V. THE TYCOON'S DILEMMA.
Strife of parties in Japan—Impotence of Tycoon—His prospective overthrow—Orders issued by Mikado to drive foreigners out of Japan—Prevarications of Tycoon—Plots and counterplots—French and English troops in Yokohama—Compensation paid for the Richardson murder, but assassin not yet brought to justice—Demand made on Prince of Satsuma—Bombardment of his castle by Admiral Kuper—Happy results—Offensive attitude of Prince of Nagato—Firing on foreign ships of war—Sir R. Alcock's return from furlough—Publication of his book 'The Capital of the Tycoon'—His exposition of the political status of parties in Japan—Dubious attitude of Tycoon—And Mikado—Utmost limit of concession to Japanese pleas of weakness reached.
During the interval that elapsed between the tragedy of September 1862 and the expiation of the crime, revelations of a startling character were made respecting the strife which was raging among the various parties in the State—the Tycoon, the Mikado, the great Daimios, and the lesser Daimios, who followed the Tycoon and the Mikado respectively. These revelations, however, though they lit up as by lurid lightning-flashes some corners of the landscape, left the whole in a fog more treacherous than total darkness. The foreign officials who were called upon to act in the midst of it confessed themselves unable to unravel the mystery that surrounded them, nor is it any part of our task to make such an attempt. It was the chaos which preceded order, a period when the elemental forces were in the melting-pot, a phase of foreshortened evolution such as had never till then been dreamed of. However trying such an ordeal was to the foreign agents who had to go through it, the stress upon them was as nothing compared to that which lay upon the principalities and powers of the country itself during the agony of their national birth-throes—a circumstance which has to be borne in mind when judging of the behaviour of the Japanese Government in that trying time; for truly the defence of their proceedings stood much in need of extenuating circumstances.
We have seen that the British Government had already confessed its belief that the Tycoon's Government was incompetent to maintain order where foreigners were concerned. Yet until that Government itself should plead incompetence, foreign States could only hold it wholly accountable for all that was done affecting their interests. But the Tycoon's Government fought tooth and nail against such admission, resorting to every subterfuge to maintain their status, while yet evading the responsibilities of the position. The success of this ambiguous policy required that the foreign representatives should be kept in ignorance of the relations which subsisted between the different parties in the Japanese State. Hence secrecy and misdirection governed their diplomatic intercourse. The treaties themselves having been tainted from their origin with deception, every stage of their execution was marked by dissimulation, which came gradually to light as the pressure from within and from without caused now one corner, now another, of the curtain to be raised.
The Tycoon was between the upper and the nether millstone,—foreigners pressing him for fulfilment of his obligations, while a power greater than his own was demanding the complete repudiation, or at least the substantial curtailment, of all these obligations. The straits he was put to to keep up his two faces were pitiable and desperate, for he had to make the Mikado and the Daimios believe he was as much opposed to the foreigners as they were, while to foreigners he was professing loyalty and throwing the blame of the reaction on the hostile Daimios. Instigated by them, the Mikado had fully asserted his authority, and the Tycoon was no longer able to pose as the sovereign ruler of Japan. The allocation of a site for the foreign Legations on Gotenyama, a popular pleasure-ground in Yedo, was attacked, and the Tycoon ordered to rescind the grant, which he endeavoured to do by proposing the substitution of another site. This being refused by the British chargé d'affaires, the Japanese sentry on the buildings under construction was assassinated, and soon after the whole building was blown up and burned.[9] So ambiguous had become the attitude of the Tycoon, that Colonel Neale was in doubt whether this conflagration pleased or displeased the Yedo Government. (Six months later the buildings occupied by the United States Legation were likewise destroyed by fire.) The hostile Daimios, in the name of the Mikado, were, in fact, putting strong pressure on the Tycoon, while those Daimios who had favoured the treaties had been punished by confiscation of their revenues. The Tycoon's position was fast becoming untenable, and in the last extremity his advisers decided to take the foreign representatives for the first time into their confidence.
In January 1863 a Governor of Foreign Affairs informed Colonel Neale that the Mikado was angry because he had not been consulted about the treaties, either before or after the signing of them; and that his Majesty had ordered the Tycoon repeatedly to drive foreigners out of the country. "But," replied the British chargé d'affaires, "that is wholly inconsistent with what the Gorogiu previously told Sir Rutherford Alcock." "Quite so," rejoined the Governor; "only what the Ministers told Sir Rutherford Alcock was false." "But if one member of the Gorogiu can thus give the other the lie, what security have we that some successor of yours will not equally disavow what you say? so that at one time we have the Mikado reported as friendly and at another as hostile to foreign treaties and trade, and we shall never know which to believe." This not very promising beginning of "confidences" was quickly followed by singular confessions and proposals—part of the system of "frauds, stratagems, and deceptions practised by the Tycoon's Government," as Colonel Neale characterises them. The Tycoon's Government was ordered to communicate officially to the foreign representatives the mandate of the Mikado to drive out foreigners and close the ports. In obedience to this order a Governor of Foreign Affairs, in announcing the fact to the French Minister, softened its effect by explaining that this was carrying out the Mikado's orders "officially"; but "ce n'est là qu'un stratagème nécessaire pour tromper le peuple japonnais." In developing his plan of campaign the Governor laid bare to the French Minister the intention of the Tycoon to deceive the Mikado by pretending to share his views about foreigners; he was in like manner to deceive the Daimios. Ogasawara, the Minister who was responsible for carrying out the edict against foreigners, being "un homme très capable," would find a means of avoiding the execution; he would himself go to Kioto and make the Mikado listen to reason; if he refused, then he would pick a quarrel and employ force against the sovereign. In that case would the foreign Powers assist the Tycoon? All this, however, must be kept from Hitotsubashi, the First Minister of the Tycoon, "whose views were as yet uncertain whether to carry out the expulsive orders from Kioto or not. Ogasawara had formed the plan to declare himself the enemy of foreigners in order to deceive the high officers even of the Tycoon who might not be favourable to his scheme; but everything was to be done to "save Japan." Finally, Ogasawara was to come the day following himself to interview the foreign Ministers at Yokohama, but not a word of all this would he utter "for fear of indiscretions." He would only speak briefly to the point of the notification of the Mikado's order of expulsion. And if the foreign Ministers would be good enough to frame their reply to that message in such severe terms as would make an impression on the agitators in Kioto and Yedo, it would assist the patriotic schemes of this bustling statesman. So everybody in Japan from the highest to the lowest was to be bamboozled—even one's own colleagues in the Tycoon's service—and the only people with whom faith was to be kept were the detested foreigners, as represented by the Ministers of England and France! Well might Colonel Neale recoil in disgust from such a brewage of "fraud, stratagem, and deception." The Tycoon's officers had in all this one definite object in view, which was to induce the foreign squadrons then menacing Yedo to transfer themselves to Osaka and Hiogo and menace some one in that part of the empire. And, curiously enough, the presence of the French troops which had recently arrived in Yokohama was not only tolerated by the Tycoon, but they were to serve him as a lever whereby the astute Ogasawara was to work on the feelings of the Mikado, by representing to his sovereign the indignation of the foreign Governments and the difficulty of giving effect to an order for general expulsion, which would include a body of well-armed troops.
For while such comedies were being enacted at Yokohama the Tycoon himself was at Kioto under the friendly surveillance of the Mikado and his faithful Daimios, and it was a reasonable enough calculation that the vicinity of foreign fleets might tend to moderate the counsels of these recalcitrants, to ease the tension between the contending factions, and lighten the burden of the Tycoon.
Meantime the pressure of the British demands for redress of the two grievances was met by evasions and delays until the ultimatum stage was reached in June 1863. The pecuniary indemnity charged on the Tycoon, amounting to £110,000, was then paid under circumstances so peculiar as to be worth recounting as affording further insight into the agitations of the period. After exhaustive negotiations, leading to an ultimatum, an agreement was made whereby the Government was to pay the amount demanded by seven instalments, commencing 18th June 1863. On the 17th June Ogasawara, third member of the Gorogiu, wrote a curt note to say the money could not be paid owing to an "unforeseen circumstance," and postponing payment till 22nd June. On the 19th the same Minister wrote to Colonel Neale that he intended to have left Yedo for Yokohama for an interview, but was prevented by sudden illness. This was followed by an intimation from the Government that no payment whatever would be made. Diplomatic relations were thereupon broken off by the British chargé d'affaires, and the conduct of affairs was placed in the hands of the admiral. This brought about the interview with the French Minister above alluded to, when the Japanese emissaries promised to pay at once the whole amount due under the agreement with Colonel Neale, and the specie was actually conveyed in four cartloads to the British Legation on 24th June. The only explanation given of this strange shuffle was that the numerous enemies of the Tycoon and of foreigners were on the watch, and threatened terrible consequences if any money should be paid to the foreigners. That difficulty, however, had been surmounted by the resourceful Japanese Machiavel issuing strict orders that the payment should be kept a dead secret from all except the Governors of Foreign Affairs themselves,—the four cartloads of silver, drawn each by a dozen or two of men, grunting laboriously at the task, from the Japanese custom-house to the British Legation, remaining for this purpose conveniently invisible to a cloud of hostile witnesses.
The demands made on the Tycoon in respect of the attack on the British Legation and on the Richardson party being thus satisfied, it only remained to carry out the second portion of Earl Russell's instructions and exact equal satisfaction from the Prince of Satsuma, over whom the Yedo Government had shown itself to have no control whatever. Much delay had occurred, due to a variety of circumstances—mainly to the aggressive acts of another great Daimio, Choshiu, who possessed the western key of the Inland Sea. This might have necessitated a concentration of the British squadron in that spot—which actually came to pass a year later. Finally, however, Rear-Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper proceeded in August to the Bay of Kagoshima, the stronghold of the Satsuma principality, Colonel Neale accompanying him to present the demand on the prince with which he had been intrusted by the British Government.
The sole reply vouchsafed by the Daimio was a recommendation to Colonel Neale to return to Yedo and treat with the Tycoon, as Satsuma had no relations with Great Britain. It was now the admiral's turn to act, and his first step in the way of reprisal was the seizing of three steamers, then lying in the bay, which were soon burned to relieve the squadron of their charge. Thereupon the Daimio's forts opened fire, and a hot engagement ensued in the midst of a terrific gale, which the prince's people afterwards said was reckoned on as a condition favourable for his attack on the foreign ships. There was considerable loss of life on both sides; much damage was done to the Daimio's defences, arsenal, and magazines. But the inhabitants of the town escaped injury from the conflagration, they having previously been removed to places of safety. The squadron returned to the Bay of Yedo.
Within a short time the Prince of Satsuma sued for terms, paid the indemnity demanded, £25,000, promised to punish the murderer of Richardson, when caught, and became a good friend to the English, to the extent at least of desiring to cultivate relations with them.
Thus happily ended the first hostile encounter between Japan and any Western Power, the first demonstration of the superiority of foreign arms, and, as some think, the baptism of fire which was the inaugurating rite by which Japan entered into the comity and the competition of the Western nations, and into that path of material progress which has since led to such astonishing results.
The attitude of the Yedo Government in this affair may be said to have been one of placid observation. They had nothing to regret in the chastisement inflicted on a prince who set their authority at defiance.
In the interval of time between the settlement of the indemnities for the two outrages and the departure of the fleet for Kagoshima the Tycoon's Ministers had drawn closer and closer to the foreign representatives, and English steamers were chartered for conveyance of the Tycoon's troops to Osaka with the knowledge and approval of the British authorities. The defence of Yokohama was by the Government voluntarily confided to the English and French admirals, and sanguine hopes were held out to the foreign representatives that if the Tycoon should succeed in his endeavours at Kioto, foreign relations would assume a totally different aspect on his return to his capital.
On the other hand, while the negotiations with the Yedo Government had been dragging their slow length along, another of the great princes had taken arms against the foreign Powers indiscriminately. The Daimio Choshiu had made a strong stand against foreign intercourse, and in a well-reasoned and moderately worded letter addressed to the Tycoon in May 1862 he urged union between that high officer and the Mikado in order that the country might be placed in a condition to resist foreigners. The territory of the Prince of Nagato, as he was also designated, commanded the narrow strait of Shimonoséki, which connects the Suwonada, or Inland Sea, with the outer waters. This had become the regular route of steamers between the Bay of Yedo and the south of Japan, as at this day.
Moved by an impulse which was not cleared up at the time, if ever it has been since, Choshiu began in July 1863 to fire from his forts and from armed vessels in the straits on passing steamers. French, American, and Dutch war-vessels were successively bombarded as they entered the passage. The fire was returned, and damage inflicted on the Daimio's batteries; but such was the power of their guns and their precision of aim that many were killed and wounded on the foreign ships, some of which were obliged to retire without getting through the strait. The prince remained obdurate and continued his hostile proceedings, a steamer belonging to the Tycoon and another belonging to Satsuma, said to be the friend and ally of Choshiu, coming in for the customary salutation as they passed. He embargoed or destroyed trading junks attempting to pass the straits, and thus established an effective blockade of the great commercial artery of Japan.
It was droll to find Satsuma, soon after the affair of Kagoshima, appealing to the Mikado against these outrages of Nagato, and opposing the reactionary policy of his quondam ally. Satsuma had had his lesson; Nagato had yet to receive his.
Sir Rutherford Alcock returned to his post after two years' furlough. His distinguished services had been recognised by the Queen's Government, who conferred on him the honour of Knight Commander of the Bath. In the same year, 1862, he completed his valuable work, 'The Capital of the Tycoon,' which for the first time brought the real Japan of that day to the knowledge of the reading world. This, the most important single literary work left by the busy pen of Sir Rutherford Alcock, is a storehouse of information on the history, civilisation, politics, religion, art, and industry of Japan, carefully sifted and presented in the most attractive form. It contains, moreover, a vivid narrative of the reopening of international intercourse with that country, and of the stirring incidents which marked the earlier years of its progress. It is also a philosophical study at first hand of the most remarkable political evolution that history records. Considering the official activity and high tension under which the materials were gathered, the writing of such a book, of a Japanese Grammar, and other literary and artistic studies, is a proof of the intellectual detachment which is usually associated with the higher order of mind. This work of a single pioneer observer has well borne the scrutiny of the innumerable host of students, grave and gay, who have followed in the same path. After forty years its authority remains intact. A short extract will at once show the character of the book and afford a convenient summary of the then Government of Japan:—
That the Mikado is the hereditary sovereign of the empire, the descendant of a long and uninterrupted line of sovereigns of the same dynasty, and the only sovereign de jure recognised by all Japanese from the Tycoon to the lowest beggar—a true sovereign in all the legal attributes of sovereignty; and that the Tycoon receives investiture from him as his lieutenant or generalissimo, and as such only, the head of the executive, is known to most readers of the present day. True, the Mikados have been shorn of much of their power since Yoritomo, in 1143, profiting by civil commotions among the princes of the land, and armed with power as generalissimo to humble these turbulent chiefs, only suppressed the troubles to arrogate to himself the greater part of the sovereign power under the title given by a grateful master of Ziogun. Another Pepin d'Héristal and mayor of the palace, he did not care to dethrone the descendant of an illustrious line of emperors, and was content with holding the reins, and transmitting the same privilege to his descendants. And so the power continued divided in great degree, the shadow from the substance, until later, towards the close of the sixteenth century, a peasant's son and favourite attendant of the actual generalissimo, but known in Japanese history by the name he afterwards assumed of Taiko Sama, raised himself, apparently by great abilities as well as daring, to the seat of power on his master's death, and stripped the reigning Mikado of the last remains of secular power.
Since that time the successive emperors, or Mikados, are brought into the world, and live and die within the precincts of their Court at Miaco (Kioto), the boundaries of which they never pass during their whole life. Is it possible to conceive a less desirable destiny? But the Zioguns, or Tycoons, as they are styled in European treaties, have long been undergoing a somewhat analogous process, under which all substantial power has been transferred from them to the principal Daimios, or Princes, who form a Great Council of State, and whose nominee the Tycoon himself has become, as well, I believe, as all his chief Ministers or councillors. They exercise, if they do not claim, the right of removing both Tycoon and Ministers, and a voice potential in all affairs of State. For legislative changes even the almost forgotten Mikado must indeed give his consent, never of course refused when any unanimity prevails....
The Mikado of the day is the exact type of the last descendant of Clovis, sitting "sad and solitary, effeminate and degenerate," doomed only to wield "a barren sceptre" and sigh away a burdensome and useless existence of mock pageantry; never permitted to pass the gates of his prison-palace....
This double machinery of a titular sovereign who only reigns, and a lieutenant of the empire who only governs and does not reign, from generation to generation, is certainly something very curious; and by long continuance it seems to have led to a duplicate system such as never existed in any other part of the world, carried out to almost every detail of existence. Every office is doubled; every man is alternately a watcher and watched. Not only the whole administrative machinery is in duplicate, but the most elaborate system of check and countercheck, on the most approved Machiavellian principle, is here developed with a minuteness and perfection as regards details difficult at first to realise. As upon all this is grafted a system of more than oriental mendacity, we feel launched into a world of shadows and make-believes hard to grapple with in the practical business of life. Of their mendacity and cynical views respecting it I had many illustrations. One of the official gentry upon a particular occasion having been found by a foreign Minister in deliberate contradiction with himself, was asked, somewhat abruptly perhaps, how he could reconcile it to his conscience to utter such palpable untruths. With perfect calmness and self-possession he replied, "I told you last month that such and such a thing had been done, and now I tell you the thing has not been done at all. I am an officer whose business it is to carry out the instructions I receive and to say what I am told to say. What have I to do with its truth or falsehood?"...
To return to the Tycoon and the governors of the early middle ages, with its suzerain and feudatories, its fiefs and a phantom king, with hereditary mayors of the palace and chiefs with 10,000 retainers, each one holding himself as good as the Tycoon, who must live in constant dread of open revolt or secret assassination, what a pleasant state of existence for all parties it reveals! Each of these territorial magnates or great Daimios is practically independent of the Tycoon when within his own territory, with power of life and death over all his subjects and dependants; ... even an imperial passport will not secure an intruder's life....
Power has passed in no small degree from the Tycoon's hands, as it formerly did from the Mikado's, and now remains chiefly in an executive Council of State, consisting of five Ministers, and these again held in no small check, if not in subservience, by the Daimios and feudal chiefs of the higher order, amounting to some 360. Although these do not actually form a Chamber of Lords nor assemble in a body at stated periods, nothing legislative, it is said, can be done without their assent obtained.... They hold themselves too high to demean themselves by taking part in the administration, or holding office, under the Tycoon. But neither the Tycoon nor the Ministers, separately or collectively, can venture upon a change in their laws and customs without their sanction and a further confirmation by the phantom sovereign of Miaco....
In the mean time, between the Mikado who nominally wields the sceptre—the Tycoon, a youth who no less nominally governs the kingdom, and is but fourth in rank in the Japan red-book, for three of the Mikado's officers take precedence—and the Daimios great and small, ... the administrative machinery of the realm seems to be kept in order.
Another incident of the year was Sir Rutherford Alcock's second marriage to a friend of the earlier Shanghai days, the widow of the Rev. T. Lowder, first consular chaplain of that settlement. They had been both widowed about the same time. They were about the same age too, and the union, based on a deep-rooted and matured affection, proved an exceptionally happy one during thirty-five years, till death divided them. Lady Alcock accompanied her husband on his return to Japan, where they arrived in March 1864.
During the two years of the Minister's absence affairs in Japan had, as we have seen, been advancing rapidly—whether towards a reasonable solution or to a catastrophe was as yet doubtful. The agitation against the foreign treaties had been gathering force and consistency; the Tycoon's position was becoming more and more precarious, his existence being pledged to the annulment of the hated treaties. Encouraged by the success which had attended his mission to Europe in 1862, he despatched another in the beginning of 1864, to represent to the European Governments that the public feeling in Japan was growing worse every day, that the Tycoon would not be able to protect foreigners in Yokohama, and that, in short, the port must be closed and foreign trade confined to Hakodate and Nagasaki. The mission, already on its way, was met by Sir Rutherford Alcock in Shanghai, where he had an opportunity of personal conference with the envoys. The situation was thus summarised by the Minister in a despatch to the Foreign Office, 31st March 1864:—
It is just two years since I left Japan in order to be present in London when the first mission sent by the Tycoon to the treaty Powers in Europe should arrive. Returning to my post a month ago, I met a second mission on its way to the same Courts. These two embassies seem to me to form very significant events in the history of Japan and its relations with foreign States.... I consider the signing of the protocol of June 1862 (afterwards adopted with unimportant modifications by all the other Powers), freely granting without abatement all that the Tycoon asked, was the culminating act and fitting end of the conciliatory policy so consistently adhered to from the beginning. It was impossible to concede more without abandoning the treaties altogether. Thenceforth it only remained to gather the promised fruit of greater security to life, and freer intercourse within narrowed limits, which, for the moment at least, appeared unattainable in the wider range of five ports and two cities.... The avowed object of the second mission is to declare that all the hopes held out by the Tycoon of the probable results of the first concessions have been illusory.... The only fruit has been indiscriminate aggression, increased insecurity, calling for measures of coercion on the part of all the treaty Powers; finally, a decree for the expulsion of foreigners, with a mission from the Tycoon to declare his utter inability to maintain the treaties, and to suggest a surrender of all the rights and privileges they were framed to secure in perpetuity.
The mission was not successful in its main purpose, and soon returned to Japan to report progress.