he sent for three court physicians and a midwife, who appeared promptly. He also informed in writing Chancellor Takatsukasa Masamichi (1789–1868), the court spokesmen (gisō),¹ and the military liaison officers (buke densō)² of the impending birth of an imperial child. Messages were relayed at once to other affected men and women officials in the palace. The baby was born about noon, halfway through the hour of the horse. Messages were again sent out. Emperor Kōmei received word while he was sitting in the north garden of his residential palace, admiring the chrysanthemums in the flower beds and drinking saké before lunch. It is reported that when he heard the news of the birth of a son, he looked exceptionally pleased and drank a considerable quantity of saké.³

No sooner was the prince born than he and the placenta were wrapped in a ukeginu, a square piece of white lined silk. After the birth of the prince had been announced, all fires in the Nakayama house were extinguished. They were relit with fire taken from the house of Kawabata Dōki (1835–1902), a merchant whose family had for many years been the official purveyors of rice cakes to the palace. The extinguishing of household fires was probably in keeping with the belief that even fire was polluted by being in the same house where a birth had occurred. It is curious that the new fire came from a merchant’s house rather than from a shrine or the monastic retreat of some member of the imperial family, but the Kawabata family had enjoyed special status ever since the late Muromachi period, and fire from their house, known for its purity, was used in the palace kitchens.

Before the birth, Nakayama Tadayasu had borrowed safe-delivery charms from various auspicious temples and individuals. He was now able to return them with thanks and presents. A court lady sent by the emperor to inspect the prince left with him a protective dagger and a sleeved coverlet (kaimaki). The baby would receive many other presents that though traditional, may appear bizarre to contemporary readers. First, however, was the ceremony of cutting, binding, and cauterizing the umbilical cord.⁴ The placenta was washed and placed in an earthenware vessel which, in turn, was placed in a bucket of unpainted wood, wrapped in white silk, and displayed on a stand in the next room along with a pair of knives, two blue stones, and two dried sardines.⁵ In front of them a lamp was kept burning day and night, and a screen was placed around them. The wooden bucket was decorated with designs in white paste showing pines, bamboos, cranes, and tortoises but not plum blossoms (usually associated with pines and bamboos in artistic compositions) because plum blossoms fall, an inauspicious association.

After the umbilical cord had been cut, the baby was given his first bath. In keeping with the old custom, the water had been drawn from the Kamo River and was mixed with well water. For the next few days, until the baby was given swaddling clothes, he was dressed in an undershirt and a sleeveless coat. His bedding was laid on a katataka (a thick tatami that has been sliced in half on the bias, leaving one end much higher than the other) in the main room of the little house where he was born. A pillow was placed at the high end of the tatami to the east or to the south, and it was guarded by two papier-māché dogs facing each other. Between the two dogs were placed sixteen articles of cosmetics. Behind them was a stand on which the protective dagger the prince had received was placed along with an amagatsu doll⁶ also wrapped in white silk but with red silk pasted to the ends of its arms and its feet. In the tokonoma (alcove for hanging paintings) was another stand on which were placed two buckets of unpainted wood with designs in white. In one was a packet of rice and two silken cords looped into rosettes, and in the other were three blue stones and two hardheads.⁷ The grains of rice were wrapped in paper flecked with silver foil, and every time the prince was moved from one spot to another, these ornamental grains of rice were scattered to dispel evil spirits. The white silken cords were each about twelve feet long. Each time the prince sneezed, from the moment of his birth until his seventh night, a knot was made in a cord; it was believed that the more he sneezed, the longer he would live. To the east of his bedding stood two clothes racks, both draped with sashes of red and black silk flecked with gold leaf. At first, these were the only touches of color in the room. In accordance with custom, the baby’s clothes were white, decorated also in white with the usual felicitous designs of pines, bamboo, cranes, and tortoises. On the 101st day after the birth, the white would be replaced with colors.

In the meantime, word was sent to Tsuchimikado Hareo (1827–1869), the chief of the Department of Yin-Yang, requesting him to appear as soon as possible. Before any major decision was made or after any important occurrence, an expert in yin-yang divination was summoned to interpret its meaning or prescribe the course of action to be taken. Tsuchimikado’s family were hereditary diviners for the imperial family, and their recommendations were always given great weight. When Nakayama Yoshiko’s delivery was approaching, Hareo had given elaborate instructions as to the direction in which the accouchement should take place, depending on the day of the month it actually occurred.

There had been a scare when Yoshiko had run a high fever in her fifth month of pregnancy, but she had survived the danger to give birth safely. All the same, no chances could be taken at this stage, and Hareo’s advice was urgently needed. Unfortunately, he lived at some distance from the palace, and by the time he arrived the baby was already being fed. Hareo nevertheless gave the customary instructions exactly as if he had arrived on time: he announced how the umbilical cord should be cut, the bath prepared, and the baby washed. He gave supplemental instructions for removing the fetal hair, putting the baby in swaddling clothes, burying the placenta, and so on. The instructions were mainly for form’s sake, since most of his prescriptions had already been implemented. One matter remained to be decided, the site for burying the placenta. For reasons of direction, Tsuchimikado chose the Yoshida Shrine, east of the city. The approval of the palace was needed, and a messenger was sent. By the time approval was received, it was already dark.

Meanwhile, Nakayama Tadayasu and his son Tadanaru (1832–1882) had reported to the military liaison officers that they had been polluted by the birth. Tadayasu reported this also to his colleagues at the palace offices where he worked. This, too, was for form’s sake. Far from being distressed by the pollution he had suffered, Tadayasu was ecstatic, as we can gather from his poem:

The poem, though devoid of literary merit, perfectly expressed Tadayasu’s sentiments.

Every conscious act performed during the following days followed the prescriptions of a yin-yang diviner, but these were not the sole considerations. On the seventh day after the infant’s birth, Tadayasu had a yin-yang diviner purify the chamber in which the birth had taken place. The official seventh-night service was about to be conducted when someone realized that it was exactly 100 nights since Princess Yoriko, the infant’s elder sister, had died, so the ceremony was postponed to the following night.

The burial of the placenta was the next major consideration. This ritual generally took place within a day or two after the birth. Even before the baby was born, Nakayama Tadayasu had dug two holes in his property, but Tsuchimikado decided that neither was auspicious. His interpretation of geomantic signs led him to prefer the Yoshida Shrine, but in any case, the burial could not be carried out immediately. The three days after the birth belonged to the doyō period when digging in the earth was avoided for fear of a curse. The day after doyō ended, there was a change of season, also an unpropitious time for digging. Muikadare, the sixth day after the birth, when the infant’s downy hair was shaved and a name was bestowed, was also avoided, and the following day was the anniversary of Princess Yoriko’s death. Each of these events precluded the possibility of digging a hole in the ground, even though a team of men had already scouted the precincts of the shrine and decided on the proper spot. The burial of the placenta finally took place ten days after Meiji was born.

As yet Kōmei had not laid eyes on his newly born son. We can imagine how eagerly he was awaiting the moment, but tradition was more important than the claims of paternal affection. Not until thirty days after the prince’s birth was he taken to the palace to see his father. Before he set out, a white line was drawn across the hairline of his forehead, then dotted with mascara. Under it was written in rouge the character for dog, an example of protective magic. Nakayama Yoshiko, the infant’s mother, carrying him in her arms, made the journey (a few hundred yards) in a palanquin. She took with her the special gifts she had received when first she put on a maternity belt and, later, when she had given birth.

The palanquin set out for the palace about eleven in the morning. Two men cleared the way, and another ten attendants also preceded the palanquin which was borne by eight men. Four officers in formal attire walked beside the palanquin. Two court physicians and a majordomo, dressed in court costumes, followed. Other men, all wearing linen jackets, drew up the rear, and various dignitaries walked separately from the procession. If these people had been in the least desirous of arriving promptly at the palace, the journey from Nakayama’s house should not have taken more than ten minutes, but the procession followed the incredibly roundabout route prescribed by a yin-yang diviner. When they finally arrived, the emperor was waiting in his private apartments with his consort. They both gave dolls to the baby. The baby responded by presenting 100 pieces of gold and a box of fresh fish for the palace sanctuary (naishidokoro) and gifts of ten quires of fine paper, seaweed, dried bream, and a barrel of saké for the emperor. Other gifts followed. Then the infant declared that he wished to take up residence in his mother’s apartments. His great-grandmother, Tadayasu’s mother, moved there to serve him day and night.⁸

At the end of the year, Tadayasu followed the Kyōto custom of a baby’s maternal grandfather giving him as his first New Year presents a buriburi and a gitchō. A buriburi, made of wood and shaped like a melon, was covered with auspicious drawings of cranes and tortoises and the like. Those with wheels were pulled with a string. The gitchō, also of wood, was about two feet long and shaped like a mallet. Two wooden balls went with the gitchō. These two items invariably were presented together as typical New Year gifts. Although they were originally toys, children were no longer allowed to play with them, perhaps because they had become too costly.

The presents given to the baby prince, who by this time had acquired the name Sachinomiya (Prince Sachi), and those given in return were more or less the same kind of gifts that were exchanged in moderately affluent households in Kyōto at that time. Money was also given, but compared with the presents with which contemporary royal families in Europe feted the birth of their offspring, the celebration was austere.

Sachinomiya also received dolls and toys, gifts more appropriate for a baby. From this time on, every milestone in Sachinomiya’s development was carefully recorded—his first use of chopsticks, his first sitting with crossed legs, his first experience of mosquito netting. The peaceful atmosphere in the palace did not last long, however. Six months later, in July 1853, an American fleet commanded by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry arrived in Japanese waters with the demand that documents brought from Washington be delivered to the Japanese government, the initial step in the process of opening the country after the long era of seclusion.

Perry’s fleet first appeared in Japanese waters at dusk on May 26, 1853, when his ships entered the port of Naha in the Ryūkyū Islands. The political status of the Ryūkyūs was difficult for the Americans to understand. The islands were tributary to both the Japanese (more specifically, to the Satsuma domain) and the Chinese but had a king of their own. British, French, and American ships had been calling at the islands since the early years of the century, although they were forbidden to enter ports in the main islands of Japan. Up to now the foreign ships had generally appeared one at a time, but Perry’s fleet boasted five. Perry went ashore and proceeded to the Okinawan capital, Shuri, where he rented a house. Satisfied with his negotiations, he presented the islanders with agricultural tools and vegetable seeds and, in return, was given firewood, water, and food. The island had been all but opened to foreign ships.

Perry’s fleet also visited the Ogasawara (or Bonin) Islands, whose only inhabitants were some thirty people of mixed ancestry—English, American, Portuguese, and Hawaiian. Perry purchased a tract of land on the main island from the American settlers, intending to build an office, a pier, and a coaling station. This accomplished, he returned to Naha preparatory to sailing to his main objective, Japan.

None of these events was known in Kyōto, where life in the palace continued unruffled. On the fifth day of the fifth month, the little prince celebrated his first Boys’ Day. The traditional streamers were flown in his honor, and he was presented with martial toys—a helmet and a spear. He was now living in his grandfather’s house, and Kōmei, not having seen the prince in some time, was eager for another visit. The doctors he consulted were cautious, estimating that the best time for a visit would not be until after the boy’s birthday in the ninth month. However, if the emperor desired to see his son sooner, this was also permissible, providing he avoided the extreme heat of the sixth and seventh months.⁹ When Nakayama Tadayasu’s opinion was asked, he replied that Sachinomiya was exceptionally healthy. He was seen regularly by doctors, and they rarely found anything wrong with him. There was no reason why a meeting could not take place immediately. Accordingly, the boy was sent to the palace that day and was given playthings by the emperor and his consort.

Three days later, on July 8, 1853, Perry’s fleet of four vessels entered the fortified harbor of Uraga, not far from Edo. An officer of the Uraga magistracy, Nakajima Saburōsuke, and the interpreter Hori Tatsunosuke¹⁰ proceeded to the Susquehanna, Perry’s flagship. At first the Americans would not let the Japanese aboard, but after Hori had negotiated (in English) with the officers, they were permitted to board the ship, where they displayed the order that all foreign ships calling at Japanese ports must be expelled. Perry (who did not meet the Japanese) sent word through his second in command that he had brought a letter from the president of the United States requesting a trade treaty but that he could show this document only to a high-ranking Japanese official.

The following day Kayama Eizaemon, another officer of the magistracy pretending to be the magistrate himself, visited the American ship. He did not see Perry but instead the captain of the ship, Buchanan, and two other officers and informed them that Uraga was not a place where foreigners could be received, that state documents could not be accepted, and that the ships should proceed to Nagasaki. Buchanan replied that unless the Japanese government appointed a suitable official to receive the document, Perry would land, by force if necessary, and present the document to the shogun himself. Kayama promised to report this to the shogunate and to give a reply in three days.

The real magistrate of Uraga, Ido Hiromichi (d. 1855), reported to the shogun on the presence of the American fleet at Uraga and warned that the defenses were inadequate. In the meantime, boats were sent from the American fleet to sound Edo Bay, to the annoyance of the shogunate officials who were powerless to prevent it. When word reached Edo that the American fleet was in internal Japanese waters, there was great consternation. The receipt of documents from foreign countries was prohibited by law, but if the Americans were refused, this would surely bring on some disaster. The best thing, the officials decided, was to put up with the affront for the time being, accept the letter, and, after the American fleet had left, to consult fully before determining the national policy.

On July 9 two high-ranking Japanese officials went to Kurihama, southwest of Uraga, where they met Perry and accepted the letter from President Millard Fillmore. They informed him that the shogun was gravely ill and could not make any immediate decision on major policies¹¹ but promised that an answer would be forthcoming the next year. Perry accepted this and said he would return.

As yet, no word of these developments had reached Kyōto. The Gion Festival was celebrated as usual, and a week later Kōmei’s birthday was the occasion for eating red rice and exchanging auspicious gifts such as dried cuttlefish.

The letter from President Fillmore did not reach the shogunate until July 14. It caused great worry and was the source of rumors that shook the whole society. The elder statesman (rōjū) Abe Masahiro (1819–1857) summoned a meeting of his colleagues, but opinions were so divided that no decision could be made. Two senior figures, Tsutsui Masanori (1778–1859) and Kawaji Toshiakira (1801–1868), argued that the American request to open the country should be accepted; they contended that after more than 200 years of peace, military preparations had become lax, and people no longer possessed their old resoluteness. Abe Masahiro sent for Tokugawa Nariaki (1800–1860), the daimyo of Mito and the political figure most respected by the shogunate officials because of his seniority and his special interest in national defense. Nariaki knew in his heart what difficulties would be involved if the American request were rejected and fighting ensued, but he did not wish to accept the foreigners’ demands. When asked his opinion, he advocated taking a firm stand against the Americans. Many others agreed with him, but the shogunate was divided between those who advocated opening the country and those who insisted that it be kept closed.

On July 15 the shogunate directed the Kyōto shoshidai, Wakisaka Yasuori (1809–1874), to inform the court of the visit of the American ships. The court had long worried about the possibility of such a calamity and so was greatly alarmed when it received the report. The perturbed emperor directed the seven shrines and seven temples to pray for seventeen days for peace within the four seas, for the longevity of the imperial throne, and for the tranquillity of the people.

On August 5 the shogunate sent to the various daimyos copies of the translation of the American president’s letter. The shogunate had previously made all decisions by itself, but now that the order established more than 200 years ago seemed to be crumbling, it had no choice but to give the daimyos a voice in national policy.

Perhaps the most outspoken was Kuroda Nagahiro (1811–1887), the daimyo of Fukuoka, who contended that in view of world circumstances, it was not feasible for Japan alone to remain permanently secluded from all other countries. He was in favor of granting the American request for trade but restricting it to Nagasaki and limiting the agreement to five or six years. He also was willing to allow the Americans to use some deserted island as a coaling station but argued against Japan’s providing the coal on the grounds that any privilege given to the Americans would then be demanded by the Russians, the British, and the French.

In any case, trading privileges, he continued, should be restricted to the Americans and the Russians, the latter because as far back as 1804 they had requested it. Other countries should be firmly refused. If the other countries objected, what harm could there be in using the might of the Americans and Russians to hold them off? If it was considered inadvisable to allow trading privileges to two countries, the Americans would be preferable. Good relations with them would earn their gratitude, and they could be used against the countries of Europe. This would be an instance of the strategy of using barbarians to control barbarians. But if the Americans were flatly refused, war would certainly be unavoidable, and once that happened, Japanese ships would be attacked everywhere, and the sea-lanes would be closed. Not only would Edo be unable to survive a single day, but the conflict would leave permanent damage. In view of the lack of defense preparations and the improbability of Japan’s winning a war, peace must be made the main objective lest the Russians attack and capture Japan’s northern territory.

The most urgent need, Kuroda declared, was sea defense. The law against building big ships should be contravened. Models should be adapted from the West. Instructors and workmen skilled in shipbuilding and the manufacture of arms should be invited to Japan, and the Japanese should be allowed the freedom to travel abroad. As the result of the long years of peace, he concluded, people high and low alike had come to crave comfort. Their spirits had fallen into a decline. The time had come for a revival of military preparedness.

Kuroda’s recommendations did not go all the way to advocate opening the country, but it is astonishing that so soon after the American fleet first appeared off Uraga, an influential daimyo was proposing—with no other provocation than a letter from an American president asking for coaling rights—the dismantling of a system that had successfully lasted for more than 200 years. Naturally he did not propose abolishing the rule of the shogun, nor did he mention (as some men would before long) the importance of the emperor in a new Japan; but he was clearly in favor of ending the country’s seclusion, a basic condition of the Tokugawa state.

Kuroda was surprisingly frank in his appraisal of Japan’s military capacity. The regime was founded on rule by the military class, and martial training had never been neglected, but Kuroda could see little chance of Japan’s winning a war with a foreign power. His appraisal of his country’s military strength may have been excessively pessimistic: the intense warfare that immediately preceded the establishment of the Meiji government belied his warning of a decline in the fighting spirit of the samurai class.

Not all the daimyos shared Kuroda’s fear of defeat in a war with a foreign power. Shimazu Nariakira (1809–1858), the daimyo of Satsuma, sent a letter to the shogunate declaring that accepting the Americans’ demands would harm the prestige of the shogunate and invite contempt abroad. He admitted that if war were to break out immediately between the Japanese and the Americans, it would be difficult to count on certain victory. He therefore proposed that if the Americans came again, the Japanese should enter into protracted diplomatic negotiations aimed at delaying a firm answer for three years. During this time military preparations should be completed, national strength restored, and then, with one blow, the foreign barbarians could be exterminated.¹² His opinion was shared by most of the other daimyos, and from this time on, the word jōi—expulsion of the barbarians—became the battle cry of the advocates of national defense.

The court in Kyōto did not receive a translation of the American letter until August 16, and it was nine days later before the members of the court met to discuss the contents. The tempo of life at the court was still ponderously slow. On this occasion the chancellor (Takatsukasa Masamichi) the two court spokesmen (Hirohata Mototoyo and Karasumaru Mitsumasa), and the two military liaison officers (Sanjō Sanetsumu and Bōjō Toshiakira) met in the emperor’s study. Previously, foreign affairs had always been left to the disposition of the shogunate, but now it was also necessary to win the consent of the Court Council.

The courtiers might have been expected to reject unanimously any action that might result in opening the country to foreign barbarians, but Takatsukasa, surprisingly, was in favor of granting the Americans’ request. He pointed out that although in principle the country was closed to all foreigners, in fact the Japanese had traded with China and Holland for many years. Thus agreeing to trade with the Americans would merely increase the number of trading partners from two to three. He stipulated, however, that they must confine their commercial activities to Nagasaki and that if they violated this rule, they must be driven off by force. The unfortunate fact, he said, was that the Japanese military had lost its old fortitude and vigor and had become cowardly, lazy, and effeminate. It had no conception of how to fight foreigners. The best solution, therefore, was to permit trade and accept the profits.

Most of the others disagreed with Takatsukasa, but on the following day he sent a message to the shogunate asking it to inform the court in advance of whatever measures it proposed taking in the event the Americans returned. This unprecedented request was honored by the shogunate, and for the first time in at least 250 years, it solicited the court’s opinion before making any decisions.

President Fillmore’s request that provisions be supplied to ships operating in that part of the Pacific undoubtedly seemed quite reasonable to the Americans in terms of practices prevailing throughout the rest of the world. War was not openly threatened, but the implications were clear, and the Japanese were aware that they had to respond or face reprisals. At such a time—especially when the shogun was debilitated—the shogun’s government needed the support of the daimyos, not only those who were in league with the Tokugawa family (the fudai daimyos), but also those who pursued a more independent course (the tozama daimyos). Even that array of force might not be enough in this new emergency. Help was needed also from the emperor, even though he did not have a single soldier or gun at his command.

Once a precedent of consulting with the emperor had been established, it proved difficult for the shoguns in future years to ignore his wishes.

Chapter 3

The court had not yet recovered from the shock of Perry’s unexpected visit when it was informed by the shogunate on September 19 that a Russian fleet of four ships, under the command of Vice Admiral E. V. Putiatin (1803–1884), had entered Nagasaki Harbor.¹ On his arrival, Putiatin announced to the officials in Nagasaki that he had brought from his government a letter concerning trade between the two countries. His orders had initially called for him to proceed to Edo and conduct negotiations there, but the Russian government later decided it would be better to show respect for Japanese law by proceeding to Nagasaki, the port designated for intercourse with foreign countries, in this way establishing a contrast with the Americans, who had brazenly sailed into Edo Bay.²

Soon after the arrival of the Russian ships, various Japanese dignitaries came aboard along with a Dutch interpreter. They were informed by the captain of the Pallada that Vice Admiral Putiatin had brought a letter from his government to the Japanese government. There was also a note for the Nagasaki magistrate that, it was said, should be delivered immediately. After some hesitation, the officials accepted the note. It contained a declaration in extremely polite language of the profound respect for Japanese law that had impelled the Russian fleet to call at Nagasaki rather than Edo. This was a mark of the czar’s ardent desire for harmonious relations between the two countries.

The officials at once sent word to Edo reporting the arrival of the Russians and asking whether or not to accept the letter from the Russian government. After waiting some time for an reply, Putiatin sailed to Shanghai to pick up supplies and perhaps to find additional orders from his government.³ When there was still no answer even after he got back from Shanghai, he announced that he had no choice under the circumstances but to go to Edo. The alarmed Nagasaki officials sent word by fast messenger to Edo, mentioning how much more accommodating the Russians were than the Americans and suggesting that the Russians might be used to blunt the edge of American demands. They added that if the Russian overtures were met with the usual suspiciousness, Japan risked incurring the enmity of a country that was twice as big as the United States.

Shortly before the messages from Nagasaki reached Edo, the shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi died, and the senior officers of the shogunate, in mourning and faced with organizing a new regime, did not get around immediately to responding to the problem of how to answer the Russians. After considerable debate, they decided to accept the letter from the Russian court, falling back on the precedent established by accepting the American president’s letter.

The letter (in Russian but with translations into Chinese and Dutch) from Count Karl Robert Nesselrode, the minister of foreign affairs, expressed his hopes for establishing peace and good relations between the two countries, for settling the disputed border between Japan and Russia on the island of Sakhalin, and for opening ports to trade.⁴ Most senior members of the shogunate favored accepting the Russian requests, but Tokugawa Nariaki, the shogunate’s adviser on maritime affairs, was strongly opposed, and the discussions dragged on. The shogunate finally agreed that the best course was to delay.

Putiatin grew increasingly impatient over the failure of the shogunate officials to return with an answer from Edo, as promised by the Nagasaki officials, and threatened again to sail to Edo if they did not appear within five days. Four days later, the tardy officials, headed by Tsutsui Masanori and Kawaji Toshiakira, arrived with the shogunate’s reply to Nesselrode’s letter. First, it said, the establishment of the border was a difficult matter that would require considerable time to determine. Maps would have to be drawn, consultations made with affected parties, and so on. Second, the laws of their ancestors strictly prohibited opening the ports. However, in view of world developments, the government did recognize the necessity of opening the country, but a new shogun had just taken office and the situation was still too confused to give an immediate answer. Reports would have to be submitted to Kyōto and to the various daimyos. After due consideration of the issues, they expected to be able to come up with a proposal in three to five years.⁵

It is apparent from the message’s wording how desperately the shogunate wanted to stall off a decision; but even more important was the admission that despite the long tradition of isolation, the Japanese now had no choice but to open the country. This awareness of the change in world conditions was not communicated to the court, however, because of the anticipated outraged resistance by Emperor Kōmei.

Putiatin was disappointed by the reply. He moved now to the offensive, informing the shogunate’s representatives that with the exception of the southern part of the island of Sakhalin, all the islands north of Etorofu (Iturup) were Russian territory. Tsutsui replied that Japan had possessed Kamchatka as well as (it went without saying) the Kuriles and Sakhalin. He proposed that shogunate officials be dispatched to Sakhalin the following spring to ascertain the situation. In the meantime, the Russians would be free to obtain firewood and water at any place on the Japanese coast except for the vicinity of Edo. He promised also that if Japan made trade concessions to another country, they would apply to Russia as well.

Putiatin was still not satisfied, but he left Nagasaki early in the first month of 1854, saying he would return in the spring. The most influential men in the country were by now aware that the policy of isolation could not last much longer. As early as the seventh month of 1853, as we have seen, Kuroda Nagahiro, the daimyo of Fukuoka, had formally proposed lifting the ban on constructing large ships. In the eighth month, Shimazu Nariakira, the daimyo of Kagoshima, sent a letter urging the shogunate to purchase ships and weapons from Holland. Abe Masahiro (1819–1857), the chief senior councillor (rōjū shuseki) of the shogunate, who had long advocated building ships that (unlike the small fishing boats that operated off the Japanese coast) were capable of making ocean voyages, decided on October 21 to lift a prohibition that had been in effect for more than 220 years. The shogunate ordered several steam warships from the Dutch, and soon several domains started building large ships, intended for the shogunate. In August 1854 the shogunate decided on the flag to be flown on the new ships: a red sun on a white ground.⁶

The reactions of the court in Kyōto to the Russian intrusion and later developments are not recorded in the official chronicle. It is not clear whether or not the emperor and his advisers, even after being informed of the arrival of the Americans and the Russians, were aware of how greatly the situation had already changed with respect to opening the country. In any case, other matters that were closer at hand seem to have monopolized the attention of those in the old capital. A terrible heat wave in the eighth month had dried up most of the