The sky, which had been gloomy for three days as a slow-moving typhoon brushed past the Kanto region, had finally cleared into the deep ultramarine of late autumn. One moment, the piercing howl of the wind seemed to cover one’s ears; the next, a flock of sparrows would suddenly flush from the thicket, circling overhead in a tight cluster before retreating back into the brush. Through this windswept landscape, a mounted procession marched along the ridge of a valley covered in withered pampas grass. Clad in chilly-looking military uniforms, their sabers clattered and clanked as they moved.
Reaching the crest of a small hill, they looked to the west. In the distance, the snow-capped peak of Mount Fuji emerged, and all the way to the Tanzawa Mountains, a sea of white cogon grass rolled in waves. Turning to the east, the waters of Edo Harbor gleamed with a dull, metallic luster.
“To think such a wilderness still remains so close to Edo,” the Emperor remarked.
At his master’s question, Yamaoka Tesshu smiled, recalling his own boyhood when this place was still called Edo. The guards and military aides-de-camp accompanying the young twenty-four-year-old monarch—who already wore a mustache—were mostly stalwart samurai from the Satsuma, Choshu, and Tosa domains. Yet, their guide was always Tesshu, a former retainer of the Shogun who knew the terrain by heart.
“I used to hunt with falcons here myself,” Tesshu replied. “This land was set aside by the hatamoto (the Shogun’s direct retainers) for harvesting thatch and falconry. It is a remnant of the ancient Musashino plain, preserved just as it was since the days of Ota Dokan.”
In ancient times, Musashino had been repeatedly buried under volcanic ash from Mount Fuji, and was originally such a barren grassland. During the Edo period, however, it was reclaimed and transformed into a fertile land of pine groves, copse woods, and cultivated fields. Now, there were few places left where pampas and cogon grass were allowed to grow so wildly.
“I see. So this is indeed the famous Musashino,” the Emperor said, narrowing his eyes as he gazed upon the landscape that had been praised in countless waka poems since antiquity.
Yatigusa no / fana no sakari wo / kite mireba / aki mo fatenaki / Musashino no fara
(Coming to see the profusion of countless grasses in full bloom, I find the autumn stretching endlessly across the plains of Musashino.)
The Emperor had a passion for poetry and horsemanship. It was only natural that he felt compelled to compose a verse of his own while on horseback—a poem that could never have been born without the great turning point of the Meiji Restoration.
This was one of the earliest poems Emperor Meiji composed about Musashino, said to be on November 12, the ninth year of Meiji (1876). The Emperor promptly drew a small notebook from his breast pocket, jotted the lines down with a pencil, and slipped it away.
In 1867, while European monarchs and aristocrats frequently rode horses, Japanese emperors had long ceased to do so. We often imagine that court nobles and the imperial family traveled exclusively in ox-drawn carriages. However, Emperors Kammu and Saga had hunted with falcons on horseback. Ariwara no Narihira and Fujiwara no Teika, who served in the Imperial Guards, must have accompanied nobility on horseback as well. Even much later, during the Kamakura period, Retired Emperor Gotoba composed this fierce, spirited verse:
Koma nabete / Utiide no fama wo / miwataseba / asafi ni sawagu / Siga no uranami
(Lining up our steeds and looking out over Uchide Beach, the waves of Shiga Bay stir beneath the morning sun.)
Yet, after Retired Emperor Gotoba was defeated in the Jokyu War, horsemanship and falconry became the exclusive domain of the warrior class, and the emperors were confined behind the bamboo screens of the palace, isolated from the world.
The Restoration of Imperial Rule. The mastermind who plotted to immediately get the Emperor on a horse as a symbol of this new era was not from Satsuma or Choshu, but rather Tokugawa Yoshinobu. It is believed the young Emperor was essentially “placed” upon a horse that had originally been presented to Emperor Komei. This took place in the front garden of the Seiryoden at the Kyoto Imperial Palace, before the capital was moved to Edo. The young Emperor would later become so captivated by riding that he was admonished by Iwakura Tomomi and others, but this story takes place during the period when he was still adjusting to the saddle, taking gentle rides in the immediate vicinity of the imperial palace.