Japan's Modern History, 1857-1937

A New Political Narrative

Junji Banno

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317682967
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios étnicos

Over the course of the period 1857 to 1937 in Japan, six distinct stages can be identified as the country moved from Shogun rule and its subsequent overthrow, from industrialisation and investment to the Meiji Constitution and then from Taish? democracy to Sh?wa fascism. In this book, Junji Banno stresses the mutual relationships between each period, and to this end renames then accordingly: the age of reform; age of revolution; age of construction; age of management; age of reorganisation; and age of crisis.

Following this model, the book covers eighty years of history in Japan, focusing on political history and foreign relations, with extensive material also on economic development and foreign influences on political institutions and practices. Based on extensive archival research, Japan's Modern History considers synoptically the key trends and their significance over the period of 1857 to 1937. In turn, it presents in detail fascinating information on many of the main leaders and other significant figures, with extensive quotations from their writings, letters and diaries.

This book is a translation into English of a major work of scholarship by a leading historian of modern Japan, and may be considered the apex of Junji Banno's work in the field. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of both Japanese history and history more broadly.

1 Reform, 1857–1863

DOI: 10.4324/9781315773957-1

‘Revere the Emperor, expel the foreigner’ (sonnō jōi) versus ‘support the Shōgun, open the country’ (sabaku kaikoku)

Uneven course to the Meiji Restoration

When people hear the term ‘Meiji Restoration’, they generally bring to mind the revival of the monarchy in January 1868 and the Charter Oath in April of the same year. The image of a modern centralised state, absorbing European and American civilisation, having the goal of ‘prosperous country, strong military’ (fukoku kyōhei), as well as ‘government in touch with public opinion’ (kōgi yoron) appeared with great clarity. The latter was also known as a consultative system (gōgisei).

Arriving at this, however, required many twists and turns over 20 years or more, while many leaders and thinkers struggled against great odds in this historic cause.

The reason why such a bitter struggle was needed was the appearance of the pro-Emperor, anti-foreign argument stimulated by foreign pressure. Military pressure by the Western powers, symbolised by the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1853, brought together Japanese ancient tradition (‘revere the Emperor’ – sonnō) and a tradition that had lasted 250 years (‘expel the barbarian’ – jōi). When these two ‘traditions’ were brought together by the Mito school and Yoshida Shōin, as a national policy of ‘revere the Emperor, expel the barbarian (i.e. foreigners)’ (sonnō jōi), a feisty set of national principles was forged.

On the other hand, Japan in the Bakumatsu period, having become accustomed to peace in one country after 250 years of being a closed country, was merely one of a number of small weak countries around the world, and lacked sufficient military and other forces to repel demands from the great powers for the opening of the country. No realistic choice was possible apart from this. For the Bakufu (Shogunate), which controlled Japan, the only thing to do was to open the country. The term used at the time for a combination of support for the Bakufu and acceptance of national opening to the outside world was sabaku kaikoku (‘support the Bakufu, open Japan’).

Table 1.1

Date	Event
1842	China loses the Opium War (1840–2).
1851	Shimazu Nariakira becomes Lord of the Satsuma domain (han).
1853	Commodore Perry sails into Uraga Bay.
1854	Japan–US Treaty of Harmony and Friendship; similar treaties with Great Britain and Russia; Nariakira goes to Edo in sankin kōtai, accompanied by Saigō Takamori.
1856	US Consul-General Townsend Harris resident in Shimoda.
1858	Japan–US Treaty of friendship and Commerce. Ansei purge (~59). Shimazu Nariakira dies.
1859	Saigō Takamori exiled to Amami Ōshima. Hashimoto Sanai executed.
1862	Sakurada Gate Incident. Marriage of a princess to the Shōgun. Shimazu Hisamitsu statement of opinion about reconciliation between the Court and the Bakufu. Teradaya Incident. Saigo returned to Kagoshima and again exiled (Tokunoshima → Okinagarabeshima). Hisamitsu obtains a commission and goes to Kyōto (Hitotsubashi Keiki made regent to the Shogun, and Matsudaira Yoshinaga made political president). The Namamugi Incident (Richardson murder). Samurai from the Chōshū domain set fire to the British consulate.

It was very difficult to overcome the conflict between ‘revere the Emperor, expel the foreigner’ and ‘support the Shogun, open the country’. This was not only a basic conflict in foreign policy; whether to revere the Emperor or support the Shogun also represented a fundamental division within domestic politics. Over the 15 years between Commodore Perry’s arrival in 1853 and the Meiji Restoration in 1868, finding how to reconcile these two conflicts was a tremendous struggle.

The four stages of this great struggle

Whether to revere the Emperor or support the Shogun, whether to expel the foreigner or open the country (two rival versions of the national interest) – both these issues developed in stages.

The first stage was the Chinese defeat in the Opium War of 1842. The idea that, emboldened by their victory, the British would in the near future make sure that Japan opened its doors to the outside world appeared crystal clear to a part of the Japanese leadership. From then on some people soon came to propose that Japan should build up a navy, fortresses and a modern army.

The second stage, obviously, was the arrival of the American fleet in 1853 and 1854. Japan could not resist the demand for the country to be opened up, made by Commodore Perry backed by powerful warships. Had Japan refused and gone to war, defeat would have been inevitable. But if the Bakufu, which had always identified national isolation with the national interest, accepted the demand and opened the country, it would lose the legitimacy of its rule.

As for the third stage, at the time of Perry’s arrival the American Government merely demanded ‘harmony and friendship’ without any mention of trade, but from 1857 to 1858, through the first US Consul-General to be posted in Japan, that government pressed hard for the signature of a trade treaty. At this time, in addition to the conflict between expelling the foreigner and opening the country, a conflict was emerging between the Bakufu and powerful domain lords (daimyō) over the succession to the Shōgun. This meant that both foreign and domestic policy were simultaneously in a state of confusion. As a result, the Senior Minister (tairō), Ii Naosuke, arbitrarily decided to sign a trade treaty between Japan and the US, while the powerful feudal lords and their retainers who were his opponents were subjected to a campaign of wholesale arrests known as the Ansei Purge.

For the time being this ended in a victory for the ‘country-opening’ policies of the Bakufu. The fact, however, of going ahead without the permission of the Emperor strengthened the links between sonnō and jōi, while on the other hand, neglect of the opinions of powerful lords led to the emergence of the ‘union of Court and Shogunate’ argument. Opening the country was seen as desirable, but insisting that to ignore the Emperor and powerful han (domain) lords was not to be tolerated became the basis of fierce criticism of the Bakufu, as well as of sonnō jōi.

As for the fourth stage, these two different forces criticising the Bakufu – those advocating Union of Court and Shogunate (kōbu gattai), and those advocating sonnō jōi – clashed head on in the period 1863–4. The Aizu han, which supported the Bakufu, and the Satsuma han, which supported Union of Court and Shogunate, came together and plotted to isolate the Chōshū han, which advocated sonnō jōi. These occurrences are known as the 18th August 1863 coup and the Kinmon Incident (1864).

Meanwhile, however, what had been a pro-Bakufu, country-opening argument was replaced by that for unifying Court and Shogunate while also seeking to open the country, whereas the Chōshū domain continued to maintain the national interest argument combining sonnō and jōi. It was clear that the Chōshū domain on its own was no match, either militarily or economically, for an alliance of the Bakufu with the powerful domains. Even so, for the Chōshū domain, which sought to defend ‘national interest’, opposing those wishing to open the country as well as opposing the Bakufu was an attractive option. The fact that in the 1864 Kinmon coup the Chōshū domain was given the insulting title of ‘Emperor’s enemy’ was not sufficient to put an end to the sonnō jōi problem.

The only way of solving this was to shelve the problem of choosing between the expulsion of foreigners and opening the country, and reduce the choice to one of revering the Emperor as against supporting the Bakufu. If this could be done, then it would make it possible for Satsuma and Chōshū to link hands on the principle of ‘revering the Emperor and overthrowing the Bakufu’. If it was possible to wrap up what had been the national interest for about 250 years – namely ‘closed country’ – in what had been the national interest since antiquity – namely reverence for the Emperor – then the powerful domain lords who emphasised unifying Court and Shogunate were finding that the basis for supporting the Bakufu was becoming less persuasive.

At a time when the conflict between opening the country and expelling the foreigner had been shelved, the demand to respect the views of the powerful domain lords in favour of uniting Court and Shogunate mutated into a demand to respect the opinions, not only of domain lords, but also of powerful retainers, to open up political debate. So when ‘revere the Emperor and overthrow the Bakufu’, and ‘open up the debate’ became slogans widely used by powerful lords and domain (han) samurai, the fourth stage of ‘desperate struggle’ reached its end, and circumstances moved rapidly on to the Meiji Restoration. My hypothesis is that this happened in 1864, and that its promoter was Saigō Takamori of the Satsuma domain.

Saigō Takamori and his argument for a ‘multi-party alliance’

Without a temporary alliance between reformists within the regime and reformists outside the regime, no revolution will succeed. Of course, both before the revolution and after it, these two reformist groups will in many cases struggle with each other. But unless both groups mistakenly think that they both seek the same goals, revolution will not be consummated.

The only revolution that has succeeded in modern Japanese history is the Meiji Restoration. The symbol of ‘revolution’ is the restoration of the Emperor in January 1868, but its starting point was the ‘Ansei Purge’ by the Senior Minister, Ii Naosuke, in 1858, and preceding it the ‘Ansei Reform’. So through more than ten years of reform from that point until the restoration of the Emperor, reformists inside the regime and reformists outside the regime, clashing fiercely with one another, contested the leadership of reform. In modern Japanese history the former are known as the Unity of Court and Bakufu (kōbu gattai) faction, while the latter are called the Revere the Emperor, Expel the Foreigner (sonnō jōi) faction.

Change in the reform market place

As we can, however, see if we consider Hashimoto Sanai, samurai from the Echizen domain, who was executed in the Ansei Purge, the reform faction from outside the regime did not have to be an advocate of expelling foreigners. In Japan, before the Ansei Purge, there was nobody more clearly enthusiastic about opening the country than Hashimoto. If we seek to define ‘reformers outside the system’ including Hashimoto Sanai, then leaving aside the conflict between opening the country and expelling the foreigner, we have to call them pro-Emperor and anti-Bakufu.

Those historians who are familiar with all the details of the decade-long Bakumatsu period may object to regarding Hashimoto Sanai around the time of the Ansei Purge as a member of the anti-Bakufu faction. Not only did he support the Bakufu in its signing of the treaties (thus, opening Japan), but his domestic political reform fitted precisely the kōbu gattai model. Moreover, Sanai acted in accordance with the opinions of Matsudaira Yoshinaga, Lord of the Echizen domain, and related to the Bakufu, so that he was not a ‘reformer from outside the regime’, but a ‘reformer from inside the regime’.

On the other hand, in the reform period of more than ten years from 1857 to 1868, something we may call a ‘reform market’ emerged from time to time. Those calling clearly for restoration of the Emperor and overthrow of the Shōgun just before the Emperor was restored had been no more radical in pursuit of change than Hashimoto Sanai, who in 1857 had been preaching Unity of Court and Bakufu. Unless we take account of this ‘reform market’ and measure the degree of radicalism of each participant, we may not rate highly the thought of those who were going to die without living to see the Emperor restored. In 1857 and 1858, while the Bakufu was still maintaining its autocratic rule that had lasted for well over 250 years, an ordinary samurai from the Echizen domain (a domain doctor, in his early twenties) urged his domain lord to act and approached the Court. This was an example of ‘reform outside the regime’, and was a precursor of pro-Emperor activity aimed at overthrowing the Bakufu (sonnō tōbaku). In fact, I believe that failure to understand this ‘reform marketplace’, and taking literally such slogans as sonnō tōbaku (Revere the Emperor and Overthrow the Bakufu) and kōbu gattai (Unity of Court and Bakufu), constitutes the greatest reason why the history of more than a decade preceding the Meiji Restoration has been distorted.

When we consider how the situation changed in terms of ‘reform market’ fluctuations, we may discover the seeds of pro-Emperor, anti-Bakufu arguments among the reformers of 1857–8, and discern precursors of ‘reformers outside the system’.

What gave me this understanding of the Bakumatsu period was a low-ranking samurai serving a powerful domain lord (the two lowest ranks out of nine), comparable with Hashimoto Sanai, namely Saigō Takamori. The Satsuma domain lord under whom Saigō was working, Shimazu Nariakira, in contrast to Matsudaira Yoshinaga of the Echizen han, was an outer lord, but the size of his domain was more than twice that of the Echizen domain (Satsuma 770,000 koku of rice produced on its land, Echizen 320,000 koku; in population terms, roughly 770,000 as against 320,000). If we offset size against standing, the Satsuma domain had a powerful lord of about the same standing as the Lord of Echizen, while the position of Saigō Takamori, working under his domain lord, was about the same as that of Hashimoto Sanai.

Unlike Hashimoto Sanai, who was arrested during the Ansei Purge of 1858 and executed the next year, Saigō experienced a difficult five years, but in the end fought as a principal leader in the Meiji Restoration. He maintained a consistent position throughout the Bakumatsu period, to the extent that with him there is no need to refer to the previously mentioned ‘reform market’.

One of Saigō’s key terms throughout the Bakumatsu period was gasshō renkō (multi-party alliance). He used this term in two senses.

Shelving the dispute between ‘opening the country’ and ‘expelling the foreigner’

One meaning was of course cooperation between powerful domain lords, centred on the Lord of Satsuma. The structure of friendship between powerful domain lords naturally changed with shifting circumstances, but Matsudaira Yoshinaga, Lord of Echizen (later retired), up to the Kogosho Conference at the Palace in Kyoto to restore the Emperor in January 1868, was consistently a target of gasshō renkō by the Satsuma domain.

Importantly, however, there was also another kind of gasshō renkō. For Saigō, the most important target of this strategy was not the lords of powerful domains, but the ‘reform factions’ among their retainers. Whether this reform faction among retainers believed in opening the country or expelling foreigners did not matter. Volunteers from any domain who wished to reform the Bakufu were all allies of Saigō. The first real biography of Saigō, Saigō Takamori den (‘Biography of Saigō Takamori’), published in 1894 by Katsuta Magoyasu, describes as follows the affair of the Shogunate succession in 1856–7:

Even though there was contestation, over whether to open the country or keep it closed, between Bakufu leaders like Hotta Masayoshi and the Kyoto-based pro-Emperor party, Saigō Takamori did not think this contestation important. What he thought important was the disagreement between the Hitotsubashi Seishi faction, which wished for major reform, and the Kishū faction, which wanted to maintain the ancien...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Editor’s preface
• Translator’s introduction
• Conventions
• Map
• Introduction
• 1 Reform, 1857–1863
• 2 Revolution, 1863–1871
• 3 Construction, 1871–1880
• 4 Management, 1880–1893
• 5 Reorganisation, 1894–1924
• 6 Crisis, 1925–1937
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Index