Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (36 page)

On August 14, 1923, Prime Minister Kat
died, and Admiral
Yamamoto Gonbei was appointed his successor. Two weeks later, on September 1, while Yamamoto was forming his cabinet, the great Kant
earthquake struck the Tokyo-Yokohama region. The quake and the fires that followed killed more than 91,000 people, left 13,000 missing, injured more than 104,000, and destroyed more than 680,000 homes in the Tokyo area alone.
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While the fires raged and the aftershocks continued in both cities, Japanese vigilante groups, abetted by military and police officials, carried out murderous pogroms against Koreans and leftists rumored to have ignited fires, looted, and poisoned wells. More than six thousand Koreans were hunted down and killed throughout the Kant
region and in many other parts of the country.
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Hirohito now gained his first experience as an active commander in chief issuing emergency imperial edicts. He placed Tokyo and its environs under martial law on September 3 and, after all danger from the earthquake had passed, toured sections of the devastated capital on horseback, in military uniform, accompanied by martial-law-commander General Fukuda. On October 10 he paid a similar visit to the Yokohama-Yokosuka area.
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After the Kant
earthquake incidents of lèse-majesté increased and culminated in the infamous Toranomon incident in Tokyo, causing a further postponement of Hirohito's marriage. On December 27, 1923, a young anarchist, Namba Daisuke, fired a small pistol at Hirohito's carriage as he was en route to the Diet to deliver his inaugural address. The bullet shattered the glass, cutting his chamberlain but leaving Hirohito untouched. Namba, the son of a Diet member, had employed a weapon commonly used for shooting birds. Had he not targeted the crown prince, he would have been charged with the lesser crime of attempting to inflict bodily injury.
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Because he had intended to harm the future emperor, however, his action went beyond the parameters of lèse-majesté and sent a shock wave through the entire nation.

This incident quickly caused the highest officials of the land,
from Prime Minister Yamamoto and his entire cabinet to the head of the national police, Yuasa Kurahei, to submit their resignations. Ordinary policemen in the area of the incident were dismissed en masse. Thereafter the strategy of displaying and guarding Hirohito in public was completely reevaluated.
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The day after this incident, December 28, at the start of the Forty-eighth Imperial Diet, the House of Peers held its first secret session in sixteen years.
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Discussion focused on Namba's motivation, social background, and the need to tighten controls over thought. Diet member Nakagawa Yoshinaga observed: “Once people awaken socially [to defects in society] and [those defects] become unbearable, they will erupt, and it will be too late to do anything about it.” He urged the “renovation of unjust institutions.” Another peer, Tsuchiya Mitsukane, observing that Namba had been reading articles written by national university professors in magazines such as
Kaiz
[Reconstruction] and
Kaih
[Liberation], urged the government to strengthen controls over dangerous thoughts.
³¹

Namba was charged under the criminal code and speedily tried by the Great Court of Cassation. The chief judge in the case, Yokota Hideo, reportedly urged Namba to repent in the hope that his statement could later be used to bolster popular respect for the imperial house. Replying tartly, Namba asked whether the chief judge really believed in the emperor's divinity or merely professed such belief out of fear. When Yokota refused to answer, the would-be assassin reportedly declared, “I've proved the joy of living for the truth. Go ahead and hang me.”
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When his death sentence was read, on November 13, 1924, Namba shouted three
banzai
s: to the proletariat and Communist Party of Japan, to Russian socialism and the Soviet Republic, and to the Communist Internationale.
³³
He was executed two days later, and on November 17, 1924, eleven months after his crime, secretly buried in an unmarked communal grave.
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Makino's diary entry on the day of the Toranomon incident registered the “tremendous change in popular thought” behind
Namba's assassination attempt. “Even concepts connected to the
kokutai
have undergone astonishing change among some people,” Makino observed. “Of course they are still a very small minority, but I am more worried about the future now that a person has emerged and actually tried to act out his ideas. I fear that the people might lose their presence of mind by witnessing such a great act of lèse majesté.”
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Hirohito reacted more calmly to the shooting; later, when Nara informed him of Namba's execution, he is alleged to have said to Chinda Sutemi and Grand Chamberlain Irie Tamemori:

At age twenty-three Hirohito was emotionally detached and thought of the imperial system in ideological terms dunned into him since early childhood: The emperor is to the people as a father is to his children. Interestingly, military Aide-de-Camp Nara advised Hirohito not to make his sentiments public, for they would only provoke more dissent from socialists and communists. Whether Hirohito was persuaded to change his mind or (less likely) the entourage ignored his wishes is unclear; but no statement by the crown prince on the assassination attempt was ever issued.
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While the Toranomon incident was still being widely discussed, further acts of less unusual lèse majesté occurred as some ordinary people expressed their lack of appreciation for the prince regent's efforts to come into closer contact with them.
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According to Hirohito's earliest biographer, Nezu Masashi, there were thirty-five such
incidents during the six years between 1921 and 1927.
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These episodes deepened concern among government officials about the spread of communism and other “dangerous thoughts.”
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They also exposed the fragility of Hirohito in the role of “crown prince for the age of the commoner.”

Nevertheless the idea of popularizing both him and the imperial house remained alive during the early regency years. When the moment for Hirohito's wedding finally arrived at the beginning of 1924, he and his aides decided that a lavishly staged imperial wedding would be out of place in a physically devastated capital that was just beginning to reconstruct. Sensing that ordinary Japanese sought stability and continuity in a time of rapid economic and social changes, Hirohito tried to meet their expectations. An imperial wedding with a modest display of monarchical dignity and an emphasis on traditional court practice was sufficient for him, and would also serve to bring him closer to the people.

Crown Prince Hirohito and Princess Nagako celebrated their marriage in a series of short ceremonies on January 26, 1924. In an ancient tradition dating back to Heian times, the marriage was preceded by a carefully choreographed exchange of love poems. A court chamberlain in full dress coat and top hat delivered Hirohito's sealed poem (written on light pink paper, placed in a white willow box) to the Kuni family mansion, which had been specially decorated with red and white bunting. A few hours later a servant delivered a similar box to the Imperial Palace containing Nagako's reply.
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On the day of the wedding Princess Nagako rose at 3:00
A.M
., went outside to a small garden shrine, and prayed to her family ancestors. After her bath and a light breakfast, she spent three hours having her hair arranged in the Heian manner and dressing in the heavy ceremonial robes of a lady of the court. At 9:00
A.M
. she said farewell to her entire family and classmates and was driven off in a car sent from the imperial house.
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Hirohito had arisen at 5:30, prayed to his ancestors, breakfasted, and put on the full-dress
uniform of an army lieutenant colonel. They left for the Imperial Palace at about the same time in separate carriages, preceded and followed by mounted honor guards, and were cheered along the way by large crowds. Arriving at the palace, Hirohito donned the special saffron-yellow robes reserved for an imperial Shinto priest and performed religious rituals in the “Place of Awe,” where they notified the gods of their marriage.