Emperor Shijō – Japanese History’s Darwin Award
History is full of people who died in ridiculous manners. The Greek playwright Aeschylus, for example, was supposedly killed by a falling tortoise. Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, ingested mercury pills in the belief that they would grant him immortality. Ironically(but not surprisingly) they led to his death. More than likely, every country has its own tale of untimely, but humorous, demise. Japan is no exception. I’ve scoured over 2,000 years of history to find you the most ridiculous recorded death of all Japan’s many emperors, nobles and samurai. Japanese history’s Darwin Award goes to…
…Emperor Shijō!! Congratulations to the 87th ruler of the world’s longest-running empire. While I don’t condone laughing at someone’s death(much less the death of a ten-year-old), it has been almost 800 years. So if comedy really does equal tragedy plus time, then we’re well overdue a laugh at this story.
Early years
Much like Emperor Shijō’s life, this article is going to be short. He was born in 1231 and ascended the chrysanthemum throne two years later. At that time in history, the emperor was more or less a figurehead with no real power. In fact, it was common for emperors to retire early and pass the throne to their sons in order to lessen the risk of having their in-laws interfere in court matters and maintain some degree of control. And so Emperor Shijō’s father, Emperor Go-Horikawa, passed the throne to his son and took the title of dajō-tennō.
However, just two short years later, Go-Horikawa died, leaving a distant aunt in charge of the court until his son came of age. All was well until one fateful day in 1242 when ten-year-old emperor Shijō found a piece of soapstone on the palace grounds.
The incident
The court was a boring place during the Kamakura era; with the shōgunate effectively running the country, emperors had very little to do other than attend obligatory rituals and poetry events. For a child, there was virtually no stimulation whatsoever. With nothing much else to do, Emperor Shijō decided it would be fun if he placed the stone he found in one of the palace’s corridors and waited for a court lady to slip on it and potentially break her neck(you can see where this is going). He set the stone, hid round a corner, called out for someone to come and waited. But no one came. Confused as to why no one was answering his call, he stepped out into the corridor and, forgetting the rock was there, slipped and fell on his head. He died several days later of what is believed to have been a cerebral contusion.
Humorous as this story might be, it’s never going to be on a history test. Most Japanese people have never heard of Emperor Shijō and he lived too short a life to have accomplished anything of importance. However, one of the things that continues to interest me the most about history is the way that everything is connected. Even the most mundane, seemingly insignificant event can have a ripple effect that, over time, changes the course of history.
The repercussion
Being an only child and having died too young to have produced an heir, after Emperor Shijō’s death, the throne was passed to his third cousin, Emperor Go-Saga. This emperor’s two sons would go on to start a succession dispute that divided the court into two factions and, eventually, led to the creation of a second court: the Southern Court. Essentially, for a period of almost sixty years, Japan contained two Imperial Courts and two emperors. And it’s all because a kid found a lump of talc!
Conclusion
While intended to be a light-hearted article to show you that history doesn’t all have to be about wars and political contentions, I think the most important thing to take away from this is the fact that everything in history matters. Every little incident. Studying history on a surface level is a bit like doing a join-the-dots puzzle, where each dot represents an event that changed the course of time. It’s only when you dig into the specific details surrounding these events that you find the small nuggets of information that help you connect these dots. While some of you may have been expecting something more substantial from a ‘fanatic’ article, I hope I’ve been able to inspire you to study history in even greater detail.
