Emperor Hirohito Asserts Himself

An issue taken up by the extreme Right was the proper place of the emperor in government. Their target was a leading academic on constitutional law at Tokyo Imperial University and a member of the House of Peers, Tatsukichi Minobe. Among Japan's academic elite, Minobe was the leading opponent of the military expanding into government. In opposing Minobe's views on constitutional law, the rightists saw the divinity of the emperor at stake, and they accused Minobe of supporting democracy and committing treason. Among these rightists were Japan's Military Reserve Association and its Army Officers' Association.

The Army turned the debate into an attack on moderates in general, with Hirohito quietly trying to support Minobe's position. But Emperor Hirohito did nothing to influence the public or the military by showing support for Minobe, and in September 1935 Minobe was forced to resign from the House of Peers. Minobe's critics repeatedly invited him to commit suicide. The government gave Minobe police protection after two attempts to kill him Minobe failed. Then, in February 1936 Minobe was wounded, and the rightists made his assailant a hero.

Hate and a fanatical love of conformity to militarist virtues was very much alive in Japan. Lyrics to Japan's most popular song, written by a navy lieutenant, spoke of those in power being "swollen with pride," the rich flaunting their wealth and caring nothing for the welfare of Japan. It spoke of "brave warriors united in justice, cherry blossoms and a day when "our swords will gleam with the blood of purification."

Elections were called by the new prime minister, another retired admiral, Okada Keisuke. Small leftist parties and the larger of the moderate parties, the Democratic Party, gained seats in Japan's House of Representatives. The rightist parties lost seats. Rightists despised parliamentary democracy, and some of their supporters may have stayed away from the polls, holding elections in contempt. Japan's House of Representatives, at any rate, had little influence. Only a minority in the new membership in the House of Representatives was opposed to military men dominating the government's cabinet and against continuing military aggressions, but Rightists were excitable people and they became alarmed. They saw great danger in the loss of seats by their fellow Rightists and gains by others in the House of Representatives, and some of them decided that it was time to act to save Japan.

In late February, 1936, came the biggest attempt by the Right to take over the government. It began with a Shinto fundamentalist, Lieutenant Colonel Saburo Aizawa, killing with his sword the chief of the Military Affairs Bureau -- because the director of military education whom Aizawa admired had been dismissed from his position. Aizawa stood trial for the killing, and firebrand defense lawyers turned the trail into a spectacle, with the courtroom filled with off-duty army men supporting Aizawa.

In Tokyo, young army officers who were about to be transferred to Manchuria believed that their transfer was a plot to remove them from Tokyo during Aizawa's trial. These officers responded by leading about 1,500 soldiers in an attempt to overthrow the government. In Tokyo, in the early morning hours of a snowy day, they took control of the streets around the royal palace and capital buildings, with leaflets to distribute that spoke of the divinity of Japan being grounded "in the fact that the nation is destined to expand." The leaflet spoke of a "blood brotherhood of martyrs" and of Colonel Aizawa's "flashing sword" having no effect on "evil imperial advisers." Their leaflet spoke of self-seeking men encroaching "on the royal prerogative" and obstructing the true growth of the people, people who had been driven to the utmost depths of misery, making Japan an "object of contempt." The leaflet spoke of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States wishing to crush "our ancestral land." And it concluded with the purpose of the coup: to "remove the villains who surround the Throne."

The soldiers murdered several persons including the former prime minister, Saito, filling his body with forty-seven bullet holes and then giving three cheers for the emperor. They believed they had also killed the prime minister, Okada Keisuke, but they had killed his brother-in-law instead, with Okada continuing to hide under a pile of laundry for a couple of days. They burned down one building, turned a hotel into a command post and occupied various other buildings. They sent a note to General Shigeru Honjo, the army's aide-de-camp to the emperor, announcing their coup and requesting reinforcements, and General Honjo learned that one of the coup leaders was his son-in-law.

The Emperor learned of the plot soon after sunrise. Enraged, he told General Honjo that the coup had to be crushed as quickly as possible. Hirohito dressed in his military uniform, and he ordered the navy to mobilize the fleet. He summoned the minister of war, and the minister of war angered the emperor by reading him the rebel's leaflet, as he had promised the rebels he would do. Hirohito summoned his family to join him in the palace, including Prince Chichibu, who had been friends with some of those now leading the coup, and he exacted a pledge of loyalty from his entire family. And at the end of the day, Hirohito began sleeping dressed in his military uniform, on his camp cot in his office.

The rebels stayed in the streets into the second and third days of the coup, and in meeting with Hirohito, General Honjo presented the army's point of view, referring to the rebels as "activists" and speaking of them as acting "for the good of the nation." And he told the emperor that in his opinion the "activists" should not be condemned. Hirohito would have none of it. He called the "activists" brutal criminals and reminded Honjo that they had murdered aged and venerable men.

On the third day of the crisis, after waiting for dithering generals to act, Hirohito issued an edict ordering the rebels to "speedily withdraw." He told General Honjo that if they did not withdraw he would personally lead the Imperial Guard Division against them. Facing what they perceived to be their failure, some of the rebel officers wished to commit suicide in the presence of an official representing the emperor. Hirohito refused. "If they want to kill themselves," he said, "let them do as they please."

Coup leaders surrendered, some of them hoping for more show trials at which they could make speeches and win leniency. Coup participants were immediately taken to an army jail, and Hirohito was determined to make examples of those who had led the coup. There were to be no public trials and no speeches. Over one hundred officers and under-officers were charged with treason and tried in a series of courts martial secluded from public view. Fifteen were executed by firing squad. No dates were given for the executions, and no ashes were returned to their relatives. And with the coup over, Hirohito's relatives looked upon him with a new respect.

Hirohito's strong move against the coup leaders brought shame on that faction in Japan's army that was wedded to the Rightist dream of spiritual reformation and restoring a pre-industrial and non-Westernized Japan. It was this faction, called the Kodoha, consisting mainly of younger officers, that believed that a war against the Soviet Union was imminent. A rival faction to the Kodoha now became dominate in the army. This faction consisted of older and more sober men who saw that industrialism was needed in making the military strong, leaders who were willing to work with government bureaucrats and leading industrialists. Among them was General Hedeki Tojo, destined to become Japan's wartime prime minister.

As Hirohito saw it, the military had been chastised, and he wished to demonstrate to the military that he was kind to them as he was to all his subjects. In demonstrating his kindness, Emperor Hirohito would now allow the military to pursue the goal of Japan's leadership in East Asia.

to "China, Civil War and Japan's Intrusion""

Recommended Books

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, chapters 5 ~ 8, by Herbert P. Bix, 2000.

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