THE report of the samurai Genji caused an instant stir of preparation
throughout the camp of Mori. The commanders of the batteries inspected
their pieces carefully, giving orders for hurried repairs where
necessary; horses were examined foot by foot, and within the tent of the
Irregulars’ leader a last council of the staff arranged the details of
an early morning march. Then the rank and file were sent to sleep upon
their arms.
“You are certain Jiro is in no danger?” Mori asked, just before the
samurai’s return to the palace.
“None whatever,” answered Genji, “even if I am not with him, your
highness. He has friends at court and may yet serve us further.”
Relieved in mind concerning the safety of the youth, in whom Mori placed
deep confidence and for whom he had great affection, the leader of the
Irregulars returned to his tent. There he found his staff, the leading
kuge of Choshui, still gathered, though the morning’s attack had been
thoroughly ordered.
Seating himself, Mori began the composition of a memorial to the
Imperial throne. Glancing up, he saw his officers silently watching him.
“What is it?” he inquired.
Oguri stepped forward. There was a strange gravity and even sadness in
his face as he bowed deeply before his superior.
“Your highness,” he said, “our cause is just, and history should accord
us our proper place when the anti-Shogun government is established.”
“Yes.”
“But it is of the present we think.”
“Speak on.”
“The present esteem of our friends in the Kioto court—we must advise
them of our purity of motive.”
Mori held up quietly the scroll upon which he had been engaged. He
replied:
“I have thought of that. At this moment I am inditing a memorial to the
throne, begging his Imperial Majesty’s pardon for creating a disturbance
so near to the base of the chariot (throne), but declaring that we do it
that he may rule without a Shogun, the sole and Imperial master of his
own empire.”
The officers looked at each other with solemn expressions of approval.
“My lord,” said Oguri, “we would wish also to write letters to our
personal friends at the Imperial court. May we have your august
permission to do so?”
“Do so at once, my brave men,” returned Mori, “but do not forget that we
cannot send them this night, since that would warn them of our
contemplated attack. Leave your letters with me. Write them here, if you
wish, and I will be responsible for their delivery.”
Then the company, careful of their honor with their friends and foes
alike at court, set to their task. With tears in their eyes, the
patriots traced upon the paper words of devotion to their country and
their cause. Soon a little pile of epistles lay under Mori’s hand. Their
valor was in no way diminished by this satisfaction of their honor.
During the night Mori obtained some rest, which was broken at intervals
when bands of ronins, who had devoted themselves since the Yedo troubles
to the extermination of anti-Imperialists, came to his encampment,
offering their services in any movement against the Aidzu-Catzu
combination. So small was Mori’s force that he would have been glad of
their aid, but for his unwillingness to stand sponsor for their
unlicensed acts.
At the hour when the Lord of Catzu was unsealing a letter from his son,
Toro, justifying all his actions in the past, and at the same time
beseeching his father’s forgiveness, the little force of Irregulars
encircled the Imperial palace.
The Lord of Catzu had read enough of the letter to understand its
import, when the movements of the army without, accentuated by the sharp
cries of the guarding samurai, came to his ears.
“There has been some strange treason here,” cried Catzu, wildly, as he
summoned his followers to arms.
Mori’s plan of battle was simple. The force had been divided into three
divisions, commanded by himself, Oguri, and Toro respectively. It was
not without misgivings that the Prince had intrusted the command of a
division to the rash Toro, but the reflection that his very temerity
might be a valuable element in the day’s events had decided him.
Each of these divisions was to proceed to a different gate, through
which a simultaneous attack upon the inner palace was to be made. Those
within were to be driven out by the infantry into the streets, where
cavalry and artillery would cut and pound them to pieces.
The artillery was upon no account to be directed against the palace
itself, since the life of the Son of Heaven and the safety of the
charging forces within might thereby be imperilled. A portion of the
artillery was given to each division; the cavalry, acting as one body,
was to act as the circumstances might require.
To himself and a band of chosen samurai, Mori reserved the capture and
guarding of the Emperor’s sacred person.
At the western gate Mori halted the van of his division, while the
cavalry, closely compact, rested on his right in readiness for their
orders. At his left was his artillery force, so arranged that their fire
should cut obliquely the line of entrance.
The Irregulars who faced the samurai guarding this port of entrance
presented a far from uniform aspect. They, the infantry of his force,
were all in armor, but their weapons differed. Some carried rifles,
others were armed with spears, swords, and bows and arrows. They were
gathered into corps according to the nature of their arms, but all were
infantry.
At a signal from Mori a rifle volley cut down the samurai at the gate.
Those who were struck dashed through the portals, whence issued audible
proofs of the alarm felt within.
Instantly the ranks of the infantry parted to permit the passage of a
body of laborers and sappers, who, attacking the gate with their tools,
gave promise of a speedy breach.
At the moment when one of the doors gave way, when the infantry,
straining every nerve, waited couched for the charge, when Mori in their
rear gathered about him the picked samurai he was to lead, there
thundered from a point across the palace directly opposite the heavy
detonation of artillery.
The commander was thrown into grave anxiety. From its volume he knew
that one of his lieutenants, disobeying his orders, was shelling the
Imperial palace. The safety of the Emperor, and his own good faith, were
equally endangered, since the death of the Mikado would make him and his
men choteki (traitors) in the eyes of the nation.
Mori came to an instant decision. Even at the cost of the utter failure
of the storming of the palace, such a false position must be avoided.
Committing the assault of the western gate to a young officer, and
bidding his picked samurai follow him, he seized the horse an attendant
held for him, and galloped around the angle of the palace wall.
When he came within sight of the central gate of the eastern wall, Mori
saw that Toro, wearying of the slowness of his pioneers, had ordered his
artillery to batter down the doors. One small volley had been fired when
the Prince, riding fiercely at the men serving the guns, beat them down
with the flat of his sword.
“Remove these guns at once,” he shouted; “you must not fire.”
Sheepishly the gunners picked themselves up, as the horses dragged the
pieces to one side. Mori, dismounting, strode up to Toro, now standing
abashed before the very gate he was to storm.
“You are superseded,” roared the enraged Mori. “I give the command to—”
With a quick, almost superhumanly nervous movement, the gates were
thrust aside from within. The black muzzles of cannon threatened the now
disorganized division of the Irregulars.
“After me,” cried Mori.
A flying leap carried him across the line of cannon. Out from their
mouths belched their fire. The invaders were swept aside. Mori, striking
terrible blows about him, ordered his men to advance, when the Shogun
cannon were withdrawn, and a body of horsemen, with savage cries, rushed
from within the palace, driving before them and scattering the survivors
of Toro’s division.
A horse felled Mori and tossed him aside. As he struck the ground a
gigantic samurai seized his motionless form, threw it across his
shoulder, and carried it into the group of palaces.
The body of chosen samurai who had followed Mori, more slowly because on
foot, now came up, and made a disheartening stand. A terrible cry arose
that carried dismay, disorganization, and defeat to all divisions of the
Irregulars.
“The Shining Prince is taken! Mori is killed!” was shouted by some
witless member of Toro’s division.
Taken up by others, the report came to the officers in whose charge the
various divisions had been placed. Although Oguri made every effort to
carry cohesion throughout the force, the shout had done its work. Mori,
the Shining Prince, their invincible leader, was dead, thought the rank
and file. All was lost. With such a spirit to combat, the officers could
do nothing.
A superstitious fear that the gods had deserted them entirely for their
sacrilegious act of attacking the palace of their representative on
earth, the divine Mikado, added terror to the Irregulars.
Some little advantage was gained here and there by charges into the
gardens of the palace, but the great force of Aidzu easily repelled
them. Then pouring out into the streets, the army of chastisement, under
the young Prince of Mito, cut asunder the already divided and leaderless
force of Choshui. Away from the vicinity of the Imperial enclosure the
centre of battle rolled. The cavalry of Mori, dashing about compactly,
made charges that were intended to rally the men of Choshui, but
fruitlessly. They alone, of all the bodies of the Mori army, hung
together.
The Shogun troop, having seized the cannon of Toro’s division, turned
them upon the Imperialists. Fresh troops, ordered to the palace some
days before by Aidzu, now arriving, overwhelmed by sheer swamping effect
the artillery of Mori, once their fire was drawn. Most of Mori’s
artillery was now in the hands of the shogunates.
As the flood of fighting men surged through the city of Kioto in
diverse, disintegrating directions, fire ingulfed large portions of the
city. A gale sprang up from the west, fanning the work of incendiarism
and cannon. Houses, squares, streets, yashishikis of the visiting
daimios, whole districts were destroyed, while the bakufu followers
cannonaded and beat to pieces the public store-houses, lest some Choshui
men should find hiding there. The lowly Eta in their peaceful villages
were driven out and their houses consumed before the breath of angry
war. An Imperial city fell almost to ashes and ruin in a day and night.
But scattered and isolated as they were, the valorous men of Choshui,
once they recovered themselves from the disaster of the palace, made a
last, wild, determined resistance.
A party under Toro, now insane with grief, occupied house after house
and building after building, as with their rifles they brought down the
enemy during a slow retreat, when they fired every edifice they were
forced to abandon.
Darkness drew no kindly curtain over the red-heated stage of action. The
light of vast conflagrations gave sufficient illumination for sword to
meet sword in a shock broken only by death. The houseless, homeless
residents of the city, non-combatants, fleeing to the hills for their
lives, deepened the tragedy of the scene.
In the confusion of this isolated series of battles, Oguri had come upon
the cavalry division. Vaulting into an empty saddle, he took command.
Diffused as the avenging wave of the young Mito had now become, it could
be broken through in some single spot, Oguri believed. The bakufu men
thought only of attack, not of being attacked.
Through a quarter of the town as yet untouched by the fury of either
party, Oguri led the cavalry back towards the palace. Coming upon Toro’s
party, he added them to his forces. But with his meeting of Toro he had
chanced upon a fighting zone. Through the cleared space on which still
smouldered the ruins of buildings fired by Toro, Oguri directed a charge
against the infantry opposed to him, and passed on. In this way, Oguri
gained gradually a passage towards the palace. Whenever he came to a
region of houses from which he was attacked, Toro and his followers,
become pioneers and sappers, levelled and set fire to them, clearing the
way for a new charge of Oguri’s horse.
Slowly, still undiscovered by the main body of the enemy, they reached
the palace.
Gray, dismal, haggard dawned the day, as though fearing to look with sun
eyes upon the horror wrought by dark night. From the burning city great
mists of smouldering débris hastened to veil, as though in sympathy, the
eyes of the lord of day.
Within the palace Mori came to consciousness. He lay in a chamber
looking upon what he recognized as the inner court of the Imperial
palace. One hand wandered in convulsive movements down his person. He
found that his armor was still upon him, though loosened. Upon the floor
by the side of his divan lay his swords and helmet. Mori fell, rather
than rose, from the divan, and stood dizzily, uncertainly erect. Then
attempting to raise his sword, he fell from weakness.
At the sound a woman came forward from the recesses of the apartment.
Mori regarded her with delirious eyes. She seemed a white phantom who
had risen up in his path to taunt him with her wondrous loveliness. But
over her there was the gauzy cloud of falsity. She was a vampire.
“You are yourself?” she breathed, in soft question.
Sullenly, dizzily, Mori raised himself, and, with the motion of a
drunken man, stooped to his sword and helmet. Obtaining them, he turned
on the woman burning eyes.
“Touch me not,” he muttered. Then flinging aside the door, and seeking
the stairway as if by instinct, he tumbled rather than walked down the
stairs.
He heard the tramp of horsemen without. Brandishing his sword, he rushed
into the gardens. He was in the midst of Oguri’s horsemen. The leader
flung himself from his horse and threw his arms about his disabled
chief.
Mori tottered into the arms of the chief of his staff.
“Seize the Emperor!” he half moaned, half gasped, in command;
“then—retreat—south—back—to our provinces.”
Anxious to retrieve himself in the eyes of the army whose destruction he
laid at his own door, Toro set off for the building within the court,
shouting to his men, as Oguri received the swooning Mori into his arms.
“Follow me! To the Emperor!” shrilly cried Toro.
If any of the bakufu troops still remained within the palace they did
not show themselves while Oguri, busied with Mori, let his cavalry stand
idly by. The footfalls of Toro’s party resounded through the inner
quadrangle.
Within an inner chamber, crouching in seeming fear, Toro found a figure
dressed in the garments his knowledge told him were Imperial. He knew
that the central, palace was the Mikado’s residence. To the crouching
figure Toro made respectful obeisance.
“Oh, Son of Heaven, yield thyself to me. I shall care reverently for thy
person,” he said.
The figure raised a pallid face, while trembling lips murmured:
“Wouldst thou lay profane hands upon the sacred person of thy Emperor?”
“It is he!” cried Toro, delighted. “Seize him, my men, and carry him
off.” He modified his command to add: “Touch him with respect, I command
you.”
To Oguri they bore the still trembling man. The lieutenant ordered him
placed in a norimon, where his sacred person might be shielded from the
scrutiny of his men.
“Is it indeed he?” Oguri questioned Toro.
“No doubt of it,” returned Toro. “He himself admitted it.”
Oguri and Toro now consulted together as to their next course. Mori was
still insensible, despite their efforts to arouse him. In the reduced
condition of their force, Oguri did not deem it wise to remain longer,
lest returning bakufu hosts should spoil all. He could not spare the men
to carry an additional norimon. He spoke thoughtfully:
“His highness, our beloved Prince of Mori, is of royal lineage and blood
himself, as thou knowest, my Lord of Catzu. It will, therefore, be meet
that we place him within the same norimon with the Son of Heaven.”
The body of their senseless leader was placed in the norimon, while
Oguri, in order to attend to his wishes when he should regain
consciousness, was forced also to crowd into the vehicle. Eight strong
samurai lifted the carriage.
“Back to Choshui,” ordered Oguri, mindful of the last order of his
chief. Moreover, the long march back to their base of supplies was the
best, and indeed the only course left to them.
Three miles outside the city, Mori, moaning, struggled in the arms of
Oguri.
“All is lost! All is lost!” cried Mori, with heart-breaking bitterness.
“Nay, my prince, my dear lord,” said Oguri, in a voice as tender and
soft as a woman’s, “all is not lost. We were but a portion of our one
clan of Choshui. Our southern allies, our friends, are only waiting to
rally to thy aid. Moreover, we have achieved a great triumph over our
enemies.” He lowered his voice. “Your highness, we have honorably
captured the person of the Son of Heaven. See!”
He lifted with one hand the head of Mori, while with the other he parted
the curtains of the norimon, letting in the strong light of day, which
shone upon the face of the figure reclining on the opposite seat in the
norimon.
Painfully Mori looked. His head fell back.
“Fools! Fools!” he mumbled. “You have been tricked by the cunning Aidzu.
That is not the Emperor.”
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[Illustration: Decoration]