The emperor has long been regarded as a deity in the eyes of the Japanese people, and this worship, although weakened today, is still unparalleled. However, at the beginning of the last century, some people said this sentence - "It is not right to treat the emperor as a god, but should be regarded as a human being." "He is the Prime Minister of Japan, Saienji Gongwang.
Saienji Temple
Saienji Gongwang (さいおんじ きんもち, October 23, 1849 – November 24, 1940) was a Japanese patriarch and politician of the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa dynasties, grandson of Taikoku Takashi Masatoshi, second son of the Minister of the Interior, and the younger brother of Shōtoku Daiji Shizera. Hirobumi Ito's proud protégé. In the early 20th century, he alternated with Katsura Taro, a disciple of Yamagata Aritomo, as prime minister, and was known as the "Katsura Garden Era". The last patriarch of the Empire of Japan. The prime ministers of the Taisho period were all recommended by him. He was the last guardian of Japanese democracy.
1. Noble Fathers
Saienji Gongwang , born on December 8, 1849 in Japan , was the second son of the Tokudaiji Clan , who succeeded him to the Saienji family as a child. Both of them were among the "Kukiyoshi" families (Hisa, Sanjo, Saienji Temple, Tokudai-ji Temple, Hanayama-in Temple, Daigo-in Temple, Imategawa, Hirohata, and Daigoku, second only to the Five Regents( Konoe, Kujo, Nijo, Andeiji, Andei, Andyō). The "Five Regents" were the families that had served as regents and Sekibai since the Kamakura period, and the "Nine Kikushoku" were families that had been able to serve as ministers since the Konoe Shogunate.
Although the first impression of the aristocracy was conservative, the leaders of the French Revolution were mostly from wealthy aristocratic families and did not have to live on toil. They learn from the politics, society, and economy of their own country and abroad, and they have the opportunity and conditions to increase their insights, among which the awakened people who strongly feel that there are contradictions and corruption in their own society, and organize the discontent and critics of the ruling class together to gain revolutionary leadership. This phenomenon is very common, and The Saienji temple gongwang became the head of the Saienji family at an early age.
From the age of 4, he was appointed as the "attendant" of Emperor Xiaoming, and at the age of 8, he was made a major general of the Right Guard, and at the age of 13, he was made a lieutenant general of the Right Guard. By the time Emperor Meiji ascended the throne in 1867, the 18-year-old Saienji temple was already an old courtier. In his youth, Saienji temple was dissatisfied with the corrupt rule of the shogunate and was deeply worried about the future of the Japanese nation after the founding of the country. At the end of 1867, as a close subordinate of the emperor, he participated in the "Kosho Council" of historical significance, together with the leaders of the Fallen Shogun faction, Saigo Takamori and Okubo Ritsuto, who formulated the policy of "retro imperial government" and supported the emperor to personally manage the country.
After the establishment of the Meiji government, he held an important position as a "senator". At a critical juncture when the new government was in a precarious juncture, saienji resolutely opposed the compromise views of the imperial court and advocated that they should unite with the forces of the kings of Sa and Naga domains to block the great enemy. Saienji's lofty remarks surprised the imperial court officials, and Iwakura blurted out in admiration, "This prince has great insight. During the War, the 19-year-old Saienji Gongwang served as the governor of Yamanagi Town, the governor of the Second Army of Higashiyama Province, and later the envoy of Hokuni Town, leading his army to participate in countless battles such as the Battle of Toba Fushimi, and later serving as the governor of Echigo Province and Niigata Province, and made meritorious contributions to the establishment and consolidation of local power.
2. Return to China after staying in France
After the Meiji regime was basically stabilized, Saienji could have been an official and enjoyed glory and wealth, but from the long-term goal of building a modern country, he resolutely resigned from his armor and resigned his official position and went to France to study. In 1871, When Sai Yuen Temple went to Paris, he encountered the Franco-Prussian War, and he witnessed the tragic scene of the Uprising of the Paris Commune and gained a deeper understanding of the powerful power of the masses of the people.
During his time in France, he focused on the Political System and customs of France, where he studied under Marx's friend Emile Aglas, and became acquainted with many prominent liberals and constitutional scholars such as George Clemenceau, Gonggel, and Nakae Zhaomin from Japan. He studied in France for ten years and life was very enjoyable. The acceptance of the idea of liberal democracy and the completion of the transformation to the aristocratic bourgeoisie had a decisive influence on the path he later took and his political position.
In 1880, at the height of the liberal civil rights movement in Japan, Saienji returned from France and was immediately drawn into the rapids of the movement. In 1881, he co-founded The Toyo Free Press with Jiang Zhaomin, one of the best theorists in the liberal civil rights movement. He personally served as president and chief writer and preached human and political freedom in his publications. Saienji's judgment could not but attract the attention and fear of the imperial court, and his brother, the emperor's attendant Nagatoku Daiji Shize, and the right minister Iwakura Tsushi successively approached him and advised him to leave the journalism profession, but he refused one by one. In the end, the emperor personally issued a pardon, forcing him to leave the news agency and return to his career. Sai YuenJi Gongwang was deeply dissatisfied with this.
Sai Yuen Ji Temple in the era of studying in France is widely regarded
In 1882, Saienji accompanied Ito Hirobumi to Europe to investigate the Constitution, and after returning to China, he assisted Ito in preparing for the Constitution. After the promulgation of the Constitution, he served as Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Austria, Hungary and Germany, and minister of office in the second and third Cabinets of Itohiro. Due to similar political views, his relationship with Ito grew closer. When he was appointed minister of the second Itō Hirobumi cabinet, Saienji Gongwang said: "We must make the people lively and cheerful, upright and promising, and not let them fall into generosity, tragedy, and partiality." Nowadays, society often uses people in the face of declining adversity as a model for young people to follow. Such an approach would leave behind a legacy that would not be commensurate with the prosperity of the country today. Striving to develop education is the trend of the general trend of the world, and education should be strengthened to think about the rise and fall of civilization. ”
He advocated the elimination of radicalism and the need to have the world in mind in order to seek progress. This is the consistent proposition of Saienji Gongwang, and he has never given up in his life. Saienji often said to his grandson, Saienji Koichi, "It is not right to treat the emperor as a god, and we should treat him as a human being." This is different from Yamagata Arita's absolute loyalty to the imperial family, showing that Saienji Gongwang was a liberal and resisted the nazirification of Japan. During the Third Cabinet, Ito Hirobumi wanted to form a political party on his own, but due to the unsuccessful opposition of Yamagata Aritomo, Ito Hirobumi submitted his resignation and recommended Okuma Shigenobu and Itagaki to take over.
In June 1898, okuma Shigenobu cabinet was formed. The Okuma Shigenobu Cabinet collapsed due to the split of the ruling constitutional party, and in November the second Yamagata Arita Cabinet was formed. Ito Hirobumi finally fulfilled his long-cherished wish and established the Constitutional Friends Association in September 1900. By this time, Saienji was Already Ito's most powerful assistant and had been recommended by Ito to serve as President of the Privy Council. In July 1903, Ito Hirobumi simply ceded his position as president of the Political Friends Association to his heterogeneous and concentric Saienji Temple, thus pushing Saienji temple to the front line of political struggle.
3. The Guiyuan era
On May 10, 1901, less than seven months after its establishment, the Fourth Ito Hirobumi Cabinet fell, the first political party cabinet in Japanese political history, and most of its members were also members of the Constitutional Friends Association. At Ito's insistence and many advances, the first Katsurataro cabinet was born. The first Cabinet of Katsura Taro was the Cabinet of Elders, which lasted for more than four years and more than seven months. The reason for its long life was that Japan needed to deal with the deteriorating relations between Japan and Russia, and even more to create a Russo-Japanese war. In 1906, Katsura Taro resigned and recommended the saienji temple to form a cabinet. As a result, the first Saienji Cabinet was born.
The first regime change of power in the Guiyuan era also occurred. This was because, despite its victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Katsura's cabinet anticipated that the people would criticize the Putzemouth Peace Treaty as a humiliating treaty, and a protest movement might be set off. But under the circumstances at that time, no matter what kind of opposition it faced, Japan had to sign the treaty. The Political Friends Association expressed its support for the signing of the treaty. In exchange, the Cabinet of Friends of Saienji was established as Prime Minister. The covenant between Katsura and Saienji is that the House of Nobles is Katsura's sphere of influence, and the House of Representatives is the sphere of influence of Saienji.
But in fact, the Minister of the Interior, Yuan Jing, quietly carried out activities in the House of Nobility. The Saienji Gongwang Cabinet was formed in January 1906, and the Political Friends Association and the Datong Club became the ruling party (142 of the 379 seats in the Parliament and 80 seats in the Datong Club). However, only the Cabinet of Ministers, Hara Kei, and the Minister of Justice, Masahisa Matsuda, joined the cabinet, and the other cabinet members, with the exception of Takaaki Kato, who belonged to the Okuma Shigenobu faction, were mostly former cabinet bureaucrats, and some of them belonged to the Yamagata Aritomo faction. Therefore, although Saienji temple has the consciousness of organizing a political party cabinet, this cabinet is only a joint cabinet of political friends and bureaucrats, and the political circles have also entered a period when the clan power and political parties cannot ignore each other's existence.
Nationalization of railways
The issue facing the Saienji Cabinet is fiscal issues. The Japanese government raised 1.28 billion yen in public debt at home and abroad for the russo-Japanese War, and in addition, in order to manage the colonies such as Birch and Korea, maintain and develop forces in Manchuria and the military department proposed to oppose Russia, and ensure the expansion of power in Birch, Korea, and Manchuria, all of which became a heavy burden on the government. The meiji 39 budget is a huge amount of 492.89 million yen in expenditure and revenue, as well as 45,045 trillion yen in temporary military expenditures. To this end, the government has formulated a bill on the special accounting of the treasury bond fund and a bill on the abolition of the extraordinary special tax period, and has formulated a railway state-owned bill from the perspective of economy and national defense.
The issue of railway nationalization has long been debated in the government and the private sector. Proceeding from the needs of wartime, the military department has always emphasized the nationalization of railways. In view of the general decline in private railways after the Russo-Japanese War, there was also a call for nationalization of railways among private railway operators. Only the Mitsubishi chaebols, because of their good returns, opposed the state-owned policy. Mitsubishi's representative Foreign Minister Takaaki Kato even threatened to resign to prevent the implementation of the policy. However, SaiYuan temple was unmoved, and resolutely implemented a state-owned policy, buying the assets of 17 private railway companies, which accounted for 90% of the total length of private railways, at a preferential price equivalent to twice the original investment. The nationalization of railways safeguarded the interests of the capitalists in a state of loss, avoided competition between public and private railways, and eliminated the local division of railways, which was of great economic and military significance.
foreign policy
During his term of office, he actively formulated the policy of colonial management, and concluded the Third Japan-Korea Treaty in 1907, completely depriving Korea of its administrative, legislative, judicial, and personnel powers, all under the control of the Japanese governor. In China, the Kwantung Governor's Office and the South Manchuria Railway Corporation were established to strengthen political and economic rule over the "Manchurian" colonies. In relations with Britain, the Third Japanese Alliance was signed. At this time, the Public Hope of Sai Yuen Temple was already controlled by xenophobic patriotic passions, believing that these practices were to punish Russia's tyranny and clear the world of Manchuria and Korea.
Contradiction with the Yamagata faction
In order to crowd out the bureaucrats of the Yamagata Aritomo faction, the former superintendent of police, who had been under the dual command of the prime minister and the minister of the interior, was directly under the jurisdiction of the minister, and he used some imperial bureaucrats who were not clan lords, such as Reijiro Wakataki and Yuyuki Hamaguchi, who later became prime minister, as well as Takejiro Bedji and others. In addition, the personnel was greatly adjusted, and six local governors and more than 30 officials were dismissed, and a proposal was made to abolish the county system. Like the previous Parliament, the bill was passed in the House of Representatives but rejected in the House of Lords.
In doing so, Saienji caused people from the yamagata clan to express their dissatisfaction with Yamagata's friends. It led to the joint collapse of the cabinet by friends in the mountainous county, such as the House of Nobles and the Military Department. In the tenth general election held in May 1908, the Political Friends Association won 187 seats, accounting for 49% of the total seats, plus the factions of the Central Quasi-Political Friends Association that did not belong, and more than half of the seats were occupied. However, the economic downturn, coupled with the fact that Emperor Yamagata Aritomo Kamigame claimed that Uchihara was slow to ban the socialist movement, resulted in the resignation of the first Saienji Cabinet on July 14, 1908, in the 41st year of Meiji( 1908). The elders also elected Katsura Taro to form a cabinet, resulting in the formation of the second Katsura Taro Cabinet.
Second Saienji Cabinet
This time, Katsura Taro was in power for three years, and later became notorious for creating a great rebellion. He resigned on August 30, 1911, the 44th year of Meiji. Sai Yuen Temple was elected to form a cabinet under the "unanimous opinion and agreement" of the elders, and the second Sai Yuen Temple Cabinet was established. Soon, the Xinhai Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen took place in China. In view of the situation in China, we have formulated a prudent policy of "striving to gradually expand our country's rights when there is a good opportunity, and as for the fundamental solution of the Manchurian problem, we must wait for the arrival of the most favorable time for us." According to this policy, the Japanese Government contacted the Qing government and the revolutionary army through various channels such as the army stationed in China, the overseas organizations, and the Black Dragon Society, and at the same time gave arms and economic assistance to both sides, so that no matter which side won, it would enable Japan to expand its rights in China. At that time, the military headquarters controlled by The County had strongly advocated sending troops to occupy Manchuria in one fell swoop, but it was shelved due to the concerns of Sai Yuen Temple. In this regard, the mountain county was full of complaints, accusing Saiyuan Temple of adopting a policy of sitting by and watching, so as to lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which is really a great sorrow for the country.
Yuan Jing, who also became the Minister of the Interior, proposed that the election method of the House of Representatives should be a small constituency system, which means that the small constituency system is beneficial to the big party, so as to prevent socialists from using the general constituency system to enter the parliament. But this has aroused strong doubts from the bureaucratic faction led by Yamagata Youpeng. When Yamagata Aritomo supported the general constituency system, he hoped that the establishment of the House of Representatives (during Yamagata Aritomo's first cabinet term) would allow the government party to leap forward like the government expected (in fact, the Liberal Party system and the Improvement Party system accounted for the majority). The small constituency system was passed in the House of Representatives, but it was rejected by the House of Nobles, and indeed the sphere of influence of the bureaucracy such as Yamagata was fulfilled. The result will be implemented seven years later when Hara becomes prime minister, along with the expansion of suffrage. In the meantime, Emperor Meiji died of diabetes, and the Saienji cabinet had to deal with the funeral.
After the Taisho reform, it was necessary to draw up a budget for the second year of Taisho (1913) in the face of the problem of additional budgets for the landing navy. The Saienji Cabinet, which has an absolute majority in the House of Representatives, is preparing administrative and fiscal reforms, with the goal of reducing spending. The Army demanded two more divisions and the Navy requested the construction of three battleships. Citing Russia's military expansion in the three eastern provinces as a reason, the Army used a ten-year plan to add six divisions and twenty-five divisions to the army's standing strength, which was proposed by Minister Ofeuvre Ishimoto Shinroku to discuss it at a cabinet meeting, and it is noteworthy that the drafter of this plan was Yoshiichi Tanaka, who would become prime minister in the future, who was then the military director and Nakasa. At that time, the cabinet meeting did not recognize the bill, and Tanaka indignantly said: "I don't understand the reason why the government is not interested in this major defense issue!" Tanaka approached The New Army Minister Sapai's General Uehara. The Minister of War Uehara, in conjunction with the Director of the Tanaka Military Affairs Bureau, requested two additional divisions to the Cabinet meeting. As a result, at the cabinet meeting, the Minister of War, Isamu Uehara, accepted the advice of the military and resigned to the Emperor by using the power of the drapery. Saienji interviewed Yamagata Aritomo on this matter, but Yamagata refused to nominate a new Minister of War. As a result, subject to the active service system of the Minister of War (i.e., the Minister of the Army and Navy needed to be active duty soldiers, the rank of general and lieutenant general, and the recommendation of the military department under which he belonged) was required), and the second Saienji Cabinet collapsed on December 21, 1912, the first year of Taisho's reign ( 1912 ) .
At this time, katsura Taro, a former prime minister and current minister who claimed to have withdrawn from politics, went to Europe with his confidant Reijiro Wakakaki to inspect party politics and intended to form a new party, but yamagata was looked at. After Katsura returned to China, he was pushed to power by Yamagata, and the third Katsura Taro cabinet was established. The Guiyuan era ended here. Since then, Saienji Gongwang has been living in seclusion in "Nishikazesho" for a long time, manipulating Japanese politics behind the scenes.
3. The Age of elders
In 1919, saienji, as the chief plenipotentiary of the Japanese government, led a delegation to participate in the Paris Peace Conference, signed the Treaty of Versailles, and was promoted to duke after returning to China. After the death of Yamagata Aritomo in 1922 and the death of Matsukata Masayoshi in 1924, Saienji became the only elder in the government, so his political influence increased. The eight years from 1924 to 1931 were the era of the political party cabinet in Japanese history, and the most important person who assisted the emperor in his administration was Saienji Temple. Through the in-law relationship between the palace and the financial community, he adjusted the palace, state affairs, and military departments as a senator, and continued to lead Japanese politics, and from then until his death in 1940, successive prime ministers were often recommended by him personally or agreed by him to preside over the Council of Ministers. During the period when the military overthrew the last party cabinet and promoted the fascist dictatorship, he selected the more moderate naval elders Saito Shigeru and Okada Keisuke to govern and established a middle cabinet in an attempt to delay the process of Fascism in Japan.
In his later years, Saienji Temple was publicly watched
After Prime Minister Hamaguchi Yukiyuki was assassinated by the militarist underworld represented by the Emperor for promoting the reform of Japan's political system and transferring power to the cabinet, Saienji was shocked and decided to abandon the democratic politics he had pursued all his life and unite with the warlord Ugaki Kazunari against Emperor Hirohito.
At this time, Saienji Temple had the support of chaebols, the civil service system, and the media, and Ugaki Kazunari had Ugaki faction valves in the army. But Emperor Hirohito held the power of the military, police, and constitution. Saienji helped Ugaki form a cabinet, but due to the emperor's obstruction, Ugaki failed to form a cabinet, and in 1953 Ugaki became a senator at the age of 85, and there were several rumors that he wanted to become prime minister, but he did not become a cabinet. When Japanese people think of Ugaki Kazukazu, they think of the comical image of decades of circling the prime minister's throne, but never being able to sit down.
Emperor Hirohito used the yen to abandon the "gold standard" system to trap mitsui chaebols in the dollar trap, and successively used those assassins to assassinate Mitsui President Shinomaru and Finance Minister Junnosuke Inoue. The day after Tuan's assassination, Saienji refused to enter the palace to meet the emperor according to etiquette, and he kept talking with all parties in the hope of trying to preserve the dream of constitutionalism for which he had struggled all his life, and he wanted Inuyasha to serve as the prime minister of the cabinet, so that people could maintain a little hope and confidence in the constitutional convention, and did his best to prevent the terrible political assassination.
But things did not go as he had hoped, the assassinations did not stop, and all the forces that stood in the way of the expansion of the Empire must be eliminated. On 15 May, junior officers and members of some fascist organizations attacked Prime Minister Inuyasha's residence, the residence of the Minister of the Interior, the headquarters of the Political Friends Association, and the Mitsubishi Bank, with no success except to kill Prime Minister Inuyasha.
Saienji Gongwang was among the assassins, but in the end the soldiers of the coup d'état "suddenly had a good heart" and spared him, at which point Saienji completely understood that this was the harshest warning from Hirohito, that he was not Hirohito's opponent at all, that the constitutional government could not restrain the emperor, and that it would be difficult for Jinquan to defeat imperial power.
If the Emperor's henchmen dared to kill Hamakul, Inuyasha, and others, why didn't they dare to kill Saienji Temple? Of course, this is true, but the national conditions and historical inheritance of Japan at that time did not allow this to be done. Saienji was the elder of the Fujiwara family and the leader of all the nobles of Japan, and if he were killed, the possibility that his civil administration system, the chaebol system, and the relatives and friends of the protégés of the major Japanese families would collectively rise up to take revenge on Hirohito, was entirely existent. Don't forget that Hirohito was also assassinated once by Japanese insiders in 1923. If something were to be done against Saienji Temple, then the entire Japanese aristocratic forces represented by Saienji Temple would collectively take revenge on Hirohito, which is the fact that he killed Hamaguchi but did not dare to move Saienji Temple.
The imperial power under the protection of the Constitution, the tough army, the cooperative capitalists and the weak political parties, the use of conspiracies, assassinations and wars to wipe out the political parties, the subservient of the plutocratic capitalists, the silence of the international community, and the clutching of the imperial power in the hands of the emperor have made the emperor's militaristic autocratic path smoother than Hitler's.
The state funeral of Saienji Temple
When Hitler seized power and assassinated 51 political opponents and burned the Reichstag, Hitler immediately became synonymous with the devil, and Hirohito's coup through the "triple conspiracy" was still a model of a decent gentleman under the cover of religious overtones, who let him take advantage of the emperor. Although Saienji Gongwang has liberal ideas in his heart, he is powerless to resist the trend of the times, and even if he resists in his heart, he has to go with the flow in reality. Saienji died in November 1940, a year before the outbreak of the Pacific War, which Japan called the Great East Asian War, at the age of 91. state funeral.
4. West Park influence
The four emperors of Saienji, Including Takaaki, Meiji, Taisho, and Showa, have been active in the political arena and have lived in line with modern Japanese political history. The political behavior of Saienji Gongwang's personal behavior is also an important part of Japanese politics. Saienji Temple, which was born into a famous family, actively practiced the practice of The King of Honor, actively participated in the pioneering activities of the Meiji state, and the idea of imperial centrism was the basic tone of its thinking. However, ten years of studying in France and later experiencing abroad have engraved traces of liberal ideas on the tone of its ideological system, and the contradictory combination of royal centrism and liberalism has prompted Sai Yuen-ji to strive to realize its constitutional monarchical concept.
In the political practice of Saienji Temple, constitutional politics and "Japan of the world" have become the two major dreams pursued by Saienji Temple's public hopes throughout his life. As a member of the Council of Elders, he wielded the power to recommend a successor prime minister and became the guardian of party politics; he always adhered to international coherence in diplomacy and emphasized "The Japan of the World." However, in the 1930s, the rise of Japanese fascist forces negated constitutional politics and coordinativism, and the two great dreams of Saienji Gongwang ended in tragedy. Among the nine elders of modern Japan, only Saienji Gongwang was born into the nobility, and his ideology of Chinese style and liberal thought coexisted, which determined the characteristics of his elder politics, that is, the tendency to balance politics and the progressive nature of elder politics. The tragedy of modern Japanese history determines the tragedy of his life, but its role in promoting the development of Japanese politics from an absolutist imperial system to a constitutional monarchy cannot be ignored.
Emperor Hirohito
Because he was close to the imperial family when he was young, he had the consciousness of "the imperial family's screen", which was a kind of concept, but because of the slightest mistake in absolute power and not forgiveness, he opposed the emperor's pro-government. When Yoshiichi Tanaka was reprimanded by Emperor Showa for the Zhang Zuolin incident and was brought to the cabinet to resign, he was opposed. Therefore, from the belief of Emperor Showa, "As a constitutional monarch, he does not oppose the decisions of his subordinates", we can see the influence of Saienji Temple, and at the same time, it also attracted opposition from the generals of the Imperial Taoist faction.
Conclusion: Saienji Gongwang pursued Anglo-American constitutionalism all his life, opposed the Japanese invasion of China, and did his best to implement it, but the general trend was gone. Saienji Gongwang died, the elder system ended, and no one in Japan could stop the fanaticism of war, but the fanaticism of war could not hide that Japan did not have the ability to wage a protracted war, and Japan could only fall into the trap it had dug. The constitutional system he pursued all his life was realized by American soldiers, and was SaiEnJi happy or sad underground?