Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

In 1866, however, while the Shogun’s men were contending for the mastery with the retainers of Choshiu, the Emperor Komei decided to ratify the treaties that the Shogun had made, and thenceforward the relations of the Bakufu with the representatives of Occidental powers were characterised by greater cordiality than had for some time past existed. The British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, who had succeeded Sir Rutherford Alcock at Yedo, sent Messrs Mitford and Satow to Osaka with a message to the Shogun, and the mission ended with mutual satisfaction; the Shogun wrote to the Emperor at Kioto urging the opening of the port of Kobé-Hiogo to trade as early as practicable. The Emperor Komei finally gave his consent, and even expressed himself at this time as favourably disposed towards the fulfilment of the treaties. The right of native merchants to hire foreign vessels to trade either at the open ports or abroad was established in 1866, and thus Japanese foreign trade was set free from the restrictions which had checked its development.

As an illustration of the amicable relations which had by this time grown up between the Japanese authorities and foreigners, it may be related how, on the 21st of March 1866, 800 samurai troops, under the command of Kubota Sentaro, marched out of Yokohama in company with the British from the camp on the Bluff for a field day in the country towards Kamakura. The Japanese soldiers who thus for the first time in the history of the two nations bore their part in an Anglo-Japanese Alliance were men belonging to the Shogun’s forces, and their officers had acquired a knowledge of Western drill from their studies at the British camp, under the guidance of the officers of the Lancashire Fusiliers, then forming the garrison of the Yokohama foreign settlement. Less than two years before the Shogun’s troops had participated in similar manœuvres, but only to a very slight degree, as at that time the Japanese had been armed with the bow and arrow and wore chain armour, in the ancient style. Two years’ drill had made the Shogun’s men so efficient that their shooting with the rifle astonished the British spectators by its rapidity, and by the ease with which the men handled their weapons, comparatively unaccustomed as they undoubtedly then were to modern firearms. Among those who were in this way the pioneers of the Japanese modern military organisation were many personal friends of the first Ambassador to the Court of St James, Viscount Hayashi.

In August 1866, the Shogun Iyemochi, whose health had for a long time past been failing, died at Osaka, his end having been accelerated, it is beyond doubt, by the vicissitudes of the last year or two, and the effort demanded of him when personally taking the field at the head of his army against the troops of the contumacious lord of Choshiu. Notwithstanding the fast-growing power of the Shogunate’s political adversaries, the moment was scarcely fitting for attempting its entire overthrow, and in December of that year the Shogun Keiki, seventh son of the prince of Mito, a branch of the Tokugawa family, and adopted son of the Hitotsubashi family—i.e. the Owari branch of the same Tokugawa house—was duly invested with all the dignities of his exalted office. He had been nominated Shogun, as already explained, in 1858, by the then prince of Mito his father, but had been passed over owing to the strenuous opposition of the Regent, whose hostility to the Mito prince Nari-aki has been alluded to, and its effects described.

The newly appointed Shogun had had abundant opportunities of observing the gathering disposition of his countrymen to seek the restoration of the sovereign to the direct rule of his dominions and the abolition of the system of government by delegate which had for two and a half centuries prevailed. The transfer of the active duties of government to the hands of the real monarch had become a matter easy of accomplishment, moreover, by reason of the fact that the policy of the Kioto Government and that of the Shogun no longer differed in respect of the treatment of the foreigners who sought to establish intimate diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan.

In January 1867, the Emperor Komei fell a victim to smallpox, five weeks after he had appointed Tokugawa Keiki to the office of Shogun. Though the Bakufu was declining rapidly, the hour had not arrived for its final extinction, but no one could better judge of the hopelessness of the situation, perhaps, than the Shogun Keiki, who had for several years acted as guardian to the late occupant of the position, and had been also Minister of Justice (Giyobukiyo) in the time of Iyesada.

Despite the patriotic willingness of the Shogun Keiki to recognise from the very outset the need which was beginning to be felt of a thoroughly unified administration, the northern clans, which had been faithful to the Tokugawa house and had ever made its cause their own, were far from being reconciled to the reorganisation of the government as it was sought to constitute it, and appealed to arms against the domination of the Satsuma and Choshiu combination that had by this time obtained vast influence at Court. Civil war followed, but the strife was desultory in character until the later months of the year, by which time the Shogun had satisfied himself of his inability to effectively chastise the recalcitrant lord of Choshiu, and was compelled to accept defeat. As, moreover, his position as Shogun was manifestly under such conditions intolerable, he tendered to the Emperor his resignation of the office that had been in his family for 264 years.

The Prince of Tosa had returned to his castle at Kochi in October 1867, and had written to the Shogun in the following terms:—

“It appears to me that although the government and penal laws have been administered by the military class ever since the Middle Ages, yet since the arrival of foreigners we have been squabbling amongst ourselves, and much public discussion has been excited. The East and the West have risen in arms against each other, and civil war has never ceased, the effect being to draw on us the insults of foreign nations.

The cause of this lies in the fact that the administration proceeds from two centres, and because the Empire’s ears and eyes are turned in two different directions. The march of events has brought about a revolution and the old system can no longer be obstinately persevered in.

You should restore the governing power into the hands of the sovereign, and so lay a foundation on which Japan may take its stand as the equal of all other countries. This is the most imperative duty of the present moment and is the heartfelt prayer of YODO.