Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

Miyo ni kokoro wo kudaki nuru kana!”

(Rent as the wave-beat rocks on Omi’s strand

My broken heart, for our belovéd Land!)

Lake Biwa, on which stands Hikoné, is often in poetry termed the Sea of Omi. It washes the shore of what in feudal times were the lord of Hikoné’s estates.

At the time when the dissensions between the supporters of the Bakufu and the nominally anti-foreign faction were at their height, the young Shogun was but fifteen years old, and was able to render his party but little help in the crisis in its fortunes which had been reached. An effort was made to bring about a fusion of the interests by the marriage of the Shogun to the Mikado’s sister, the Princess Kazu, on 11th March 1862, the hope being that it might thus be feasible to present a united front to the incursions of the Westerners, but the union failed for the time being to have any political results in the direction anticipated, and the divergence of views on the question of the admission of strangers remained as pronounced as at first. In this attempt to reconcile the conflicting interests of parties the prince of Satsuma, acting through his uncle, Shimadzu Saburo, and on the advice of Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi, elsewhere referred to in this book, had exerted all his influence but without avail. On the other hand a vast amount of jealousy was created between the Chiefs of Satsuma and Choshiu, for the Baron Mori, the lord of Choshiu, was at this time wholly in favour of the expulsion of foreigners.

Matters were in this condition, when the least spark might lead to an explosion, in the summer of 1863, at the moment when the Shogun, possibly as a consequence of the Kioto Court influence brought to bear through his connection by marriage with the imperial house, decided to proceed to the Mikado’s capital and submit himself entirely to the Emperor Komei’s commands. He expressed his concurrence in the Court party’s views on the subject of the abrogation of the treaties, and was willing that the aliens should be driven out of the land. Whether he was sincere in this attitude or not is a question that it is not easy to answer, but at all events there was a personal quarrel at Kioto between the young Shogun and Mori, the Choshiu chieftain, which ended disastrously for Mori, who was sent down by the Emperor Komei to his own dominions in the west and Iyemochi remained in favour. The Choshiu clan was from that hour in direct antagonism to the Shogun’s party, and the baron Mori’s retainers were so indignant at what they considered to be the insult put upon their lord at Kioto that they marched to that city and attacked it The present ruler of Japan was only very young at the time, and it was a novel experience, no doubt, to hear the rattle of musketry in close proximity to the palace walls. The Choshiu clansmen were encountered and worsted by the soldiers of the Shogun, who had been ordered by imperial edict to punish Choshiu for the outrage, and at the same time the chief of the insubordinate clan was by the Emperor’s command deposed.

The Choshiu baron remained obdurate, and in pursuance of his hostile attitude towards foreigners, and presumably with the idea of embroiling the Shogun’s government with Western powers, he persevered in the practice, despite all remonstrance, of firing on such vessels as attempted to pass the Straits of Shimonoseki. He set the Shogun’s authority completely at defiance, and raised in the south-west of Japan the standard of revolt. At the head of a numerous army the Choshiu leaders, one of whom was the present Marshal Yamagata, again set out for Kioto, and were met by the Shogun’s forces led by Iyemochi himself, who was certainly not deficient in courage, though his health, even at that time, was far from satisfactory. The series of engagements which followed terminated badly for the Shogun’s supporters, for the Choshiu men were better armed, and had been drilled on something like Western principles, as the result of a study of military books translated from the Dutch. They also bore rifles of the “Tower” and other patterns which probably had been brought to Japan from Europe, by way of China.

The first step towards the fall of the Shogunate had in reality been taken when the admission was made that the power of the Shogun had its limitations, for the doctrine which had prevailed for centuries, and to which the supremacy of the Tokugawa house was traceable, was that the holder of this high office enjoyed complete freedom of action without reference to the monarch at Kioto and was to all intents and purposes the executive head of the State. The visit paid to Kioto by the Shogun Iyemochi at the instigation of the imperial counsellors struck at the root of this theory of absolute power and led to the open revolt of some of the provincial magnates against the authority of the Bakufu, a title, by the way, which, as applied to the Yedo Government, sufficiently demonstrated its military character, since Baku signified the curtain which was used in camp to screen the Generalissimo’s quarters from the vulgar gaze, and Fu meant “seat of government.” Once the principle became admitted that the Shogun was like other of the nation’s most puissant nobles, only a vassal of the Ten-shi, the way was paved in a measure for the restoration of the real monarch to the exercise of his rightful prerogatives and the re-establishment of that direct rule which had existed in former years prior to the usurpation of regal power by the Ashikaga and Tokugawa Shoguns. It may be said, therefore, that the thin end of the wedge with which the fabric of the Yedo government was ultimately to be sundered and overthrown was inserted in 1863. The actual outcome of the Shogun’s visit to Kioto was the issue of an imperial notification to the Ministers of Foreign Powers at Yedo that all strangers would be expelled from the Empire. The announcement came from the Department for Foreign Affairs in the Bakufu, and was to the effect that the orders which had been received by the Shogun from Kioto were peremptory, and required the closing of the recently opened ports. The foreigners were to be driven out, because the people of Japan were not desirous of holding intercourse with foreign countries. The Minister added that the discussion of this subject had been left to him “by his Majesty,” by which term was meant the Shogun, who had figured in the early treaties,—that for example made by the Earl of Elgin on behalf of Queen Victoria, dated 26th August 1858,—as “his Majesty the Tycoon of Japan.” The Shogun’s government was at this time trying to sit on two stools simultaneously, for while the notification was given to the foreign representatives in obedience to the orders received from Kioto there was palpably no intention of giving effect to them in any shape, even had the Bakufu then possessed the strength requisite to bring about the strangers’ exclusion. On this point the presence of war vessels at Yokohama warranted the Bakufu officials in entertaining serious doubts. At all events the Shogun’s Government soon afterwards had to express regret for the deplorable affair near Tsurumi, on the highroad from Yokohama to Yedo, when an Englishman lost his life, and in offering an apology the Bakufu expressed a hope that nothing might again arise to imperil the friendly relations between Britain and Japan. When it was urged that the murderers should be brought to justice the Bakufu was fain to acknowledge that it had not the power to punish the Satsuma clan which had been guilty of the crime, and thereupon Admiral Kuper was sent to Kagoshima to bombard the Satsuma chieftain’s forts. The engagement took place on the 11th of August, a fortnight before the Elgin treaty was signed at Yedo, the breach between the Shogun and the southern clans being at that time practically complete. The bombardment spurred the Satsuma clan to the attainment of greater military strength, for their leaders were quick to grasp the importance which Satsuma would acquire, in connection with those coming events which even then were casting long shadows athwart the political path, by being first in the field with approximately efficient naval and military forces. Western appliances were imported and foreign inventions largely drawn upon to increase Satsuma’s effective strength, and from being hostile to foreigners the attitude of the clansmen became almost friendly, a circumstance that was partly due, it may have been, to the consciousness of the Satsuma leaders that in spite of their antiquated weapons they had made no mean fight of it when assailed in their stronghold by the modern British ships of war.

The waning Shogunate had despatched a mission to Europe the previous year to beg for an extension of time in regard to those provisions of the treaties which included the opening of additional ports to foreign trade, for it was felt that the Bakufu had trouble enough on its hands without arousing further opposition by the fulfilment of the strict letter of the compacts which had been entered into with the Western powers. That mission was successful inasmuch as the opening of Kobé-Hiogo was postponed until the 1st of January 1868, and the British Government gave assurances of its unwillingness to take any steps that might embarrass the Government of the Shogun. But a fresh source of trouble had speedily developed itself in Choshiu, by the baron’s arbitrary treatment of shipping at Shimonoseki, and when, after the united squadrons of the Western powers had compelled the defenders of the forts in the straits to haul down their flag, and an indemnity had been exacted, the Bakufu became more than ever discredited, and its downfall accelerated. As with Satsuma, so with Choshiu, the fighting led to the foes becoming far better friends than had seemed to be possible, and in 1864 the baron Mori signified his willingness that any of his ports in Choshiu should be opened to the commerce of the strangers. It was not until many years after this that Shimonoseki was actually opened, but the delay was not due to the reluctance of the clan. During those prolonged contests with the Bakufu the clans of Satsuma and Choshiu were secretly allied, and the rivalry which might have been utilised to enable the Shogunate to triumph over Choshiu by enlisting the help of the Satsuma clan in the execution of the imperial command given to the Shogun Iyemochi to punish Choshiu was not in reality to be obtained by reason of this private compact between the two daimios. The bond of union was, of course, a common desire to bring about the abolition of the Viceregal office and restore the personal rule of the Emperor. The abstention of the Satsuma clan from interference on the side of the Shogunate probably saved the Choshiu clan from the defeat that would otherwise, it is to be believed, have overtaken them in the end. It was the policy of the Satsuma chieftain to allow the Shogunate to be worsted.

Difficulties multiplied, and the Shogun Iyemochi had taken up his residence in the castle of Osaka, after paying a second visit to the Emperor at Kioto, at the end of 1864, so the foreign ministers had to journey thither when they desired to communicate personally with him in his retreat. By this time some of the more powerful among the provincial daimios had fallen away from their allegiance to the Shogun, and had ceased to attend the Court at Yedo or to reside there during the prescribed six months of the year. Satsuma, for instance, did not occupy his yashiki after September 1862, until he paid it a visit in the early seventies, and others among the Yedo mansions of the provincial lords remained unoccupied from that time forward until they were turned to account as Government offices after the Restoration. The Shogun’s entourage lost the pomp and circumstance of state in 1864, with the removal of his retinue to Osaka, and the internecine strife which culminated in the battle of Uyeno in 1868 was entered upon soon afterwards.