Emperor Meiji was the so-called "122nd Emperor since Emperor Shinmu", an authoritarian ruler of modern Japan who wielded power in domestic and foreign affairs. Meiji is the era name, and the real name of Emperor Meiji is Muhito. Mujin was born on September 22, 1852, the son of Emperor Takamitsu and his mother Keiko Nakayama. In September 1860, Mujin was made crown prince. This man's role in the Meiji Restoration may be obvious, but it was he who also brought Japan to the road of no return.
Unlike the image of bravery and martial arts created in most history books, Mu Ren grew up in the courtyard of the deep palace, pampered and habitual, and could not be disturbed at all. When the "Forbidden Gate Incident" occurred in July 1865, when the soldiers of the Choshu Clan and the shogunate were fiercely pulling up the gate of the imperial palace, the twelve-year-old Mujin could not stand the sound of gunfire and fainted on the spot.
The life of the feudal official court also cultivated his habit of arrogance and lack of sympathy, and when he saw his old husband Qing fall into the water and shout for help, he felt amused, or took a water spray to scare the female official, or used scissors to cut the evergreen branches and leaves set up in the corridor; or wielded wooden knives to fight with the children who accompanied him, and could only lose.
Due to the historical opportunity of the Reverse Curtain Restoration Movement, Mujin was needed by Saigo Takamori and other overthrown reform bureaucrats to become an ideal monarch who faithfully represented the interests of the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie. In December 1866, Emperor Hyomyō, who had worked with the shogunate to suppress the fallen faction, died suddenly at a critical moment in the rapidly changing political situation. On January 9, 1867, the young Muhito was succeeded to the throne under the control of Saigo Takamori and Iwakura Takeshi.
In accordance with the intentions of Saigo and others, Mujin issued a secret edict written by someone else. In December, in obedience to the fallen faction' advice, tokugawa Keiki was ordered to resign as an official. In March 1868, under the direction of the heroes of the Restoration, he led the civil and military officials to swear an oath to the gods of heaven and earth, promulgated the "Five Oaths" in April, published the "Book of Political Styles" in July, changed Edo to Tokyo, and held an enthronement ceremony in Kyoto in August, changing the fourth year of Celebration (1868) to the first year of Meiji, stipulating that only one era name should be used for one dynasty. In March 1869, the capital was moved to Tokyo for a long time, and in June, each clan was returned to the royal family.
Through the above series of activities, Muren became the supreme ruler who claimed the land and people of the country, but the real power was in the hands of the restoration bureaucracy. At that time, Emperor Meiji was only sixteen or seventeen years old, and he had neither the ability nor the experience to govern.
In the early years of the Meiji period in Japan, the Meiji Emperor could only act as a puppet emperor, signing and stamping documents drawn up in advance by the restoration bureaucrats and leaving them at their mercy. After the abolition of the prefecture in 1871, the powerful factions such as Saigo Takamori and Okubo Ritsuru deliberately trained the emperor in order to further consolidate their positions and implement the so-called palace reforms.
They drastically reduced the old gongqing and female officials, and sent the henchmen of the Southwest Xiong domain and the old shoguns who were good at kendo, such as Shingumura Hachi and Tetsutaro Yamaoka, to educate the weak Mujin as a "strong" samurai, and train him to master swordsmanship, equestrianism, and gladiatorial fighting, so that he would advocate martial arts and be brave and fierce. At the same time, the Confucian scholar Motoda Nagafu and others served as the emperor's attendants, Shigeki Nishimura explained the French political classics, and Kato Hiroyuki explained German jurisprudence, learned the methods of European and American bourgeois rule, and understood the mechanisms of the rise and fall of chaos in the east and west in ancient and modern times.
From 1877 to 1878, the Japanese ruling clique faced a crisis. The prestigious "Three Masters" Saigo Takamori were defeated and killed, Kido Takayoshi died of illness, Okubo Ritsu was assassinated, and it was Ito Hirobumi and Okuma Shigenobu who rose up, who did not cooperate with each other, and plotted against each other. The court forces were dissatisfied with the monopoly of power by the restoration heroes, and Itagaki and Goto Shojiro of Shimono raised the banner of establishing the "DemocraticAlly Elected House" and competed with satsuma and Choshu lords for power and profit.
In this situation, the Emperor's close attendant, Takayuki Sasaki, launched the Emperor's Pro-Government Movement in 1878, demanding that Muhito "personally cut off all opportunities and complete the great cause of restoration", while the Emperor himself believed that "what the secretaries and others said was extremely true", implying that they continued to create public opinion. On the other hand, Ito Hirobumi and other forces in power were attacked internally and externally by the liberal civil rights movement and Okuma's seizure of power, and they were very embarrassed, and they also urgently needed him to "personally cut the holy judgment" and reconcile the internal contradictions of the restoration bureaucracy to clean up the situation. So Mu Ren, who was twenty-six or seven years old, was transferred from the backstage to the front desk.
The emperor's first political action was to be hostile to and stifle the liberal civil rights movement. With the emperor's consent. Successive decrees were issued by the vassal government to interfere with and restrict the activities of political parties. In 1881, the Emperor personally intervened and issued an edict ordering Saienji Gongwang to withdraw from the Toyo Free Press in response to the liberal civil rights movement, instructing Motoda Nagafumi, Sasaki Wakayuki, and other close ministers to warn the liberal factions such as Vice Shima Tsubasa to be cautious in their speech and behavior and to be loyal to the imperial family. At the same time, the emperor also paid homage to Ise shingun all the way, inspected the arsenal, attended military exercises and military parades, and incited a militarist atmosphere throughout the country.
The 1880s were an important period when the modern imperial system was completed and the Meiji Emperor gained the right to take over the throne. In the process of suppressing the liberal civil rights movement, the clan government changed the laissez-faire civilized policy of the early Meiji years, selectively absorbed foreign cultural relics, and took Germany as an example to strengthen the emperor's power in all aspects.
Economically, the shogunate's old trick of seizing the country's main finances quickly expanded the imperial property. The emperor also used his power to build his own shrines in shrines throughout Japan, and established the image of the emperor with his head around the aura of the gods. Muren is also transformed from man to god, with a strong religious mystery.
The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, promulgated in 1889, eventually established the absolute authority of the Meiji Emperor in the fundamental laws of the country. In 1884, after Ito Hirobumi returned to Europe to study the constitutions of various countries, he chose the Prussian constitution as the model and secretly concocted the constitution of the Empire of Japan. A draft was drafted in 1887 and submitted to the Privy Council and the Constituent Assembly for deliberation the following year. From June 1888 to January 1889, Emperor Meiji laid down on the spot and discussed it day and night with Ito and others, sentence by sentence. His enthusiasm was so great that even the news of the death of the fourth prince, Yujin, did not move the emperor.
In February 1889, Emperor Meiji chose the 11th day of the so-called Emperor Shinmu's ascension to the throne, and after praying to the gods and ancestors, he promulgated the Constitution of the Empire of Japan in the following manner. The constitution stipulates that the emperor "has the power to rule" and is "sacrosanct and inviolable." Internally, Emperor Meiji had the power to legislate, convene or dissolve parliaments, appoint and dismiss officials, grant knighthoods, and command the army and navy; externally, the emperor had the power to declare war, make peace, and conclude treaties.
The Constitution provides for the establishment of state institutions to exercise functions and powers under the Emperor, the Diet assists the Emperor in deliberating state affairs, the Cabinet is responsible only to the Emperor, the courts are tried in the name of the Emperor, and the Privy Council is available to the Emperor for consultation. In addition, there are various privileged institutions and personnel outside the provisions of the Constitution, such as the Interior Minister, the Elders, the Military Senate, the General Staff Headquarters, and the Naval Headquarters, which serve as personal tools of the Emperor and directly contact them and interfere in state affairs.
The Constitution also stipulates that Japanese citizens are "subjects" of the Emperor, and all their rights are recognized only to the extent that they fulfill their duties as subjects and do not prevent the Emperor from exercising his powers. The promulgation of the Imperial Constitution marked Emperor Meiji's emergence as an absolute monarch with supreme power.
The second half of Emperor Meiji's life was closely integrated with militarist aggression and was a direct promoter of the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. Deeply influenced by the aggressive ideas of the Japanese samurai, Mujin has always made it his mission to inherit the so-called "Kanyo-roku" and "Hide The Eight Silks" since the beginning of the Shinbu Period," that is, to conquer Asia and even the world.
Emperor Meiji wore an old-fashioned military uniform all year round, rode a high-headed military horse, and made a cigarette butt made by the bullet casing of the "Three Eight" gun, and appeared at the army university graduation ceremony or military training. Sometimes he also personally participated in actual combat exercises, summoned soldiers, and went around advocating and propagating "leap prestige" and expanding the "national fortunes" to encourage the officers and men of the Japanese army to participate in the war of aggression.
In 1912, Emperor Meiji fell ill and died of illness after painstakingly creating a "family business" for the Japanese landowners and big bourgeoisie. Judging from Mu Ren's life, if he unconsciously played some historical progressive role as the banner of the overthrown restoration movement before he came to power, then since he took power, he has suppressed the bourgeois free civil rights movement and the resistance struggle of the working people at home, and has continuously launched wars of aggression externally, bringing endless disasters to the people of Asia and Japan, and should be criticized and condemned.
References: "Modern and Contemporary History of the World", "Biography of Modern Japanese Figures", "The War of The War of Annihilation and the Restoration of the Fallen Curtain"