Part 9

When Perry dropped anchor at Uraga it was the Shogun Iyeyoshi who sat on the Viceregal throne in Yedo, but he shortly afterwards died, and was buried in the cemetery attached to Zozoji temple in Shiba, where five other Shoguns of the Tokugawa line were interred, and when Perry came for the promised answer to the American President’s letter the Shogun Iyesada was in power. But soon afterwards his health failed him to the degree that he found it expedient to appoint a Regent in the person of the Go Tai-Ro (_lit._: Honoured Great Elder)—_i.e._ Prime Minister of State under the Tokugawa Government—an office which was filled by the baron Naosuke Ii Kamon-no-kami, between whom and the feudal chieftain of Mito there were great differences of opinion in regard to the wisdom of the Kai-koku policy. For reasons which were never very clearly comprehended, Nari-aki, the senior lord of Mito, was all his life bitterly opposed to the influx of foreigners, and when in 1860 the Regent was assassinated at the Sakurada Gate of Yedo castle the crime was perpetrated by men who had once been retainers of the Mito family, but had voluntarily severed their connection therewith in order that the responsibility for the murder that they were resolved to commit should not be laid at the door of their lord. They banded themselves together as Ro-nins, or “Wave-men,” casting themselves as it were on the billows of adventure, and caring nothing whither they might drift in the political currents of the hour. Other Ro-nins made a midnight attack in 1861 on the then recently-established British Legation at Takanawa, a southern suburb of Yedo, and these were afterwards proved to have belonged previously to the Mito clan. The daimio Nari-aki died in 1862, and it was felt that one source of uneasiness had been removed from the path of those who were totally averse to the suggested expulsion of the subjects of foreign powers and repudiation of the compacts which had been entered into. But the assassinated Regent had had other enemies in the political world, for his appointment had never been favourably received by the Jo-I party (in reality the advocates of the restoration of direct imperial rule, and who only used Jo-I as a convenient battle-cry) and when, in 1858, the Shogun Iyesada died and his place was taken by the youthful Iyemochi, at that time only twelve years old, and the Regency of Ii Kamon no Kami was continued, the antagonism between the rival factions—one nominally pro-foreign and the other nominally anti-foreign, but neither of them seriously concerned with the foreigner so much as with the abrogation or retention of the feudal system,—grew more fierce and deep-seated than ever. The Mito clan, notwithstanding that its old prince Nari-aki had been violently anti-foreign, had in a general way given its support to the Shogun, but even in Mito dissensions arose, and the clansmen were divided among themselves. In proportion as these internal quarrels arose in the Shogun’s party its influence in the State declined and that of the party of the Mikado, as it was termed, gained strength. It must be understood that the reference here is not to the now-reigning Emperor but to his father, who occupied the throne until the year 1867. An imperial ordinance promulgated in 1862 abolished the old law made in the days of Iyeyasu whereby the feudal lords were obliged to spend half their time at the capital, and this repeal of a statute on which the Shogunate had relied for the preservation of its ascendency over the clans hastened, no doubt, the downfall of its authority. It was further weakened, it may be supposed, by the internecine strife that arose from the rivalries of the three branches of the Tokugawa house, for when Iyesada died it had been the ardent desire of the Mito prince to place his son Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu,—otherwise Tokugawa Keiki,—on the viceregal throne at Yedo, a wish that was thwarted by the Regent Ii Kamon no kami. The reason that Nari-aki’s son bore two names was that in the year 1848, when he was only eleven years old, he had been adopted into the family of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family, which branch bore the surname of Hitotsubashi, while his other name could be read as either Keiki or Yoshinobu, the Chinese characters by which it was written being readable according to the Kan-On, or Chinese sounds as Keiki, while the Japanese equivalents of the same symbols are Yoshinobu. To the candidature of Nari-aki’s son the Regent would not agree, and carried his point in favour of Kikuchiyo, a prince of the Kishiu branch of the Tokugawa family, who took the name on his accession of Iyemochi. This prince was the thirteenth child of the XIth Shogun, and a cousin of the deceased Iyesada. The regent’s power at this period was equal to the effort of compelling Nari-aki to confine himself to his Yedo mansion, in a forced retirement which was tantamount to imprisonment, and similar steps were taken in regard to the princes of Owari, Hizen, Tosa, and Uwajima, who were opposed to the Regent’s policy. Tokugawa Keiki was forbidden to show himself at Yedo castle, and was ordered to remain in strict seclusion within his own abode.

Meanwhile the Emperor Komei, at Kioto, was being urged by the feudal lords of Tosa, Hizen, Sendai, Uwajima, and other provinces to abrogate the treaties which the Regent had made, to close the ports, and expel all strangers from the land, but Ii Kamon no kami was too strong for them to succeed in overthrowing him, and it will be understood that the representations of the Ministers of foreign powers already accredited to Japan in virtue of the treaties must all have tended to confirm the Regent in his resolution to abide by the terms of the compacts which he had entered into. This was in effect the situation in March 1860, when the ro-nins at the Sakurada Gate in Yedo put an end to the life of the Regent, and affairs were left in greater uncertainty than ever.

The baron Ii Kamon-no-kami Naosuke is considered to have been a genuinely patriotic statesman, one, moreover, who was able to realise the necessities of the hour and gifted with tact and resolution to carry his point. His persistence in the policy of _kai-koku_ procured for him the undisguised antagonism of a very powerful faction, but he remained unshaken in his determination to adhere to the arrangements that had been entered into with foreign powers. The assassins responsible for his death had carried on their persons, as was customary with ro-nins bent on some notable deed, written declarations setting forth their motives, and declaring it to be their belief that the admission of aliens to the country spelt speedy ruin. His intimate friend, Baron Matsudaira of Yada, had sought to dissuade him from paying his customary visits to the Shogun, who dwelt within the inner moat of the castle, and in urging his request had even endeavoured to hold the Regent back by grasping the sleeve of his robe, a scrap of the material being torn away in the effort, so vehement were Matsudaira’s representations of the impending danger. That was on the 21st of February, a fortnight before the murder was actually perpetrated, so that Ii Kamon-no-kami was perfectly conscious of the risk he ran in continuing to perform his daily duty at the castle. His own residence was just outside the second moat, and he had only quitted it a few minutes when, at nine o’clock on the morning of the third of the third month (April 5th according to the Gregorian calendar), he received several sword-thrusts as he sat in his palanquin, and died immediately. The day was one on which his enemies were sure that he would be passing that way early, as it was one of the great annual festivals (Sekku) when the princes and barons invariably went to the palace to pay their respects and offer the congratulations appropriate to the season. Their retinues included numerous swordsmen, and their processions were characterised by a pomp almost unimaginable to-day, with scores of trusty henchmen, their lords’ crests prominently displayed on their helmets and their banners and insignia borne aloft, marching on either side the palanquin to guard their chief. The Regent’s cortege was at the Sakurada Gate when the attack was delivered, and the falling snow had led the retainers to keep their sword-hilts covered, so that there was a fatal delay in encountering the ro-nins, who, moreover, were disguised as peasants, and wore rain-coats to conceal their weapons. Eight of the Regent’s men were killed, and three of the ro-nins were slain on the spot, eight more being brought to execution at a later date. The whole thing was the work of but a few minutes, and the band no doubt had a confederate who was skilled in heraldry watching at the gate, ready to announce the baron’s approach, and able to distinguish his procession by the device on the banners which some of his retinue bore.

The Regent was forty-five years old at the time of his death, having been born in 1815, the fourteenth son of the baron Naonaka. The Ii family is a very old one, an ancestor having aided in the subjugation of the rebels, so termed,—presumably the Ainus,—in the island of Yeso, between A.D. 987 and 1011, when the Emperor Ichijo was on the throne. The name Ii is taken from the spot not far from Hamana inlet, in Totomi province, called Ii-dani, or the valley of Ii, whereat the first baron built a castle in the eighth century. But having been appointed protector of the city of Kioto, one of the baron’s ancestors had removed to Hikoné, on Lake Biwa, to be nearer his charge, and thus it came about that Ii Kamon-no-kami was Lord of Hikoné at the period when he became Regent, and dwelt at the Hikoné Yashiki in Yedo. The baron Ii bequeathed to the nation a couplet illustrative of his real patriotism, a quality which even those who were opposed to his policy never failed to recognise as part of his noble nature. It runs:—

“Omi no mi kishi utsu nami no iku tabi mo, 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.

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.