Crown Prince Hirohito's 1923 Visit to Takao

Taiwan had been a Japanese colony since 1895. During the month of April 1923, Crown Prince Hirohito, heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, made an Imperial Visit to this first colony of Japan. 

Harry A Franck, in his 1924 book Glimpses of Japan and Formosa, recounts how there stood on the hill overlooking the new and old towns of Takao an 'unoccupied group of unpainted wooden buildings specially erected to house the prince regent during a recent two-day visit, which are so sacred that they cannot even be photographed'.

      His formal investiture as Crown Prince  took place on 2 November 1916, following the death of his grandfather, the Emperor Meiji, on July 30, 1914. The Meiji Shrine, which was not completed until 1920, had a torii (main gate) constructed of Taiwan cypress. The shrine was destroyed during the fire-bombing of World War II, but the main torii was rebuilt with Taiwan cypress. 

      On November 29, 1921, he became Prince Regent of Japan, in place of his ailing father, the Taisho Emperor who suffered from 'mental incapacity'.

Hirohito (April 29, 1901 - January 7, 1989)

       It is believed that his father had suffered from accidental lead-poisoning whilst suckling from his wet-nurse. At that time Japanese women commonly used a lead compound to whiten their skins. The extent of the Taisho Emperor's incapacity was clear when, at the 1913 opening of the Diet, he famously rolled his prepared speech into a telescope and stared at the assembly through it instead of reading it. After 1919, he undertook no official duties and Hirohito subsequently, on 29 November 1921, became the Prince Regent.

      In 1922, Prince Regent Hirohito had undertaken a six month tour of the United Kingdom and five other European countries, thus becoming the first Japanese crown prince to travel abroad.

The Imperial Cruiser Kongo

      In 1923, Hirohito set off to tour the Japanese colony of Taiwan, a voyage his father, the then Crown Prince Yoshihito, had planned in 1911 but never undertaken.

      The Crown Prince embarked on the Imperial Cruiser Kongo at Yokosuka, the main Japanese naval base located to the south of Yokohama, on 12 April 1923. 

      He was accompanied by HIH Prince Hiroyoshi Fushimi and had an escort of two other warships of the Japanese Imperial Navy.

      At Taipei, Crown Prince Hirohito was received by Baron Den Kenjiro, the Governor-General of Taiwan. 

      Baron Den Kenjiro (shown on the right) ruled Taiwan from 29 October 1919 - 2 September 1923, and was her first civilian governor-general. Den was not only a statesman and bureaucrat, he was also an industrialist, being one of the founders in 1911 of what was to become Nissan Motors.

      Indeed, Baron Den Kenjiro's governorship of the island colony ushered in a period of enlightened civilian rule and liberalisation that was to last until 1936, when Japan was to become dominated by militarism. Many consider that the rise in militarism was a consequence of an education system that stressed absolute loyalty to a hierarchical system.

Baron Den Kenjiro (b. 1855 – d. 1930)

      Upon his appointment, Den had been given the mission  of assimilating the Taiwanese as Japanese subjects, especially through the medium of the education system and he thus carried out an extensive programme of building new schools.

      It was in this context of assimilating the Taiwanese as Japanese subjects that Crown Prince Hirohito's visit to the colony took place.

      Hirohito's first night on Taiwanese soil was spent not at Taipei but to the west, near Tamsui, at a place called Kappan-zan  [角板山, Chiaopanshan].

Japanese Postcard depicting the View from Kappanzan

      Kerr, writing many years later and with erroneous dates, recounts that Hirohito spent a single night at Kappanzan. Kerr laconically notes that the 'quasi-Western house (had been) built especially for the occasion, at great expense'. He adds that the 'Japanese in Formosa were suitably awed by the visit; the Formosans were not'.

      The interior of the carriage used by Crown Prince Hirohito was divided into a living-room area, a bedroom and a toilet. Each area was outfitted with electrical appliances, including electric lights and wooden, double-bladed fans.

      This luxuriously appointed carriage has recently been restored by the Taiwan Railway Administration. By clicking on the image you can view the restored carriage.

      During his journey by train through Taiwan, Hirohito had sighted Mount Sylvia [雪山, Hsueh-shan] and graciously renamed it Tsugitaka-yama. 

      Crown Prince Hirohito arrived at Takao Station, the southern terminal of the railway traversing Taiwan, on 21 April 1923.

      The old station still remains, though it is no longer used for passenger traffic, at the eastern end of Lin-hai 2nd Road in Ku-shan District. 

      During his stay at Takao Crown Prince Hirohito made a visit to the Minato Primary School that lay in the new town below the Reception Hall where he was staying. A report by the school principal, Shoji Unrinin, in the Taiwan Nichinichi Shinpo of 25 April 1923, serves to express the significance of Hirohito's visit:

Minato (now, Ku-shan) Primary School

     The story is told of the Grove of Auspicious Bamboos. When Hirohito's visit was first planned in early 1923, Mr Yamamoto, the President of the Taiwan Sugar Manufacturing Company, honoured with the prospect of an Imperial visit to his company, planned a cool arbour for the Crown Prince to rest.

      The finest bamboos were cut from the forests of central Taiwan and duly erected at Heito. However, Hirohito's visit was delayed by some weeks and Mr Yamamoto feared lest the bamboo lose all its verdure before the Crown Prince's arrival. Yet, a few days before Crown Prince Hirohito's arrival, the bamboo burst into life again. On the actual day of Hirohito's visit the bamboo pillars had fresh green sprouts several inches in length, which delighted the prince. 

      In later years this Grove of Auspicious Bamboos became venerated as the Zuichikurin Memorial.

Taiwan Sugar Manufacturing Company at Heito

      The southern point of the railroad at Takao was of major significance to the Japanese in accordance with their 'Look South' policy.

      Prince Kanin arrived at Takao aboard the SA 4102, the first Imperial Train, whose number had been demoted in deference to Hirohito's use of the second that had been designated SA 4101. 

      The Imperial Prince commanded that a family shrine then standing on the side of Takao Mountain be rebuilt as a Japanese Shinto temple. The temple, called the Kotohira Shrine [金刀比羅], was duly built in 1911 and was for praying to Omononushi-no-Mikoto [大物主命] , the Japanese god of the sea, and to the 12th century Japanese Emperor Sutoku [崇德天皇].

      We can be certain that Crown Prince Hirohito paid his respects at this shrine on his way to climb Takao Mountain. For, two years after his visit, a memorial was constructed higher up the Takao Mountain to commemorate Crown Prince Hirohito's climb up the bluff.

      The memorial (shown on the right) was built a few hundred metres above the Kotohira Shrine, and now lies within a restricted military area.

      On 23 April 1923, Crown Prince Hirohito departed aboard the Imperial Cruiser Kongo to make an inspection of the important naval base at Makung in the Pescadores (Peng-hu).

      The new building was subsequently opened to the public and was deemed the largest public bathhouse in the Japanese Empire.

      Crown Prince Hirohito handed his Imperial Notice to Governor-General Den Kenjiro and departed from Keelung aboard the Kongo on 26 April 1923.

      Events in the year after the return of Crown Prince Hirohito hardly augured well. 

      On 1 September 1923  the Great Kanto Earthquake was to shatter Japan proper, killing some 100,000 people and levelling vast areas, particularly in the capital city of Tokyo whose wooden buildings were consumed by the resultant fires. Although the city was rebuilt drawing on the then massive timber reserves of Taiwan, some 20 years later it was to be destroyed again; this time by American incendiary bombs. 

      In the aftermath of the Kanto earthquake, the military authorities saw an opportunity to annihilate the communist movement in Japan. The backlash culminated in an assassination attempt on the Prince Regent Hirohito on 27 December 1923.

      The Crown Prince survived and was married within the month to Princess Nagako. They had seven children, with their eldest son, Prince Tsugu, being the current (2005) Japanese Emperor Akihito.

      In December, 1926, after the death of his father Yoshihito known as the Taisho Emperor, he succeeded to the Chrysanthemum Throne and was entitled Showa (Enlightened Peace). The new Emperor Showa had the particular distinction of being the first Japanese monarch in several hundred years whose biological mother was his predecessor's official wife.

The Showa Emperor, known in the West as Hirohito, in 1928

      The postcard on the left shows Kotobuki Mountain(Shou-shan)  around 1935. The steps and the torii (ceremonial arch) on the hill still stand today.

Looking Back: The History of Kaohsiung

Old Postcards of Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung Museum of History

Taiwan, a Unique Colonial Record, Hideo Naito

Note: In 1923, Makino Productions made a silent 25-minute newsreel of  the Crown Prince (the future Emperor) Hirohito's visit to Taiwan, entitled "Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito Visits to Taiwan" [揤峜乮徍榓乯暶壓愛惌媨帪戙偵戜榩峴孾]. This 16mm film is held by the Keio Yochisha Elementary School [小学校]. It was shown at the 1997 Yamagata International Film Festival.