Chapter II: Japan and the Revolution of 1868

Progress demoralized in Japan under the Shoguns Tokugawa—Imperial
Court, Mikado and _kuges_, feudal society, Shogun, Daimios,
_samourai_, and people—Foundation of the political régime—Military
preponderance of the Shogun—Seclusion of the Mikado—Divisions
among the Daimios—Exclusion of strangers—Artistic development and
economy—Progress of civilization—Decline of the Shogunate—Position
of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century—Foreigners begin
to re-enter the country in 1854—Scandal created by the opening of
the ports—The Court and the clans in the south-west provinces
hostile both to Western civilization and the Shoguns—Fall of the
Shogunate—Restoration of the Mikado and introduction of European
civilization.

We have already seen that the Emperor, or Mikado, was deprived of all authority, and retained only the outward attributes of his Imperial dignity. He dwelt in his palace of Gosho surrounded by 155 _kuges_, or noble families, all of whom were descended from the Imperial house, but whose duties were merely ceremonial. In order to prevent any possibility on their part of the _kuges_ interfering with him, Ieyas reduced the Court to absolute poverty. He fixed the civil list of the Mikado—according to custom, in kind—at 9,000 _kokus_,[15] or 44,550 bushels of rice; as to the _kuges_, many of them lived in the most straightened circumstances. To still more completely isolate the Mikado the feudal princes were never on any pretext allowed to enter Kioto.

These princes, or daimios, who were the leaders of the military order, of whom the Shogun was the chief, were divided into five classes, according to their precedence and importance: firstly, the three great Gosanké families, who reigned over the provinces of Owari, Kii and Mito, and were descended from the three elder sons of Ieyas: they enjoyed the privilege of electing from amongst their number the Shogun in case of the failure of direct heirs; secondly, the sixteen _kokushu_ daimios, whose ancestors possessed their fiefdoms before the elevation of Ieyas, which he had considerably reduced as a punishment for their having taken up arms against him, and whose revenues ranged between 750,000 and 5,000,000 bushels; thirdly, the nineteen _kammong_ daimios, who were the immediate relatives or vassals of the Tokugawas, and descendants of Ieyas’ favourite generals, among whom he distributed the fiefdoms he had confiscated from his enemies: they were eventually the chief supporters of the Shogunate, being, however, not so rich as the above, possessing only between 50,000 and 1,600,000 bushels of revenue; fourthly, the 88 _tozamma_ daimios; and fifthly, the 110 _foudai_ daimios, who were not infrequently cadets of one of the two preceding classes. They possessed an income of at least 50,000 bushels, but rarely more, and their estates were proportionally small. Nevertheless, there were eight _tozammas_ and sixteen _foudais_ who enjoyed between them a revenue of 500,000 bushels, and, who, when united, were sufficiently powerful to be very troublesome.

Next came the _samourai_, forming about a twentieth of the entire population of the Empire. They were a distinct military class under the daimios, and were distinguished by wearing, even in infancy, the two swords Ieyas called the ‘living soul of the _samourai_.’ Excepting in one or two principalities at the extreme south, notably at Satsuma, they were never agriculturists, but, despising all manual labour, lived on salaries paid by their chief. Exceedingly brave and punctilious in all points of honour, they were addicted to vendetta, and added to their other peculiarities the ferocious custom of _hara-kiri_, which obliged them on the least insult to disembowel themselves with a small sword, an unpleasant rite into which they were initiated when still very young. They were ever ready to shed their blood for their prince and fanatically attached to their clan. It was from them that the troops, as well as all the minor officials in the various principalities, were recruited. The _samourai_ were not only military, but literary, and corresponded to our professional classes, and their opinions only had the slightest influence on the affairs of the country. When a _samourai_, for some reason or other, found himself without a master, either because he had been expelled from his service or his lord had been deprived by the Shogun of his titles and estates, he sometimes turned _ronin_, or knight-errant, more often than not a brigand, and occasionally a redresser of wrongs, but as a rule a fellow capable of the worst sort of crime as well as of the most heroic acts of chivalry. In times of trouble these _ronin_ were wont to form themselves into bands and offer their services to a popular prince, and when accepted, their opinion and influence sometimes became of considerable weight.

Nineteen-twentieths of the population consisted of the _heimin_, or commoners. Of this class the peasantry was by far the most numerous and esteemed. Next came the artisans, then the merchants, for be it remembered that feudal Japan, like feudal Europe, held trade and tradesmen in supreme contempt. Finally the two classes of pariahs, the _eta_, or ‘dirty people,’ who followed the profession of leather-dressers, tanners, curriers, knackers, grave-diggers, etc., then the _hinin_ (not men), and the beggars.

Only on certain rare occasions, when a daimio wished to increase the number of his men-at-arms, and recruited some of his _samourai_ from the _heimin_, or, again, when a _ronin_, tired of vagabondage, embraced some trade or other and contrived to lose himself among the people, were the barriers between class and class ever broken down, and thus society in Japan remained strictly confined within its narrow boundaries for over two centuries. Notwithstanding these restrictions, the country enjoyed during this period a profound peace and great prosperity. Both Ieyas and Iemitsu understood to perfection how to apply the maxim, ‘Divide in order to reign,’ whereby they broke up the influence of the daimios, which, when united, might have proved formidable. This they contrived to do by isolating them from the Imperial Court, and creating between them divergences of interest, and by fermenting among them a spirit of hatred and jealousy. Ieyas had not dared dispossess all his adversaries after his victory, but he confiscated a part at least of their domains, out of which he created a number of fiefs, which he distributed among his allies and soldiers. The descendants of these, the _kammong_ and _foudai_ princes, being ever at war with the _kokushu_ and the _tozamma_, obtained protection from the Shoguns by establishing a common bond of interest, being fully aware that the downfall of the Tokugawas would be sure to involve their own.

A danger undoubtedly presented itself to the south-east of the Empire, for here the domains of the _kokushu_ princes of Choshiu, Satsuma and Hizen and others nearly as powerful formed a continuous line of territory, and consequently a storm rising in that quarter might have been fatal to the Shogunate; but so long as these great vassals received no support from a foreign power, the military preponderance of the Shogun was safe. This state of affairs eventually gave rise to a rigorous exclusion of foreigners. Divided among themselves, isolated from all external influences, deprived of all communication with the Court, the daimios in due time lost a great deal of influence in their own principalities. By virtue of the Sankin law, promulgated in 1635 by Iemitsu, and solemnly ratified by the Mikado, they were compelled to sojourn at least one year out of two at Yedo, and to leave their women and children during the following year in that capital as hostages. In this manner their initiative was enfeebled, and as they were obliged in great part to leave the administration of their own affairs in the hands of subordinates, they soon became mere idlers, under the constant supervision of a swarm of spies, who reported to the Shogun any attempt on their part to resist his authority, or to conspire against him. Notwithstanding its many drawbacks, this administrative system, although it unquestionably weakened the political character of the Japanese, was in the long-run, by securing a prolonged peace, exceedingly beneficial to the country, especially as regards the development of art and literature, and it is from the period of the Tokugawas that dates all that is finest in Japanese architecture, painting, sculpture, lacquering, including the temples of Nikko and the noblest specimens of Satsuma faience. In the meantime civilization had made rapid progress, and the intellectual influence of China upon Japan was paramount. The Chinese classics, formerly neglected by the Japanese, were now, thanks to the initiative of Ieyas, studied with ardour both at the Court of his successors and at that of the Mikado, and were even publicly taught in the ever-increasing number of schools. And thus it came to pass that when the Europeans returned in 1854 they found Japan more completely under the influence of Chinese art and literature than had their ancestors in the sixteenth century.

The causes which brought about the revolution of 1868, which resulted in the suppression of the Shogunate and of feudalism, and in the rapid introduction of European civilization, were quite as important and as deeply rooted in the hearts of the people of Japan as were those which led to the French Revolution in 1789, which, it will be remembered, had been brewing for a very long time before its eventual outbreak. Politically, the decadence of the Shogunate commenced in 1652, after the death of Iemitsu, and especially at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the Tokugawas began gradually to decline, precisely as had done the various dynasties that had preceded them. Surrounded by a brilliant court and enlightened patrons both of arts and letters, the Shoguns disdained occupying themselves with public affairs, which they left in the hands of the Gorogio, a council composed of five _foudai_ daimios and their subordinates. This substitution of a rather effete bureaucracy for the old but energetic feudal system soon inspired the great vassals with a hope of being able to overthrow their former masters. They perceived that it was easy to pick a hole in the Shogunate from the doctrinal point of view, even in the name of those very Confucian theories upon which they had the pretension to base their supremacy. As a matter of fact, although the system of paternal government extolled by the illustrious Chinese philosopher is by no means opposed to feudalism, when closely examined into, it shows that there was no place in it for the Shogunate, since it does not admit of any intermediary between the father and his children.

At the same time, in the eighteenth century a whole college of literary men and a distinct school of literature rose, whose principal object was the study of the ancient texts, to collate, publish, and interpret them, whereby certain political and religious conclusions were arrived at, tending to prove that the only legitimate power in Japan was the autocracy of the Mikado, the descendant of the gods, and the only true religion Shintoism, and that patriotism, moreover, demanded the restoration of the ancient political and social organization which had existed in the Empire long before the introduction of Buddhism, feudalism, and of Chinese ideas in general. If these theories did not interest the people, they certainly, and very effectively, created a breach between the literary classes and the _samourai_, on the one hand, and the Shogunate and its supporters, who by this time had become not only unpopular with the productive classes of the nation, but were even looked upon in the light of a tax, against which the people very naturally rebelled, failing to see why they should be called upon to support an idle and otherwise useless caste.

In 1700 the Government, financially embarrassed, was compelled to diminish the number of charges imposed upon it by the feudal system, and to increase taxation, whereupon the merchants deemed it prudent to conceal the exact amount of their fortunes, and the peasants, who paid their lords a third or a half of their harvests, were not infrequently ransomed by the _ronin_. Under these circumstances the feudal system could no longer endure, since it was now brought into contact with a society richer and better organized than itself, and thus it became impossible for the Japanese Government to prevent the penetration into the Empire of European ideas, which filtered through the one port, Nagasaki, left partially open for the benefit of the Dutch. From the eighteenth century onwards certain young _samourai_ were always to be found at this port endeavouring to place themselves in contact with the Dutch. The Shogun Tzunayoshi (1650–1709) pretended not to notice what was happening, although his Government was ostentatiously endeavouring to repress any kind of intercommunication between the natives and foreigners.

It appears that medicine was the first science which excited the interest of the youthful Japanese students. They at first managed to obtain from the Dutch some books, containing anatomical plates, which both interested and surprised them on account of the great difference which existed between the figures represented in these works and the fantastic theories invented by the Chinese doctors. At considerable risk, for the laws on the subject were extremely severe, they secretly experimented upon a corpse, in order to compare the results with the anatomical sketches they had obtained from Europe. This led to their procuring a Dutch treatise on anatomy, which, with great difficulty, they translated into Japanese, spending sometimes as much as a whole day upon a single phrase. Before the end of the eighteenth century several Dutch-Japanese dictionaries were compiled, and a good many European works were translated and published privately, and read with all that ardour which fear of persecution ever engenders.

Before the commencement of the present century these studies produced practical results, and the country was peppered with furnaces and windmills built after Dutch models. It led, also, to the introduction of several novel industries, which were evidently inspired by some occult European influence. However feeble these beginnings may have been, both European and modern Japanese writers attach a great importance to this early initiation of a certain number of able and learned men to at least one of the languages, and to some of the sciences of the West. It prepared the way for many ardent advocates of European civilization to influence the Japanese to accept European ideas. This was the impression conveyed to me at Tokio by that very able gentleman Mr. Fukuzawa, the editor of the most important newspaper published in Tokio, the _Jiji Shimpo_, or ‘Times,’ who is also founder and director of one of the largest free schools in Japan. He himself had studied Dutch between 1840 and 1850, when quite a young man, and showed me a book translated from the Dutch and published in Tokio in 1770. ‘The days,’ said he, ‘of the old régime in Japan were counted when in 1854 the Americans forced my country to open her ports, and the Shogunate, which had become exceedingly unpopular, undermined on all sides, crumbled to the dust.’

The situation of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century was therefore not unlike that of France on the eve of the Revolution; but, fortunately, above the honeycombed Government, doomed to fall at the first serious outbreak of popular displeasure, Japan possessed the Imperial dynasty, a power universally respected, all the more so because it was so completely exempt from interference in public affairs; towards it every heart turned in the hour of trouble, and the remarkable reforms were accepted in its name as proceeding from a Sovereign who ruled by Divine right. In 1853 an event occurred which more than any other tended to the overthrow of the Shogunate. An American squadron, consisting of four men-of-war, under the command of Commodore Perry, appeared in the Bay of Yedo with the object of presenting a letter from the President of the United States to the Shogun demanding the conclusion of a treaty of commerce and the opening of the ports. It was in vain that the Bakufu (the Government of Yedo) tried to induce the Commodore to proceed to Nagasaki and to employ the mediation of the Dutch and Chinese. Perry replied that he would only accord a few months for the delivery of the answer he demanded, and promised to return and fetch it in the following year. The Government of Yedo was taken by surprise, and feeling that it was impossible to resist the importunate and imperative strangers, and alarmed at the grave consequences which might result from the opening out of the country, addressed a circular to the daimios detailing the facts and asking their advice. Some of them suggested the opening of only one or two ports for a limited time, say three or four years, as an experiment, but the greater number—Prince Mito, chief of the house of Tokugawa, at their head—were of a contrary opinion, and counselled that no concession should be granted, and that the country should forthwith arm itself and prepare for resistance. Nevertheless, when Perry returned some time afterwards, a treaty was signed permitting the opening of the two ports of Shimoda and Hakodate, and, moreover, granting permission for the establishment of an American consulate (1854). This official took up his residence in 1857, just as France, England, and Russia had frightened the Shogun by a naval display into granting them like privileges, which were still further augmented by a new convention promulgated in 1858.

The prolonged isolation in which the feudal lords of Japan had hitherto lived had filled them with a horror of all things foreign, so that the concessions made by the Shogun very naturally produced an extraordinary fermentation among the military classes, who considered all these privileges bestowed upon the barbarians as so many outrages to the national dignity. The Imperial Court was not less scandalized. When the Mikado first heard of the arrival of so many Westerners on the sacred soil of Japan, he ordered public prayers to be said at Ise, the most holy temple in Japan, and presently a secret understanding was arrived at between the Court of Kioto and the clans in the south-west, who, although they were perfectly sincere in their detestation of the strangers, nevertheless thought this incident afforded an excellent chance for satisfying their hereditary rancour against the Tokugawa and a possibility of annihilating their power. When confronted by these dangers, the Shogun endeavoured to shirk his responsibility, and turned to the Mikado, asking him to confirm the treaties which he had himself concluded. A statesman of great energy and of progressive tendencies, Ii-Kammon-no-Kami, now determined to intimidate the Mikado and obtain from him at any cost the desired signature, which under such circumstances at another period would have been a mere formality. But this able man was assassinated in 1860 by the _ronin_, who, in accordance with Japanese usage, presently published a patriotic declaration justifying their crime. Needless to say, the Shogun, in his vain attempt to reconcile both parties, fell to the ground, like the man in the proverb who sought to seat himself between two stools. The audacity of his adversaries increased, and the Imperial Court and the daimios began to interfere without the slightest hesitation in the affairs of State. In 1862, against all precedent, the Prince of Satsuma, in going to Yedo, passed by Kioto, and undertook to escort thither a _kuge_, who was carrying Imperial despatches to the Shogun, and invited him to appear before the Emperor. The Bakufu now found itself so absolutely powerless that it was obliged to submit to all demands, including destitutions and reintegrations of dignitaries, together with the permission for the daimios to leave Yedo with their families; and thus was the first step taken towards the ultimate ruin of the time-honoured Shogunate.

For the first time in two hundred and thirty years a Shogun—a minor—went up to Kioto in March, 1863, preceded by the Regent. The Mikado left his palace, and, contrary to secular etiquette, went in solemn state to the temple of the God of War, where he bestowed the sword of honour upon the Shogun as the ensign of supreme command with which he was to expel the barbarians. The Shogun’s second visit to Kioto in 1864, on the other hand, witnessed his complete abasement; for the Court no longer accepted his decrees, and refused him any further control over their finances. In a word, from being master he had now become servant. Amongst those who immediately surrounded the Emperor, there were still many who revolted at the idea of his being allowed to occupy himself with the government of the Empire, and their so doing gave the rebel clans in the south-west time to reorganize themselves. After a short attempt at revolt, they soon came to the conclusion that further dissensions would only play into the hands of their enemies, and from 1865 the majority of the _samourai_ had joined a general conspiracy which it was hoped would result in the ruin of the already crumbling Shogunate. Still, the cry of ‘Death to the barbarians!’ was not so easily suppressed, and hatred of the foreigner remained for some time yet extremely fierce among the masses. The governing classes, however, who had been brought into contact with Europe, began to see that it was useless resisting its power, especially after Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma, was bombarded in 1863 by a British squadron as a punishment for the murder of Mr. Richardson by the Prince’s escort. The daimios and their councils no longer closed their eyes to the existing condition of affairs, and recognising the uselessness of resisting Powers which were armed with such formidable engines of war, they changed their policy as by magic, loaded the foreigners with honours, opened their ports to them, and even made preparations to place the Japanese army under the same régime as that of civilized nations. This conduct was not wholly disinterested, for they were shrewd enough to perceive the commercial advantages which might ultimately accrue to them as a reward for their liberality. The Court followed their example, and two years after having issued an order to ‘sweep the strangers from the soil of Japan’ as if they were so much dust, the Emperor ratified the treaties of 1865 at the demand of the Shogun, who had come to Kioto with 70,000 men to suppress the open revolt of the Prince of Choshiu.

This struggle between the Tokugawa and a subordinate vassal was their last and supreme effort to regain power. Unfortunately for them, they were crushed in the attempt, and their military prestige was for ever destroyed. The Regent Hitotsubashi, who succeeded the young Shogun, who died on September 19, entertained no illusions as to the gravity of his position. He was by this time firmly convinced that it was absolutely necessary radically to modify the constitution of the country, and feeling certain that it would be useless any longer to resist so powerful and popular a wave of progress, he determined to associate himself with the new ideas, in the hope thereby of preserving some measure of his family’s former influence. He therefore entreated the Emperor to summon a council of the principal daimios, who accordingly assembled at Kioto in 1868, with the result that they one and all advised the Emperor to allow the centralization of the Government to take place at once, as being absolutely necessary to the welfare of the country. The Prince of Tosa, one of the chiefs of the south, addressed a letter to the Shogun, in which he informed him of the results of the meeting, and that they had acknowledged the supremacy of the Emperor. Hitotsubashi, seeing that resistance was of no further avail, sent in his resignation, which was accepted, with the condition, however, that he should continue to direct public affairs until after the general assembly of all the daimios. The southern clans, fearing that the Tokugawa might still be able to recover their power, made a bold move, and attempted to seize the person of the Mikado. On January 3, 1868, the Imperial seal was stolen, and a decree issued handing over the guardianship of the palace to the _samourai_ of Satsuma, Hizen and Tosa. On the following day the Shogunate was formally abolished. Hitotsubashi retired to Osaka with his army, where, trembling lest he might fall into some trap skilfully prepared by his enemies, and refusing to listen to any overtures, even the offer of a high position in the new Government, he marched with his men on Kioto; but the unfortunate Shogun was now treated as a mere rebel, and when he beheld the troops of the hostile clans carrying the embroidered standard of the Mikado, he realized that he was betrayed by his own people, and fled by sea to Yedo, where he surrendered unconditionally to Prince Arisugawa, commander of the ‘Army of Punishment,’ The princes of his family were the first to rally round the Emperor; others of his partisans struggled for a brief time with an adverse fate, but were finally overcome, and thus a revolution which began with the cry of ‘Down with the foreigners!’ and was provoked by the daimios and the _samourai_, the representatives of feudalism, against the authority of the Shogun, ended in the destruction of feudalism, and in the definite introduction into Japan of Western civilization.

Soon afterwards, when the Imperial Court began to better understand foreign manners and customs, the _kuges_, the more intelligent among them, from being antagonistic became their staunchest friends and supporters. Presently the mass of the people, following the lead of their superiors, enthusiastically accepted the new idea that Japan could no longer live isolated. Their rulers had the distinct merit of understanding that in order to become the equal of the Western nations, if only from the simple point of view of material progress, it would not suffice for Japan to borrow their cannons and their guns, or even their military training, an experiment which had signally failed with other Oriental Powers; but that if Western civilization was to be of the least good to Japan, it was absolutely necessary to accept it in all its branches, civil, industrial and commercial, as well as military. The promoters of the movement, the ministers and agents of the great lords, had no more interest in maintaining feudalism than had, after the Revolution, the inferior clergy and squires in the Government of France before 1789. The first step in the suppression of feudalism was the abolition of the privileges of the _samourai_, who might, had they been allowed to retain them, have become troublesome.

In 1876 the carrying of the two swords, their erstwhile distinguishing insignia, was prohibited. The stipends which they had previously received from their lords, and of which the State had possessed itself, were capitalized, and the territorial revenues of the daimios, which were at first compensated by annual pensions, were transformed in the same manner. These changes, which were undoubtedly beneficial to the bulk of the population, nevertheless brought about a great deal of misery, by throwing a number of people who had hitherto enjoyed all the privileges of fortune into humble circumstances. The peasantry benefited most by the new form of Government, and became, without having to pay anything, in a very short time owners of the land which they had hitherto only held as tenants, and, moreover, no longer obliged to pay a tribute to their feudal lords, but only a small tax to the Central Government. Needless to say, there was considerable resistance on the part of the two millions of people whom these new laws deprived of privileges which they had enjoyed for centuries, but these were easily and speedily suppressed. From 1869, in order further to mark the rupture between the old and the new order of things, the residence of the Emperor was transferred from Kioto to Yedo, now known as Tokio. In 1872 the first Japanese railway was opened between the new capital and Yokohama. The old-fashioned _samourai_ were at first dreadfully scandalized when they saw the Emperor, against all precedent, driving about among the lower classes in an open carriage. But the invading wave was too strong for resistance, and presently a number of _samourai_ of their own accord, especially in the capital, gave up the custom of wearing the two swords. Yet another flicker of the old spirit, however, reappeared in 1877, when the clan of Satsuma rose and endeavoured to oppose the introduction of so many innovations. This rebellion was suppressed by Marshal Saigo, who lost his life in the affair, leaving, however, behind him a name still universally venerated in Japan. In 1889 Viscount Mori, a Japanese statesman of very advanced opinions, was stabbed by a fanatic on the day of the proclamation of the new Constitution. At present no one in Japan, be he statesman or simple citizen, unless, indeed, he chance to be some fanatic or other under the influence of the Buddhist priests in some out-of-the-way district, dreams of disturbing the pleasant relations which exist between the native population and foreigners. After the repression of the rebellion in Satsuma the new Government was definitively consolidated, and the country fully launched on the road to complete Europeanization. In 1889 the Parliamentary system was introduced, and we shall presently see with what success. It is therefore not saying too much to assert, before we proceed further, that the wonderful revolution which has taken place in our day in Japan is not ephemeral, and that it has now gone too far to be in any danger of reaction. It is, moreover, quite in accord with the antecedents and the intellectual spirit of this remarkable people, and therefore likely not only to become permanent, but even progressive.