Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 3/Chapter 5
Chapter V
LATER PERIOD OF THE TOKUGAWA
During all these years, from the early part of the seventeenth century until the last quarter of the eighteenth, vague conceptions of Occidental civilisation and Occidental sciences had been filtrating into the country through the narrow door of Dutch trade in Nagasaki. The study of medicine chiefly contributed to indicate how wide the interval between the civilisations of the West and the East had grown since the beginning of Japan's policy of isolation. To prosecute such a study with any measure of success despite the difficulties presenting themselves, showed significant earnestness in the pursuit of knowledge. Everything had to be done in secret, since discovery signified the severest punishment. In truth, the indomitable energy of a few obscure students who procured a rare volume from the Deshima factory at almost incredible cost, and, without the aid of an instructor or a dictionary, taught themselves the language in which it was written, is a story of reality stranger than fiction. But the movement had nothing of a national character; it did not extend beyond a small coterie of students, and the people in general remained ignorant of such researches. Presently Ono Riushihei, a member of this band of students, compiled a remarkable book. It contained a singularly accurate account of the manners and customs as well as of the military and naval organisations of Occidental States; it warned Japan that the Russians would one day show themselves a formidable enemy on her northern border, and it urged the advisability of building a fleet and constructing coast-defences. The Yedo authorities denounced the work as misleading and injurious, seized all the copies, burned them, and placed the author in confinement. Seldom have events so completely and rapidly vindicated a prediction. Riushihei's punishment had not lasted quite five months when a Russian ship arrived at Yezo, pretexting a desire to restore to their homes some castaway Japanese sailors. Riushihei was at once released from confinement, and the wisdom of his views received general recognition.
It must indeed be recorded, in justice to the perspicacity of the Shōgun's ministers, that from the very beginning of the series of disturbing episodes which thenceforth occurred in connection with foreign policy, they partially appreciated the hopelessness of offering armed opposition to the coming of Western ships. Bound, on the one hand, to respect the traditions of international seclusion handed down to them through ten generations, they understood, on the other, that the measures adopted to enforce these traditions had crippled the nation's powers of resistance. Instead of following the high-handed example of Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu, they confined themselves to politely informing the Russians that a return visit from them was not desired. The Russians paid no attention to this rebuff. They repeated their visits six times in the course of the next twenty years, at one moment assuming a friendly mien, at another raiding Japan's northern islands or landing to effect surveys; to-day kidnapping Japanese subjects, to-morrow restoring them with apologies. It is certain that had not the Napoleonic wars withdrawn Russia's attention from the Far East, she would either have forced foreign intercourse upon the Japanese before the close of the nineteenth century's second decade, or annexed all the Empire's northern islands. Japan was helpless. A semblance of armed preparation was made in 1807 by bestowing the Shōgun's daughter on Date, feudal chief of Sendai, appointing him to guard the shores of Hokkaidō, and building forts to defend the approaches to Yedo Bay. But it is doubtful whether any real value was attached to these measures. Ultimately the trivial nature of Russian aggression inspired the Japanese with some confidence, and when by and by English vessels also began to appear in the northern seas, the Shōgun's officials took heart of grace, and issued orders that any foreign ship coming within range of Japanese guns should be cannonaded.
It has been shown that from the middle of the eighteenth century the literary studies of the nation began to create a strong current of thought opposed to the system of dual government represented by the two courts of Yedo and Kyōtō. Possibly had nothing occurred to furnish signal proof of the system's practical defects, it might have long survived this theoretical disapproval. But the crisis caused by the advent of foreign ships and by the forceful renewal of foreign intercourse afforded a convincing proof of the Shogunate's incapacity to protect the State's supposed interests and to enforce the traditional policy of isolation which the nation had learned to consider absolutely essential to the Empire's integrity.
When confronted by this crisis, the Yedo administration had fallen into a state of great financial embarrassment. In spite of a forced loan of a million ryō levied from the citizens of Osaka, the Shōgun's ministers were obliged, in 1818, to revert to the pernicious expedients of debasing the currency, and arbitrarily readjusting the ratio between gold and silver, which they now fixed at six to one. A sudden and sharp appreciation of commodities, the disappearance of gold from circulation, and general discontent ensued. The treasuries of the feudal chiefs also became depleted, the purchasing power of all incomes having been greatly reduced by the financial abuses of the Shogunate. Many of the nobles were heavily indebted to wealthy merchants, and few retained any sentiment of loyalty towards the Yedo Court. Japan was now visited by a calamity to which she is particularly liable, scarcity of bread-stuff owing to failure of the rice-crop, which is of as much importance to her as wheat and beef combined are to England. A three years' famine afflicted the nation, from 1833 to 1835. Starving folk began to wander about committing outrages, and one of the Shōgun's trusted vassals, a man[1] of the highest repute, headed an abortive rebellion. Then, in 1838, the Yedo Castle was destroyed by fire, and a special levy, in the form of a heavy income tax, had to be resorted to.
Amid all these troubles the Dutch at Nagasaki sent information to Yedo that British vessels might be expected at any moment, carrying some shipwrecked Japanese subjects. The Dutch, it may be observed, lost no opportunity of arousing Japanese suspicion against the English. Commercial rivalry was not more scrupulous in those days than it is at present. It happened that a man of exceptional ability and resolution, Mizuno Tadakuni, was then at the head of the Yedo administration. He issued an order that, for whatever purpose foreign ships came, they must be driven back. But there were at that time several Japanese students of foreign affairs in Yedo. Some had been pupils of the intrepid traveller, Siebold, and some had acquired their information from books only. These men appreciated the true character of foreign civilisation, and were at once too patriotic and too courageous to subserve their conviction to considerations of personal safety. The necessity of combining the fragments of knowledge that each had been able to collect independently induced them to form a society, and in spite of the odium attaching to their action, and in spite of being called the "barbarian association" by the public, they pursued their researches unceasingly. When news reached them that the Shōgun's chief minister had issued the order spoken of above, they decided that duty to their country demanded an open protest against such a mistaken and dangerous policy. Two of the leading members compiled a volume, setting forth, in plain terms, the truth, as they conceived it, especially with regard to England. They presented copies of the book to prominent officials of the Administration, The immediate consequence of this heroic act—for it merits no lesser epithet—was that the members of the society were seized and thrown into prison. But the brochure did not fail of all effect. It strengthened the chief minister's conviction that unless the nation made a supreme effort to organise its defences, no hope of resisting foreign aggression could be entertained; it probably helped to inspire the radical reforms, both economical and military, that were then undertaken, and it may have had much to do with the minister's subsequent revocation of his anti-foreign order. For the order was actually revoked within a few years of its issue; not, indeed, because the Shōgun's Government had become reconciled to foreign intercourse, but because they recognised the advisability of avoiding war with such formidable enemies as the men from the Occident were now seen to be.
It is not to be supposed that in this matter of renewing her relations with the outer world, Japan was required to make any sudden decision under stress of visible menace. She had ample notice of the course events were taking.
A French ship, coming to the Riukiu Islands in 1846, pretexted the probable advent of the English as an argument to induce the islanders to place themselves under French protection. In the same year the King of Holland sent to the Yedo Court some scientific books and a map of the world, with a covering letter advising that the country should at once abandon its policy of isolation. It is related that this map of the world produced a profound impression in the Shōgun's capital, but as the Japanese had become acquainted with the terrestrial globe in 1631, they must have already known something of their country's comparative insignificance. Again, in 1849, the King of Holland notified the Shōgun that an American fleet might be expected in Japanese waters the following year, and that, unless Japan agreed to enter into friendly relations, war must follow. His Majesty enclosed in his despatch an approximate draft of the intended treaty, and a copy of a memorandum addressed by America to European nations, justifying her contemplated action on the ground that it would inure to the advantage of Japan as well as to that of the Occident.
The year 1853 saw this warning fulfilled. Commodore Perry entered Uraga Bay, near Yokosuka. He had four ships and five hundred and sixty men. In Yedo his force was supposed to be ten ships and five thousand men; in Kyōtō it became one hundred ships and one hundred thousand men.
The event created as much astonishment and alarm as though no notice of its probability had ever been received. The Shōgun's ministers issued orders that so soon as the foreign vessels entered Yedo Bay, the fire-bells should be rung in quick time, and every one, donning his fire uniform, should hasten to his post. The Imperial Court in Kyōtō directed that at the seven principal shrines and at all the great temples special prayers should be offered for the safety of the nation and for the destruction of foreigners. Such measures vividly illustrated the helplessness of Japan to meet the crisis that now threatened.
From the very outset the steps taken by the Shōgun's administration were prophetic of its downfall. A council of feudal chiefs was summoned to consider the course that should be pursued. Never previously, since the establishment of the Tokugawa rule in Yedo, had the Shōgun's ministers submitted any question, executive or political, to the consideration of the feudatories. A more signal abrogation of autocratic power could not have been effected. The Shōgun thereby virtually abdicated his position as the nation's administrative sovereign, and placed himself on a level with all the territorial nobles who had hitherto been required to render implicit obedience to his orders. It becomes interesting to determine the motive and source of such a novel departure. Some writers have been disposed to treat it merely as an evidence of thoughtless perplexity. Others regard it as a pusillanimous endeavour to shift to the shoulders of the feudatories a responsibility which the Shogunate found unbearable. Both explanations may be partially true. It is possible that the Yedo Government did not perceive the full consequences of openly recognising the right of the feudatories to a voice in the management of State affairs. It is also possible that the Shōgun's advisers, too well informed to contemplate serious resistance to foreign demands, too timid of public opinion to openly confess their conviction, hoped, by obtaining from the feudatories a declaration in favour of a pacific policy, to escape at once the disaster of war and the odium of violating a national conviction. But whatever secondary value attaches to these conjectures, it appears certain that the suggestion to summon a conference of feudal nobles emanated from the students of Chinese philosophy. During the first century of Tokugawa rule these men occupied an academical position. But in the year 1690, when the Shōgun Tsunayoshi ruled, a school called the "hall of sages" (Seidō) was established in Yedo, and scholars successful in its examinations became eligible for official appointments equally with proficients in military exercises. Many such literati occupied administrative posts at the time of the coming of the American ships, and although their influence had hitherto been insignificant, the peculiar nature of the crisis now gave unwonted weight to their views. From the writings of Confucius and Mencius they had learned to attach respect to popular opinion, and in obedience to their political creed, they counselled recourse to the advice of the feudal nobles. The Shōgun's ministers, in accepting that counsel, probably reckoned on secretly swaying the nobles to declare openly for peace. But the nobles, by asserting their independence, showed that they understood their new position. A majority pronounced against foreign intercourse even at the cost of war; a few advised temporary concessions pending the completion of preparations to expel the intruders, and a still smaller number recommended peaceful intercourse with the outer world. It may be stated at once that subsequent events threw great doubt on the sincerity of the advocates of war. Those that had spoken honestly spoke in ignorance, and fuller knowledge modified their views; those that had spoken with knowledge lacked the courage of their convictions, and for the sake of appearance counselled a course which they knew to be impracticable.
As for the Shōgun's ministers, their action reflected the perplexity and duplicity of the time. They issued an instruction so ambiguous that no one could undertake to interpret it accurately. It did not sanction foreign intercourse, but it did not order warlike operations to enforce isolation; it directed that defensive measures should be vigorously pushed, but it did not intimate that their completion would be the signal for driving away the aliens; it hinted that the honour of the nation was involved in obeying the old traditions, but it counselled an amicable and forbearing spirit. Very little perspicacity was needed to detect the weakness of rulers speaking with such an uncertain voice.
Another self-effacing step taken by the Shōgun was to address to the Court in Kyōtō a formal report of the advent of the American ships. This, too, amounted to an open abrogation of the administrative autocracy which formed the basis of the Tokugawa system. Iyeyasu had definitely excluded the Kyōtō Court from the sphere of national affairs, and all his successors, with one exception, had governed in obedience to that principle. But now the Shōgun Iyeyoshi seemed to place himself under the shadow of the Imperial Court at the very moment when his urgent duty, according to popular conception, was to interpose between the Throne and the danger menacing it from abroad.
The consequences of this step were even more far-reaching than those that attended the Shogunate's recourse to a council of feudatories. For the renaissance of the literature and traditions of ancient Japan, inaugurated by Mito students in the second half of the seventeenth century, had been carried to its culminating point by a remarkable triad of scholars, Mabuchi, Motoori, and Hirata, who worked with singular assiduity and wrote voluminously throughout a great part of the eighteenth century down to the middle of the nineteenth,[2] and the doctrines enunciated by this remarkable school of thinkers had now sunk deep into the hearts of a large section of the people. Belief in the divine origin of the Emperor had become a living faith instead of a moribund tradition, and many were beginning to regard the administration of the Shōgun as a sacrilegious invasion of the Mikado's heaven-descended prerogatives. It is asserted that the Shōgun Iyeyoshi himself was more or less swayed by these theories, and that, in addressing the Throne, he obeyed a genuine sentiment of loyalty. Other accounts attribute his action to the advice of his ministers, especially that of the Prince of Mito. Whatever the truth may be as to the motive of the step, it presented itself to the people in the light of an official recognition of the new Imperialism. The "pure Shintō creed" which had hitherto been only academical, now assumed a practically political character, and men's eyes turned to the Court in Kyōtō as the real centre of national authority.
Another sentiment also was called into active existence at this crisis, the sentiment of patriotism. During many hundreds of years there had been no such thing as country in the moral vista of the educated Japanese. His loyalty did not look beyond the limits of fief or family. Even the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century failed to strike a universal chord of patriotism: the brave soldiers that repelled the attack achieved local rather than national renown. But the incidents culminating in the expulsion of Christians and the closing of the country in the early part of the seventeenth century, and the inflexible enforcement of a policy of national isolation throughout the Tokugawa era, insensibly taught men to think of Japan as an entity, and their perception, greatly quickened by the Shintō revivalists' doctrine of the "land of the gods," was now suddenly stirred into almost passionate activity when the news went abroad that foreigners had come to establish, by force if necessary, an intercourse probably fatal to the country's independence. A logical accompaniment of this mood was the conviction that since the nation, as a whole, was threatened, the nation, as a whole, must resist; and by the light of that conviction the inter-fief jealousies and the divided rule of the Emperor and the Shōgun represented obvious sources of weakness. Everything, therefore, pointed to the sovereign as the national rallying point, and since His Majesty's first act, on learning of the arrival of foreign ships, had been to pray for heaven's guardianship of the sacred land, and for the destruction of the intruders, the nation found itself furnished with a rallying cry which soon reverberated from end to end of the country, Son nō jō-i (Revere the sovereign, expel the alien).
This condition of public thought naturally required some time for development, and as the sequence of events must be closely followed just at this stage, it will be wise to revert to their chronological order.
The Americans did not insist on the immediate conclusion of a treaty. They agreed to wait a year. The Japanese, on their side, thought that the postponement would probably be permanent. So many rumours of the advent of foreigners had proved delusive in the past that the Americans' announcement of an intention to return scarcely seemed a serious menace. When, therefore, Commodore Perry did really reappear off Uraga in the spring of 1854, consternation fell upon the Shōgun's ministers. They issued orders to the feudatories throughout the Empire to prepare for war, and they sent officials to Uraga to hold the intruders there. If only the Americans could be prevented from entering Yedo Bay, the situation might be saved. Commodore Perry consented to a compromise: he did not push further than the harbour now overlooked by the Yokohama settlement, and there he anchored. Could he have obtained any knowledge of the perturbation produced in Yedo by his doings, he would probably have framed his demands on a much larger scale. But he did not know that every time the tide swung his vessels' prows northward, the news, carried to Yedo by flying messengers, created a general panic; and that whenever the ships rode with their prows southward, the intelligence of their changed position caused the capital to breathe again, so that for some days moods of despair and hope succeeded each other in regular succession. Neither did he know that the Shōgun's officials, or at any rate those to whom was entrusted the duty of dealing with the American envoy, never had any idea of serious resistance. Contenting himself, therefore, with a treaty guaranteeing intercourse on a limited scale, the American envoy sailed away.
It is possible that if even then the Yedo Court had boldly avowed and justified its act, the nation would have acquiesced, however unwillingly, for the anti-foreign cry had not yet acquired any volume, and no one was prepared to assume the responsibility of making a public protest. But the Yedo Court acted a disingenuous part. Instead of revoking its warlike instructions and frankly disclosing the nature of the agreement just concluded, it published a deceptive account of the latter and virtually confirmed the former. It adopted, in short, the most effective method of bringing ultimate embarrassment upon itself, and of fomenting the nation's antipathy towards the strangers to whom a promise of friendly intercourse had just been given.
For a time, however, this policy of pretence succeeded, especially as it was accompanied by genuine and striking measures of reform. Vigorous preparations for coast defence were made. A military school was established in Yedo and a naval in Nagasaki. Many administrative abuses were abolished. The official door was thrown open to men of talent and competence, irrespective of birth. The finances were reorganised in a manner at once courageous and intelligent. In short, the Shogunate, then under the direction of one of the ablest statesmen that ever directed its policy, Abe Masahiro, feudal chief of Ise, evinced a spirit of earnestness and resolution that won general praise. The anti-foreign voices became silent. For three years and a half no presage could have been discerned of the storm destined soon to burst over the country. It seemed indeed as though the Shōgun's administration was about to enter upon a new era of stability, for Abe, with profound sagacity, succeeded in winning the alliance of the Tokugawa's hereditary enemy, the Satsuma chief, then the most powerful feudatory in Japan, by contracting a marriage between the latter's daughter and the Shogun, and further secured the loyal coöperation of the Prince of Mito, a man of exceptional capacity and reputation.
It is unnecessary to describe in detail how the first Consul-General of the United States in Japan, Mr. Townsend Harris, reached Shimoda in 1856; how he made his way to Yedo in 1857, in spite of strenuous official opposition; how he had audience of the Shōgun, and afterwards delivered in the house of the prime minister, Hotta, feudal chief of Bitchiu—the great Abe had died three months previously—a speech of six hours' duration, which brought a flood of light to the minds of his hearers, and won for the cause of foreign intercourse the permanent allegiance of a group of leading politicians; and how, finally, by adroit diplomacy in which the menace of a British fleet's probable arrival played a large part, he succeeded in concluding, in 1858, the first treaty that granted genuine commercial privileges to foreigners. Full accounts of all these incidents have already been published.
This treaty was the signal for an outburst of national indignation. The former conventions—the plural is used because Russia, Holland, and England had secured for themselves treaties similar to that concluded by Commodore Perry—had been of very limited scope: they merely opened three harbours of refuge to foreign vessels. It had been possible for the Shōgun's ministers to represent them in the light of acts of charity, and in that sense they had been understood by a large section of the nation. But the treaty of 1858 provided for the coming of foreign merchants, indicated places of residence for them, and definitely terminated Japan's traditional isolation. There could be no mistake about its meaning. Hence the announcement of its terms evoked fierce protests from all quarters, and a powerful anti-foreign agitation was organised with the Prince of Mito at its head.
Mito, ever since the days of its second feudal chief, the celebrated Kōmon, had been a nursery of anti-feudal politicians. At the time when the American ships cast anchor at Uraga, the fief was in the hands of Rekkō, a man scarcely second to Kōmon in ability and of far more radical views. It is doubtful whether Rekkō believed sincerely in the possibility of continued national seclusion. He certainly allowed his fief to be the centre of such a propaganda. But of himself those that knew him best allege that he was prepared to admit foreigners to the country, though he insisted on surrounding the concession with conditions dictated by Japan in obedience to her own interests, and that, in order to retain mastery of the situation in that degree, he advocated preparations for war, with the firm purpose of resorting to it if necessary. It is consistent with such a theory that he remained an active supporter of the Yedo Court in spite of the signature of the Perry convention, but that, when the Harris treaty gave away the situation completely, and showed the Shōgun's ministers in the light of men who, while simulating a warlike mien in order to placate the nation, were really bent upon pacific concessions only, he became a determined opponent of the Shogunate, and, resigning his posts as superintendent of coast defence and director of military reforms, retired to Mito, whither the eyes of the nation followed him as the upholder of its traditions and its champion against foreign aggression.
Within a brief time after these events, the people ranged themselves into three parties. The first was headed by the Shōgun's chief minister and by the so-called "Dutch students," who now occupied a high place in official favour. This party's platform was progress and liberalism. They advocated the opening of the country and the establishment of free commercial intercourse with foreigners, and they showed high moral courage in championing such views in spite of hearing themselves fiercely denounced as renegades and national enemies. The second party, though a unit as to the advisability of setting narrow limits to foreign intercourse, entertained divergent views on the subject of the procedure to be followed. One of its sections held that as an object lesson must be provided to teach the nation its own weakness compared with the overwhelming strength of Europe and America, and as, at the same time, even a war in which Japan suffered defeat would doubtless have the effect of modifying the arbitrariness of foreigners, the best plan was to fight at once. The other section advised temporary compliance with foreign demands, in order to gain time for developing force to drive out the alien altogether. Alike anti-foreign in their ultimate purpose, these two sections nevertheless became mutually distrustful and, in the end, implacably hostile. The third party did not reason at all, but simply declaimed against conceding anything whatever to aliens.
All this sounds very bigoted and uncivilised, but when the circumstances under which foreign intercourse came to an end in the seventeenth century are recalled, and when it is remembered that during nearly two hundred and fifty years the people had harboured a firm conviction that to admit foreigners was to forfeit national independence, there is no difficulty in understanding the temper aroused by the news of the Harris treaty. Indeed, to any student of the literature that circulated among the Japanese immediately prior to the mission of Commodore Perry, the wonder is, not that great difficulties were experienced in concluding a treaty, but that any section of the people could be induced to range themselves on the side of liberalism. The writings of the time were saturated with anti-foreign sentiment. Authors revelled in such expressions as "imperial customs" (Kwōfū), "imperial country" (Kwōkoku), "divine dignity" (Shin-i), "land of the gods" (Shin-shū), and similar terms indicating fanatical pride in the Empire and its institutions. On the other hand, "hideous aliens" (shū-i), "barbarian bandits" (banzoku), "sea monsters" (kaikwai), and many similarly opprobrious epithets were habitually applied to foreigners, until men ceased to rank them among human beings; association with them came to spell national ruin; their sciences were counted black magic, and their religion was deemed a cloak for political intrigue.
Fully cognisant of the difficulties arising out of this national mood, the Shōgun's ministers summoned another meeting of feudatories and sought to win them to the cause of liberalism by arguments similar to those Mr. Townsend Harris had used in his great speech. But the feudatories were in no temper to listen to reason. Their unique idea was that the country had been betrayed. Nothing remained, therefore, except to issue a formal decree that the Yedo Court had definitely abandoned the traditional policy of isolation. A few months previously the same Court, by means of a similar instrument, had represented the Perry convention in the light of an irksome compromise, had spoken of the Americans as persons of "arbitrary and lawless manners," and had invited the nation to strenuously undertake naval and military preparations with the implied purpose of reverting to the time-honoured state of seclusion. Now a decree of diametrically opposite import was issued. It may well be supposed that such evidences of variability did not strengthen the nation's respect for the Shogunate. The conservatives openly declared that the Yedo Government had harboured pacific intentions from the first, and that it had simulated a warlike mien merely to placate popular indignation.
The Prince of Mito has been spoken of above as leader of the extreme conservatives. But a greater than the Prince of Mito stood at the head of the movement,—the Emperor himself. The Emperor, when the news of Perry's first coming reached Kyōtō, ordered that the succour of the gods should be supplicated, just as it had been supplicated at the time of the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century; and when he heard of Perry's second coming, he issued an edict directing that all temple bells not in actual use should be cast into cannon. There is no reason to assume that His Majesty was swayed in this matter by strong anti-foreign prejudices, or that he would have adopted such a course on his own initiative. Apart from the fact that the views of the Mikados in Kyōtō had long ceased to be anything but a reflection of their immediate surroundings, it has to be noted that, on this occasion, the Emperor Kōmei shaped his procedure in accordance with indications furnished from Yedo. The Shōgun's Court had virtually denounced foreign intercourse; the Shoōun's ministers had invited the nation to arm for the defence of its traditional convictions; the Emperor's ministers and the Emperor himself merely followed Yedo's lead.
But now Yedo had performed a complete volte-face. What was Kyōtō to do? Probably if the Imperial capital had listened to that epoch-making speech of Mr. Townsend Harris, had perused all the arguments and had weighed all the circumstances making for a treaty with America as a precedent to avert harsher demands on the part of other States, the Emperor's advisers might have followed the Shōgun in welcoming foreigners, as they had previously followed him in repelling them. But Kyōtō saw the change only and did not understand the causes.
The anti-foreign and anti-feudal politicians were not slow to appreciate the opportunity thus afforded. They understood that their best chance of success consisted in widening the breach between the two Courts, and they applied themselves to achieve that end by urging the Emperor to veto the treaty. Intercourse between the feudatories and the Imperial Court was forbidden by the laws of the Shōgun. But the Shōgun himself had departed from the strictest traditions of the Tokugawa administration when he referred the question of foreign intercourse to the feudatories and to the sovereign, and when he entered no protest against the Emperor's edict directing the founding of cannon from temple bells, though such an edict constituted a plain interference in administrative affairs. The feudal nobles might well conclude that the old restrictions had been relaxed. At all events, they acted on that hypothesis; notably the Prince of Mito, who sent emissaries to Kyōtō with instructions to work strenuously for the repudiation of the treaty.
Informed of these things, the Shōgun's chief minister, Hotta, proceeded to Kyōtō. He set out with the conviction that his representations would produce a complete change of opinion in the Imperial capital. But the whole of the Court nobility opposed him, and after much discussion the Emperor issued an order that the question should be submitted to the feudatories and that an heir to the Shogunate should be nominated at once.
A significance not superficially apparent attached to the latter part of this edict. The Shōgun Iyesada was virtually a witling. He had been married, as already stated, to an adopted daughter of the feudal chief of Satsuma, but there was no issue of the marriage, nor had there ever been any possibility of issue. Two candidates for the heirship offered. They were Keiki, son of the Prince of Mito, a man of matured intellect and high capacities, and Iyemochi, Prince of Kii, a lad of thirteen. Public opinion unanimously indicated the former as the more fitting, and his connection with the house of Mito was accepted as an assurance of anti-foreign bias. Hence, although the Imperial decree did not actually name him, its intention could not be mistaken. But public opinion erred in this instance. Keiki did not advocate national seclusion. Had the choice fallen on him, he would have continued the policy of Hotta and the liberals, while at the same time seeking to soften the hostility of the Mito faction. Hotta, appreciating these things, sought to bring about the nomination; but the Shōgun's household, knowing that Keiki's appointment would be equivalent to their master's abrogation, cast about for means to prevent it, and found them in inducing the Shōgun to summon Ii, feudal chief of Kamon, to the highest post in the Yedo Court, that of Tairo (great elder).
Ii was probably the ablest of the able men thrown to the surface by the seething current of events in this troubled epoch. It is unnecessary to depict his character; his deeds are sufficiently eloquent. Without a moment's hesitation he reverted to the autocratic principles of the Shōgun's administration; caused the young prince of Kii to be nominated heir, and concluded the Harris treaty, which had hitherto been awaiting signature.[3] A majority of the powerful feudatories now joined the opposition. The Prince of Mito protested in writing. He insisted that the sanction of the Imperial Court must be sought before concluding the treaty; that various restrictions should be imposed on foreign intercourse—among them being a drastic interdict against the building of Christian places of worship—and that if foreigners were unwilling to accept these conditions, they must be asked to defer the treaty for fifteen or twenty years. It is thus apparent that even the leader of the anti-foreign party, as the Prince of Mito subsequently became, concurred with the leader of the liberals concerning the impossibility of rejecting foreign advances altogether. The difference was that one side wanted to impose conditions and obtain delay by seeking the sovereign's sanction; the other wished to conclude the treaty forthwith so as to avoid national disaster.
The events that ensued throw a vivid light on the nature of Japanese politics and the character of the men that had to deal with them. Death removed the semi-idiotic Shōgun Iyesada, and an unprecedented period elapsed before the coming of an Imperial mandate to his successor. The issue of such a mandate was in truth a mere matter of form. Four or five days should have sufficed for its preparation and transmission to Yedo. Yet it did not reach the latter city until the fifteenth day after the Imperial seal had been affixed to it. The delay is one of the unsolved mysteries of history, since the official responsible for it committed suicide without revealing anything. On the eve of the new Shōgun's proclamation, the heads of the Three Princely houses—Owari, Echizen, and Mito—repaired simultaneously to the hall of audience and demanded an interview with the Tairō. Ii was advised not to meet them; it seemed certain that he would incur deadly risk by doing so. He replied that personal danger was a small matter compared with shirking his duty. A stormy discussion ensued, lasting for several hours. At length the leaders of the opposition showed themselves willing to compromise; they would agree to the treaty provided that Keiki were appointed Shōgun. This is a landmark in the annals of the era. It indicates that domestic politics occupied a larger space than foreign in the eyes of the recusant nobles. The Tairō, however, would not yield a point. Not only was the young Shōgun duly installed on the following day, but the first step he took, by the advice of the Tairō, was to punish the leaders of the opposition, confining them to their mansions or forbidding their attendance at Court. The die was now irrevocably cast, and the radical section of the anti-foreign party thenceforth looked to the Prince of Mito as their leader.
While these events were happening behind the scenes, the Foreign Representatives entertained great doubts of the Yedo Government's good faith. They imagined that the abiding desire of the Shōgun's ministers was either to avoid making treaties or to evade them when made. Such doubts, though not unnatural under the circumstances of the time, are now known to have been without solid basis. In the written communication addressed to the Throne by the Yedo statesmen after the conclusion of the Harris treaty, there is plain evidence that they intended to observe their new obligations loyally. The only questionable point is a suggestion that after the strengthening of the army and the navy the problem of peace or war might be solved. "If peaceful relations be maintained until the time appointed for ratifying the treaty, the avaricious aliens will definitely see that there is not much wealth in the country, and thus, abandoning the idea of gain, they will approach us with friendly feelings only, and ultimately will pass under the influence of our Emperor's grace. We may even hope that they will be induced to make grateful offerings to the Emperor, and then it will no longer be a question of trade but of tribute. Meanwhile we will require them to observe our laws strictly, so that we can govern them at will." There is here an audible note of sinister intention. But experience had shown that to set forth the real strength of foreign countries was only to rouse the indignation of the ignorant and haughty nobles in Kyōtō. From correspondence between the Tairō Ii and his friends in the Imperial capital, it appears that he was advised to simulate the policy of bringing foreigners under Japanese influence, and of employing for military purposes the wealth that would accrue from trade with them. In short, the despatches composed by him for the perusal of the Imperial Court must be read, not as indicating the genuine policy of the Yedo officials, but as presenting it in such a light as might placate the conservative element in Kyōtō. This deception was carried so far that an envoy subsequently sent to Kyōtō from Yedo depicted the Shōgun as actually hostile to foreigners, but disposed to tolerate them momentarily from considerations of expediency. The Foreign Representatives could scarcely have been expected to arrive at a correct interpretation of the situation through this maze of simulations and dissimulations, or to credit the Shōgun with intentions which his own ministers seemed anxious to disavow on his behalf.[4] In Europe, at the foreign legations in Yedo and among the foreigners then beginning to come to the country under the treaties, an uneasy conviction prevailed that Japan waited only for an opportunity to repudiate her engagements.
Meanwhile, although the Prince of Mito was confined to his residence in Yedo, his partisans in Kyōtō[5] worked strenuously to procure the intervention of the Imperial Court on his behalf. It was a repetition of the often practised device, making a catspaw of the sovereign in the interests of a subject, and it partially succeeded. The Emperor was persuaded to issue a rescript which, though couched in guarded terms, conveyed a reprimand to the Shōgun for concluding a treaty without previously consulting the feudatories (as directed in a former rescript), and which further suggested that the punitory measures adopted towards the Princes of Mito and Owari might lead to domestic disturbances.
A supreme trial of strength now took place between the Shōgun and his enemies. Envoys were despatched from Yedo to offer explanations to the Imperial Court, and the leaders of the opposition mustered their forces to thwart the design. For nearly four months the issue remained in abeyance, and the envoys finally had to pretend that the Shōgun, at heart averse to foreign intercourse, only awaited an opportunity to terminate it. In consideration of such assurances the Emperor issued the following rescript:—
Amity and commerce with foreigners brought disgrace on the country in the past. Our ancestors were grieved by the fact. Should such relations be resumed in our reign, we shall be wanting in our duty towards our predecessors. Our will has been repeatedly made known on the subject. Manabe and Sakai have now come to Kyōtō to explain the facts, and it has been made evident that the purpose of the Shōgun and his officials is one with that of the Emperor. It is desirable that Kyōtō and Yedo should join their strength and plan the welfare of the Empire. We comprehend the difficulties of the situation, and sanction a postponement of the expulsion of foreigners.
The two Courts seemed to be now publicly pledged to an anti-foreign policy. Yet the issue of the rescript was regarded as a victory for Yedo. The Tairō himself knew, of course, that his opportunism had placed him in a position which might at any moment become impossible. He had sought to obtain the unconditional consent of the Emperor to the treaties, but finding that to insist would involve a final rupture between the sovereign and the Shōgun, he had accepted a compromise which not only represented him in a false light from the foreigners' point of view, but must also eventuate in serious embarrassment, unless preparations could be made to secure fresh concessions from Kyōtō before the real attitude of the Shogunate towards foreigners and the attitude simulated by it to pacify the conservatives became flagrantly divergent. To such preparations, therefore, the Tairō and his coadjutors now devoted all their strength.
During the course of the negotiations in Kyōtō, the Yedo envoys had discovered clear evidence of a formidable plot to overthrow the Shogunate. The Tairō was not the man to palter with such an affair. Wholesale arrests were made, and the conspirators, cited before a court whose bench had been carefully purged of all half-hearted elements, were mercilessly sentenced. Capital punishment and banishment were the lot of the most active among the subordinates; the leaders fared according to the canons of the time. The Prince of Mito was condemned to perpetual confinement in his fief; the Prince of Owari, to permanent retirement; Keiki, ex-candidate for the succession to the Shogunate, forfeited his office and was directed to live in seclusion; the heads of three branch houses of Mito, several officials of the Imperial Court, in short, a number of notable personages, were overtaken by loss and disgrace.
This event produced a profound sensation throughout the Empire. It is tolerably certain that much injustice was done. Political views found very vague expression at that time. A man's opinions were generally inferred from the company he kept, and there is reason to think that ties of personal friendship were sometimes mistaken by the Ansei[6] judges for bonds of political conspiracy. They were directed to convict, and they convicted. The Yedo Court, under Ii's guidance, had concluded that the elements engaged in misleading the Throne must be ruthlessly crushed, and from the point of view of public expediency, they doubtless acted wisely. But the impression produced upon the public at large was that many zealous patriots had been done to death or disgraced, and it will readily be conceived that these things did not detract from the unpopularity of foreign intercourse.
Some decisive measure had now to be adopted with regard to the Imperial edict mentioned above; that is to say, the edict issued at the instance of the anti-foreign party when the news reached Kyōtō that the sovereign's indication had been disregarded in the matter of the accession to the Shogunate and that a treaty had been concluded with foreign Powers. The edict had been practically superseded, as shown above, by a later rescript, declaring union between Yedo and Kyōtō and temporarily sanctioning the treaty. Moreover, it had not been publicly promulgated. The original document, conveyed secretly to the Mito mansion in the Koishikawa suburb of Yedo,[7] had been carried thence to Mito, and placed in the ancestral tomb of the family, where a strong body of samurai guarded it night and day. But there was evidence that the Mito men considered this edict in the light of a guarantee against concessions to foreigners, who, according to their creed, were the country's enemies, and that they thought the sovereign had confided it to their care because he doubted whether the Yedo Court could be trusted to promulgate it. Indeed, the question of promulgation caused much discussion in Yedo. The Tairō himself, unfalteringly consistent in his policy of restoring the Shōgun's administrative autocracy, maintained that the conveyance of such a document direct to a feudatory was a flagrant contravention of the powers vested in the Shōgun, and that the Yedo officials were competent to suppress the edict. Ultimately the Regent in Kyōtō, a faithful supporter of the Tairō, sought and obtained the sovereign's authority to revoke the document. But the Mito men refused to surrender it. They deemed that to temporise with foreigners was to imperil the national safety. They saw in commerce with the outer world nothing but an agent for causing the appreciation of commodities. They believed that, as one of the three great Tokugawa clans, an obligation devolved on them to save the Shogunate from its own blunders, and they professed to fear that if they surrendered the edict, the sovereign would ultimately be driven to seek the coöperation of some other clan. With regard to the possibility of driving out foreigners, they did not find the question conclusive. Their duty was to devote all their strength to the attempt and trust the rest to the gods. A long and closely reasoned document compiled by a leader of the Mito samurai set forth these considerations in language that could not fail to appeal to the loyalty and patriotism of his clansmen. It ended by declaring that a man's life is never in such danger as when he fears to lose it. The records show that nearly a score of samurai sealed their belief in these ideas by committing suicide.
At this stage the Mito chief himself issued to his vassals an instruction to surrender the edict. He had never been a believer in absolute international isolation, and he now severed his connection with its advocates. Thereupon the rebellious samurai dispersed quietly, with the exception of about a hundred desperate men who declared that they would die rather than yield. The Yedo Government gave orders for the seizure of these rebels, but before the mandate could be obeyed, the Tairō, Ii Kamon, fell under the swords of a party of assassins who had detached themselves from the rebels and made their way to Yedo for the purpose of killing him. He had been warned of his danger and urged to increase the strength of his escort. But he replied that no force of guards could control the hand of fate or baffle the ingenuity of resolute assassins, and, further, that the number of the 
The Graves of the Forty-seven Ronins.
The tombstone of the leader (Oishi Kuranosuke) is in the rear corner.
This happened on the 3rd of March, 1860. It proved to be the first of a series of similar acts. Occasionally foreigners were the victims, but generally Japanese leaders of progress suffered. There is no difficulty in understanding why the samurai had recourse to his sword under the circumstances of the time. The incidents of foreign intercourse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries bequeathed to subsequent generations a rooted belief in the necessity of national isolation. They perceived no other way of preserving the country's integrity. Every Japanese was born with that conviction. He would have seemed to himself a traitor had he acquiesced in the signing of treaties of amity and commerce, and, above all, in the readmission of Christians to contact with the people. By the light of modern philosophy such conservatism looks irrational and even inhuman. But the Japanese regarded it by the light of experience and hereditary conviction. They had no innate prejudice against foreign intercourse; that is plain from the story related in a previous chapter. Originally they received the alien hospitably and accepted the products of his civilisation with intelligent appreciation. But he had shown himself, as they firmly believed, an aggressive enemy, whose tradal methods impoverished their country, and whose religion served as a cloak for sinister designs against the Empire's independence. It was the duty of every patriot to avert the recurrence of the old peril, against which the country's greatest statesmen and captains, the Taikō, Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu, had warned their own and succeeding generations. Whatever credit these illustrious men possessed in the mind of the nation, whatever reverence their memory commanded, was inseparably associated with the policy of seclusion which they had adopted in the apparent interests of their country and in despite of their own inclinations. The impartial historian has no choice but to admit that had the Japanese tamely suffered the resumption of foreign intercourse in the nineteenth century, they would have done violence to convictions which no patriot may ignore, and shown themselves lacking in one of the essential ingredients of national spirit. When foreigners were cut down under circumstances that left them no chance of resistance, their friends and fellow countrymen naturally denounced such acts as craven and savage. But it is necessary to remember that the perpetrators were men who had sacrificed their own worldly prospects[8] and were ready to sacrifice their lives also in the cause they represented; that they believed themselves entitled to exercise all the license permitted to a soldier in war; and that their object, in general, was not to destroy individual foreigners so much as to create a situation inconsistent with friendly intercourse and fatal to the maintenance of the Shōgun's administration. A favourite saying of Ando, who succeeded the great Tairō, Ii, was: "If the rōnin[9] thirst so ardently for blood, let them take my life, or the Shōgun's, but let them never raise their hand against a foreigner, for they would thus endanger the national safety." It is possible that these words, profoundly wise as they were, furnished a cue to the rōnin. Whatever the Shōgun's chief minister denounced as eminently objectionable, that commended itself most to these desperate patriots. No clearer exposition of the motives animating them can be found than that furnished by documents from the hands of the men who slew the Tairō Ii. These last testaments[10] teach that their writers did not distinguish between the peaceful coming of foreign traders under a treaty of amity and an invasion of enemies from abroad. They recalled the fact that their country's wisest statesmen, after full experience of foreign intercourse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had seen no alternative but to prohibit it completely. They were not without some knowledge of Western history. They knew that the great States of Europe constantly grew greater by swallowing smaller States, and they feared that the fate of the latter might overtake Japan. They believed that steadfast faith in the Shintō deities, supplemented by the stout arms of the samurai, was the country's best bulwark, and they deemed that to permit the preaching of alien creeds was to forfeit the protection of the gods, who had always guarded Japan. They were not bigoted conservatives: they admitted that a nation's policy must change with the times; but they failed to understand the changes which the Shōgun's policy had undergone—at one moment ordering the feudatories to prepare for the forcible exclusion of foreigners; the next, admitting Americans even to the precincts of Yedo Castle and treating them with deference and courtesy in defiance of the Emperor's expressed wishes. They accused the Yedo Government of bribing high officials in Kyōtō,—a charge which could not be denied. They spoke of the Emperor's having passed seven days in prayer at the shrine of Iwashimizu, and of His Majesty's having finally decided, under the inspiration of the gods, that no new port should be opened, no foreigner allowed to reside in the country, and no Christian place of worship erected; and they declared their conviction that posterity would execrate them as cowards if they did not strike for their country's cause at this crisis of her destiny. It is beyond question that thousands of Japanese samurai entertained similar views; and when it is remembered that the ethical creed of the time sanctioned assassination as a political weapon,[11] that no stigma attached to the assassin, and that if he escaped the punishment of the law administered by the official protectors of the man he had killed, he had nothing to apprehend except the vengeance of the latter's relatives, there remains no room for surprise that the course of the passionate controversies of those days was often marked with blood. Rather, indeed, are there grounds for surprise that the public peace suffered so little disturbance under such conditions.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 26.
Note 26.—Oshio Heihachiro. He and his followers set fire to Osaka, and after a brave struggle were defeated, Oshio committing suicide.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 27.
Note 27.—For an admirable résumé of these writers' views see an essay on "The Revival of Pure Shintō" by the greatest authority on Japan and the Japanese, Sir E. Satow, in Volume III. of "The Asiatic Society's Proceedings."
- ↑ See Appendix, note 28.
Note 28.—Historians have expressed various opinions about this remarkable statesman's foreign policy. A letter written by him four years before he became Tairō places the matter beyond all doubt. "To close the country," he wrote, "is not the way to promote the national prosperity and peace. The coast defences are quite inadequate. There are no war-ships fit to cope with foreign vessels. Open the country to the strangers. Make peace with them. In the meanwhile we can complete our preparations so as to have some competence to assert ourselves. If the Americans want our coal, let them have some: there is plenty in Kiushiu. If water and fuel are needed, give them: they cost little. It is right to supply the wants of the needy. Commerce is advisable. It can be carried on through the Dutch. Treat the next comers as the Dutch were treated. Build steamers and war-ships. Train men in the art of navigation, so that we can learn the conditions of foreign nations without obtaining our knowledge through the Dutch. Save money and spend it on the navy and the army. But strictly interdict strange religions. America and Russia have made immense strides in navigation, but our people are bright and quick, and, if well trained, will find no difficulty in competing with foreigners. Provided that our country is relieved from the threat of foreign invasion and secured in the enjoyment of peace, the gods will excuse a few changes of ancient laws and customs. . . . What presses most is to free the people's minds from anxiety. Iron walls are useless unless the nation is united and calm of mind." This letter, addressed to the Shōgun's minister, looks commonplace to-day, but read by the light of the time when it was written, it shows wonderful perspicacity. From the views it expresses Ii Kamon-no-Kami never departed. He died for them.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 29.
Note 29.—Mr. Townsend Harris must be excepted from this statement. His appreciation of Japanese politics amounted almost to an intuition; partly, perhaps, because he did not consider deceit inseparable from all Oriental dealings. Alone he maintained the bona fides of the Shōgun's ministers from first to last.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 30.
Note 30.—Among them were men destined afterwards to take a prominent part in reconciling the nation to the very policy they then opposed so bitterly; as Prince Sanjô, Prince Konoye, and Prince Madenokôji.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 31.
Note 31.—Ansei (1854-60) was the name of the era when these events occurred. The judicial trial was thenceforth known as "the great judgment of Ansei."
- ↑ See Appendix, note 32.
Note 32.—This place is now the site of a large arsenal. The beautiful park still survives and attracts many visitors, but the mansion where, forty years ago, Rekkō and his clansmen discussed the possibility of setting the narrowest limits to foreign intercourse, is now the site of a big factory, telling how completely Japan has adopted foreign civilisation.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 33.
Note 33.—The samurai that committed these acts of blood had abandoned their houses and their paid service, and devoted themselves solely to a crusade in their country's cause.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 34.
Note 34.—Samurai who, as described in a previous chapter, abandoned their feudal service and became a species of knight errant for the purpose of achieving some aim, generally sanguinary.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 35.
Note 35.—Of the eighteen rōnin who assassinated Ii, one was killed in the struggle; one, who fled with the Tairō's head, was incapacitated by his hurts and committed suicide; three fell wounded; eight surrendered themselves, and only five escaped.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 36.
Note 36.—Yoshida Torajiro, announcing in a letter to his father his intention of forming a band to kill Manabe, the Shōgun's delegate to Kyōtō, said: "If I die in the attempt, death may be considered as life."