Part 10

Acting under the authority of the sovereign, the perpetrators of the _coup d’état_ proceeded to set up a provisional government, and the Shogun was directed to surrender his fiefs and hold himself entirely at the disposal of the Emperor, whose pleasure would in due course be made known to him. This decisive stroke was delivered by the combined agency of the leaders of the clans of Satsuma, Choshiu, Hizen, and Tosa, and the Shogun was on the verge of yielding to the demand made upon him when hostilities broke out between his adherents and the followers of the Satsuma chieftain. The Shogun was in this way driven into the position of seeming antagonism to the Imperial Government as provisionally constituted, and the fact that he was in great measure the victim of circumstances was in after years most generously recognised by his imperial master. The Shogun, acting no doubt on the advice tendered to him by his supporters, quitted Kioto on horseback, accompanied by only a few mounted attendants, on the 6th January, and reached the castle of Osaka early in the morning of the 7th, just four days after the _coup d’état_ and though he has by some been blamed for allowing himself to be ousted from his position at the Emperor’s side, as the principal adviser of his sovereign, it is difficult to censure him for so doing seeing that the monarch had already begun to issue decrees without consulting his customary adviser. In fact, the decree which was issued as a result of the _coup d’état_ expressly stated that thenceforward everything connected with the government of the country would emanate from the Cho-Tei—_i.e._ the Imperial Court at Kioto—and strict obedience to the terms of the proclamation was enjoined upon all. The chiefs of the Aidzu and other clans which held allegiance to the Tokugawa side throughout its vicissitudes were summoned to a conference the night previous to the Shogun’s departure for Osaka, and a letter was written to the Cho-Tei by the Shogun in which he declared that it being evident that some deceiver stood at the young sovereign’s side he would, for the safety of the nation, resume the duties of his office, and the better to secure for himself due freedom of action he would remove to the city of Osaka, where he could in his Majesty’s interests venture to take upon himself once more the direction of affairs as Shogun. History relates that at the meeting of his supporters held in the Shogunal palace at Kioto it was urged on his Highness that it would be better to retain control of the neck of the bottle by holding Osaka, the key of Kioto, than wait to fall into the trap which had been set for them. The formal resignation of the Shogun had been tendered by him to the Emperor at the close of 1867, but not definitely accepted, and when it was found that he had quitted the capital an imperial messenger was despatched to Osaka to request his return and the lords of Owari and Echizen were ordered to furnish an escort. Preparations were at once made to obey the sovereign’s command, but the Aidzu and Kuwana clansmen, who had followed their chiefs to Osaka, declared that they would form the escort necessary, and set out in the van of the force which was to constitute the Shogunal procession on the short journey northward. The Shogun himself was to start with the last of his little army, some four days later than the vanguard. To the experienced eyes of the Satsuma and Choshiu leaders, who now had entirely the ear of the young ruler, and whose troops were at this time in full possession of the capital, this march back of the Shogun’s whole army had for them the most sinister of meanings, and accordingly their combined regiments were thrown forward, to challenge the advance of the Tokugawa men, as far as Fushimi, a village seven miles from Kioto on the highway east of the river Yodo. The Commander-in-chief of these imperialist forces was the prince who then bore the title of the Ninnaji-no-miya, a close relative of the Emperor, and before him was carried the gold brocade banner which is emblematic of delegated sovereign authority. The prince afterwards took by imperial order the name of Higashi Fushimi-no-miya, and he is elsewhere referred to as having subsequently spent some time in England. Marshal Saigo Takamori, as he afterwards became, held a position equivalent to that of Chief of Staff in modern campaigns. The main body of the Shogun’s army marched by the Fushimi-kai-do, or eastern road, though a portion took the western one, and there was a contingent of the followers of the lord of Idzumi on that road also, on whose fealty the Shogun believed he might rely. As the sequel showed, the defection of this force was his undoing, for at the critical moment it allowed itself to be won over bodily by the imperialists. At the village of Fushimi the Shogun’s men found that barriers had been erected to stay their progress, and though when challenged the leading company made answer “this is the procession of his Highness the Shogun, who is going to Kioto by the Emperor’s express command,” passage was refused by the imperialist guard. The Shogun’s men were ordered to advance, and an engagement commenced which lasted for three whole days without intermission. The treachery of the men of Tsu, retainers of Todo Idzumi-no-kami, turned the scale, and the Shogun’s army was compelled to retreat from Fushimi towards Osaka, where the Chiefs of Aidzu and other clans loyal to the Tokugawa house found the warships belonging to their side, under the command of Admiral Enomoto, lying off the mouth of the Yodo at Tempo-san. The Shogun himself received the distressing news of the defeat of his forces at Fushimi when about to set out with the last of his army for Kioto, on the 27th of January 1868, and on the afternoon of that day, realising that irremediable disaster had befallen his arms, he quietly took his departure from Osaka castle attended by a few faithful friends, and safely reached the _Kaiyo Maru_.

This was a Dutch-built frigate which had been purchased for him in Europe and brought out to Japan shortly before. In order to reach the ship the Shogun had had to take boat at the Shin-Sei bridge in Osaka, whence the distance to Tempo-san is about four miles by river.

But before he set out he penned a letter to the foreign representatives then present in Osaka, to the effect that the battle having gone against him, they must provide for their own safety, and they accordingly did so to the best of their ability. The British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, was staying in a temple in the northern part of the city, and, with his mounted escort of ex-constables of the London police, he rode into the newly established foreign settlement at Kawaguchi that night. At this crisis in the affairs of Japan it was advisable, to prevent mishap, that the British and other foreign ministers should be well guarded, and Sir Harry had with him in addition to his own escort a detachment of the Ninth Regiment, then quartered at Yokohama, always at his disposal. The ships of the powers also lay at Tempo-san, within hail, but the weather being at the moment exceptionally stormy the ministers could not get aboard the vessels. It has to be recorded that Osaka city was held by the men of Choshiu, who showed every disposition to befriend the foreign residents and protected them against any possible violence of the mob, though only four years had elapsed since the bombardment of Shimonoseki by the allied squadrons, and that incident could not have been entirely forgotten. The Tokugawa men had quitted Osaka on the day following the departure of the Shogun, and the mob seized the opportunity, prior to the entry of the Choshiu troops, to pillage the castle and set it afire. The men wounded in the battle of the 27th painfully made their way along the roads from Fushimi, and many were attended by the medical officer of the British Legation who had accompanied Sir Harry Parkes from Tokio. Dr Willis, the genial Irishman and accomplished surgeon here alluded to, is doubtless remembered to this day by many of his patients. He was at a later date in charge of the hospital at Kagoshima, belonging to the Satsuma clan, and was universally respected in Japan. When, in 1877, the clan was declared to be in rebellion, and all foreigners in the country and at out-ports were directed to repair to the nearest “treaty port” for safety, where they would be under the protection of their own warships, he declined to quit his post at the hospital, where he could be of use to his Satsuma friends, and the British cruiser sent to bring away the foreign residents had to leave him behind. But as a bombardment was imminent a Japanese government steamer was sent to fetch him away, and he was then induced to yield.

Although the Shogun had embarked on the _Kaiyo Maru_ on the 27th January at Tempo-san, she did not immediately sail for the gulf of Tokio, but took part in the memorable sea-fight which occurred near Kobé shortly afterwards. Late on the 27th the dwellers in the newly opened foreign settlement saw from the esplanade that the _Kaiyo Maru_, together with the _Ban-riyo Maru_ (which was in reality the _Emperor_ yacht that Queen Victoria had presented to the Shogun), and _Fusiyama_, a steamer that the Shogunate had bought, arrived from Osaka, at a time when there were three vessels of the prince of Satsuma’s little fleet in Kobé harbour. When their adversaries steamed in the Satsuma ships were preparing to leave, but they waited until dawn, and then got under weigh. The _Kaiyo_ immediately sent two shots after them, and one of the Satsuma vessels, originally named the _Kiang-su_, turned and slowly steamed round the harbour, as a challenge, and then followed her consorts the _Scotland_ and the _Lotus_. The three Shogunate vessels instantly accepted the gage of battle, and all six ships disappeared below the horizon to the southward. The fight took place in Awa bay, which faces Kobé, on the Shikoku coast, about forty miles from that now well-known and flourishing port. The _Scotland_ was sunk, and another of the Satsuma ships took fire. No precise knowledge is obtainable as to what damages the remaining vessels received but the _Kaiyo Maru_, _Emperor_ yacht, and _Fusiyama_ were able to reach Shinagawa, close to Tokio, on the 4th of the ensuing month, exactly a week after they left Kobé. Immediately on his arrival there the Shogun landed and went to his castle, now the imperial residence.

Yedo, now Tokio, was at that time still the headquarters of the Shogunate, and while stirring events had taken place in the vicinity of the Ten-shi’s capital of Kioto, scarcely less exciting incidents had had to be recorded in respect of the Shogun’s centre of authority in the north. The duty of keeping the peace in Yedo had been assigned to the dai-mio Sakai Sayemon-no-jo, a magnate whose income was that of 150,000 _koku_.[1] To assist in the work he had engaged a number of _ro-nin_, or masterless samurai, whom he dubbed the Shin-Cho-gumi, _lit._: newly raised company, and installed as a species of police. Finding that the dwellers in the Satsuma Yashiki at Mita, adjoining Shiba, where now stands the Shiba palace, were somewhat addicted to burglary, he determined to put a stop to such irregularities, and demanded of the clansmen then resident in the yashiki that the culprits should be surrendered to justice. In the temper of the samurai of all classes in those days of storm and stress a peremptory demand of this nature was tantamount to a challenge to a trial of strength, and a desperate combat ensued at Mita, in which fifty of the Satsuma men were killed outright. Some contrived to make good their escape to a Satsuma vessel that was at the moment in the harbour of Shinagawa (one of the three that afterwards fought at Awa Bay) and she quickly got up steam and weighed anchor. Four Shogunate ships lying off Shinagawa fired on her as she passed them, and two—the _Eagle_ and the _Dumbarton_—were able to take up the chase. The _Eagle_ and the Satsuma vessel had a long running fight, following an encounter in Mississippi Bay, near Yokohama, which the residents of that port were privileged to witness on the Sunday afternoon, and in the end the Satsuma champion sped away to the southward and the _Eagle_ returned to her anchorage at Shinagawa. In the Mita fight between the Shin-Cho-gumi and other Shogunate men and the retainers of Satsuma the yashiki was practically burned to the ground and the bodies of the fallen were cremated within its walls. It goes without saying that the deadly animosity which existed between the Satsuma and Tokugawa followers was in no sense diminished by these active hostilities.

[1] In those days the standing of a feudal lord among his fellows was in strict accord with his income, and some dai-mios enjoyed enormous revenues as expressed in _koku_—1 _koku_ = 5 bushels of rice.

In resigning into the hands of the Emperor a power that had for two and a half centuries been wielded by the Tokugawa family the Shogun Keiki issued the manifesto which is here reproduced according to a translation made at the time, though the dignity and force of the original composition are necessarily somewhat impaired.

MANIFESTO

“A retrospect of the various changes through which the Empire has passed shows us that after the deadness of the monarchical authority, the power passed into the hands of the Minister of State,—and that by the wars of 1156 to 1159 the governmental power came into the hands of the military class. My ancestor Iyeyasu received greater marks of confidence than any before him, and his descendants have succeeded him for more than two hundred years.

Though I perform the same duties, the objects of the Government and of the penal laws have been missed, and it is with feelings of the greatest humiliation that I find myself obliged to acknowledge my own want of virtue as the cause of the present state of things.

Moreover, our intercourse with foreign countries becomes daily more extensive, and consequently our national policy cannot be pursued unless directed by the whole power of the State.

If therefore the old regime be changed and the Governmental authority be restored to the Imperial Court,—if the counsels of the whole Empire be collected and the wise decisions received,—and if we unite with all our heart and all our strength to protect and maintain the Empire, it will be able to range itself with the nations of the Earth. This comprises our whole duty to our country.

However, if you [the Daimios] have any particular ideas on the subject, you may state them without reserve.”

The Shogun had lost no time in making known to his imperial master at Kioto his desire to submit unreservedly to the sovereign’s will, for a courier was despatched from Yedo shortly after the arrival of the _Kaiyo Maru_ at Shinagawa anchorage. But it turned out that after the Shogun’s departure from Osaka an imperial messenger in the person of the baron Higashi Kuze was sent to Kobé to assure Sir Harry Parkes and the other foreign representatives that the engagements which had been entered into by Japan with their respective governments would be observed to the letter, and the imperial despatch contained an announcement of the Shogun’s resignation. The memorable document was dated the 3rd of February,—the day before the Shogun reached Yedo. Not only was the imperial rescript of the most welcome,—because reassuring,—character, but it bore for the first time in the history of Japan the sign-manual of the Emperor in the form of his personal name of Mutsuhito. Never before in the lifetime of the monarch had the personal name been appended to a state paper, it being customary to attach the great seal alone, but on this occasion both the great seal and that bearing the ruler’s own name were affixed to the document of which Higashi Kuze (now Count) was the bearer. The text thereof was as follows:—

The Emperor of Japan announces to the Sovereigns of all foreign nations and to their subjects that permission has been granted to the Shogun Yoshinobu to return the governing power in accordance with his own request. Henceforward we shall exercise supreme authority both in the internal and external affairs of the country. Consequently the title of Emperor should be substituted for that of Tycoon which has been hitherto employed in the Treaties. Officers are being appointed by us to conduct foreign affairs. It is desirable that the representatives of all the treaty powers should recognise this announcement.

MUTSUHITO.

(With the Seal of Dai Nihon,—Great Japan.)

_February 3, 1868._

The Emperor’s relative Ninnaja-no-Miya, afterwards Prince Higashi Fushimi, then became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and he wrote to all the foreign ministers notifying to them the fact of his appointment, and stating that it was the Emperor’s express mandate to him that all existing agreements made by the Bakufu with foreign countries should be respected.

For a while the Shogun retired to the temple of Uyeno, but on the decision of the Emperor being made known to him he went first to Mito, and not long afterwards to Shidzuoka, the chief town of Suruga province, at that time also known by its ancient name of Sumpu. He directed his followers without exception to adopt a similar course and submit themselves to the imperial will, yielding the Ten-shi implicit obedience from that time forward. In the vast majority of cases, however, this excellent counsel fell on deaf ears, for the adherents of the Tokugawa house were for the most part resolved by this time to carry on the struggle to an end.

On the retirement of Tokugawa Keiki the third son of Prince Tayasu, of the Mito branch of the family, by name Kamenosuké, at that time only five years of age, became the lineal head of the house. He is now Prince Iyesato, the President of the Tokio House of Peers, and bears the title of Kō-shaku, _lit._: Duke, though by courtesy styled Prince, there being in Japan a distinction between those who bear the simple title of Prince and the Imperial Princes of the Blood Royal.

More recently the Emperor, in the abundance of that magnanimity which has ever distinguished him, called the former Shogun, who is to-day in his sixty-ninth year, to the Imperial Palace at Tokio, and conferred upon him likewise the rank of Kō-shaku, a title similar to that borne by Prince Tokugawa Iyesato, who, as explained, represents the older (Tayasu) branch of the Tokugawa family, so that there are now two noblemen who hold this rank in what in pre-Restoration days was the viceregal line of Tokugawa Shoguns who claimed descent from Iyeyasu the Law-giver.

Prince Tokugawa Keiki, during his retirement at Shidzuoka, was often visited by those who had shared the fortunes of the Shogunate, but he entirely refrained from all interference with politics, and lived the life of a country gentleman, finding his recreation mainly in fishing, and showing his sympathy with the hard-working agricultural population in a way that won for him the respect and regard of all classes. When the Emperor sent for him to visit Tokio, a few years ago, he set out amid demonstrations of esteem on the part of the populace in Suruga which must have convinced him by their spontaneity that if in the course of events he had been compelled to relinquish the semi-regal state in which he had dwelt at the capital, he had retained in the hearts of his fellow-subjects of the Ten-shi a place of highest honour, and that the affection for his person evinced at every stage of the journey by those who were in former days his henchmen had flourished unabated throughout the lapse of close upon four decades. A writer once described the Shogunal entourage in terms which, after all the changes that Japan has undergone during the last quarter of a century, read somewhat strangely, but they serve to convey most vividly to the mind that magnificence by which, in the pre-Restoration period, the Court of Yedo was distinguished. There was a direct contrast between it and the almost severe simplicity of the Kioto Dai-ri, which housed the real monarch, in his complete seclusion, while his vicegerent performed most of the duties of sovereignty in a city 400 miles distant. The quotation is from an account given by one of his Highness’s own pages, and affords an interesting sketch of the daily routine in the Shogunal palace, or Nijo, at the Western Capital.

The usual form of address, we are told, was Go Zen (Your Highness), and there were in the palace no fewer than fifty pages, whose duties were to attend on the Shogun at all times, to wait at table, dress his hair in the fashion peculiar to that time, and, when invited to do so, take part in equestrian and other exercises. The Shogun habitually rose at eight o’clock, and made his toilet for the day. He never wore any garment twice, the whole of his raiment being renewed each day. At breakfast seven or eight dishes were placed before him, but he ate sparingly at all meals, and at ten o’clock he saw his ministers in council (the Go-ro-ju, or assembled honoured elders). Having devoted the forenoon to affairs of state he usually, at midday, went to the “male quarters” of the palace to ride, shoot, or play polo,—in Japanese “da-kiu”—being skilled in archery, and a sure shot with the pistol. On the lake he had a boat in which he rowed himself, and he was expert in fishing with a casting-net. At four o’clock he usually returned to the ladies’ palace, and listened to their playing on the _koto_ or _Biwa_ (the _samisen_ was always too vulgar an instrument to have entry to the palace) and at 6 P.M. the evening repast of choice viands was served in great variety. His highness dined alone, having many ladies to wait on him, as well as pages, and the banquet often lasted until 11 P.M., with music and classic dances at intervals during the evening. He had no companions, for the reason, no doubt, that his rank prevented his associating on terms of equality with even the feudal lords, who were obliged by an inflexible etiquette to bow their heads to the floor when in his august presence, and to remain in that attitude throughout an interview. It is recorded that in 1866 a photograph of the Shogun was taken in his palace of Nijo at Kioto by an officer of an English man-of-war then in Japanese waters, his Highness wearing at the time his robes of ceremony, and it would be interesting to learn that the portrait still exists. The Nijo was built by the first Shogun of the Tokugawa line, the “Law-giver” Iyeyasu, and it was designed to be as much a fortress as a palace. The gorgeous gateways, resplendent in lacquer and gilding, leading to the inner apartments, remind one in their wealth of embellishment of those wonderful temple gates and halls at Nikko, constructed not long afterwards by Iyeyasu’s grandson, the magnificent Iyemitsu, and in the splendid audience chamber, where the Shogun sat on a dais to receive the homage of the feudal barons, the visitor catches a glimpse, as it were, of the pomp and circumstance which to the end of the Bakufu’s existence as a power in Japan surrounded the person of the “Last of the Shoguns.”