Let's first say whether this thing has happened, half-truths and half-lies, donations are true, and only eating lunch is false:
But is this 300,000 yen used to save money? Not!!
According to the archives of the Japanese Miyauchi Agency captured by the American occupation forces after Japan's defeat in 1945:
In the 23rd year of Meiji (1890 AD), the land owned by the Japanese imperial family had reached 3.6 million machi, that is, 53.28 million Chinese mu and 35,520 square kilometers.
And what was the size of Japan at that time? At 378,000 square kilometers, the tax-free land occupied by the Japanese imperial family is already close to 10% of Japan's land area. Of these, 3 per cent is arable land, and the rent collected by the royal family from farmers is 58 per mu of harvest. 8% are fruit forests, forest farms, etc. American economists who came to receive the assets of the Japanese imperial family estimated that the royal family could earn more than 8 million yen a year before the Sino-Japanese War alone, such as timber, fruit, and ground rent;
Japanese peasants under the rule of Emperor Meiji
2. In 1890, the Japanese government paid 3 million yen to the imperial family, while the monthly salary of ordinary Japanese police officers was 16 yen, the monthly salary of a teacher at Tokyo National High School was 80 yen, and the monthly salary of Admiral Ito Yuhide was 430 yen;
Japan's largest Sado Gold Mine, Iino Silver Mine, and some coal mines were also assets of the Emperor, with a net income of about 2.7 million yen in 1890 (400 kilograms of gold and 40 tons of silver per year);
The Emperor held a large number of shares, including the Yokohama Shokin Bank (today's Mitsubishi UFJ Bank), the Japan Mail Shipping Corporation (today the 433rd of the world's top 500), and the National Railway Corporation of Japan, all of which held a large number of shares, and the dividend income in 1890 was about 4.4 million yen.
Gold Mine Memorial
The gold mine site is now lighted.
How much does that add up? The annual income of the imperial family in 1890 was about 20 million yen, donating 300,000 yen, hehe, it was really drizzle, 1.5% of the annual income. (In the year before the Sino-Japanese War, Japan's military expenditure was 22 million yen.) In the same year, the Imperial Family of the Qing Dynasty earned about 8 million taels and about 13 million yen, but the population of the Forbidden City was 10 times larger than that of the Meiji Emperor's court! ）
Finally, to show you, the Lunch Recipe of Emperor Meiji, who claims to have only eaten one lunch a day for 3 consecutive years, is fed at least 4 kg of Dutch beef, 1 kg of Mongolian lamb, 1 kg of pork from Shandong, China, 1 bottle of French red wine, 1 part of milk, 1 part of French foie gras, some bread made of imported flour, and some vegetables grown in the imperial vegetable farm. Not much, eating 5 high school teachers, 1 admiral's monthly salary, and eating a Yoshino ship in 3 years. (Pictured is emperor Meiji's lunch menu.)
Meiji's lunch menu
Afternoon tea menu
(Now Tokyo's Narita International Airport, which was part of the Emperor's imperial farm before Japan's defeat in the war, covers an area of 11 square kilometers.) ）
Incidentally, Emperor Meiji himself did not eat Japanese food because he found it extremely unpalatable, and the only Japanese food he would eat was beef Sukiyaki. He mainly ate Western food and occasionally ate Chinese food, according to the imperial chef's statistics, after ascending the throne, he ate a total of 11 Japanese dishes other than beef sukiyak (45 years of reign for nearly 17,000 days), and Chinese-style pork cabbage dumplings were eaten an average of 19 meals a year.
Also, Emperor Meiji weighed 63 kilograms in 1884 and 90 kilograms in 1896???
The newly enthroned Meiji Emperor
Emperor Meiji in the second year after the Sino-Japanese War
The contrast between Emperor Meiji and Cixi is rumored to be the contrast between the Emperor and the Emperor, but only from the perspective of money and the destruction of the country's economic and political form, Cixi is more like a monarch of the country than Meiji!
In China, if any emperor had amassed wealth to the point of the Japanese imperial family, he would have been overthrown long ago!