nephew, and went for a trial trip in her, outside Yokohama, and he had
otherwise evinced his perfect readiness to avail himself of such novel
methods and appliances, and of the services of Europeans in general, as
were from time to time offered to the local authorities of Satsuma as a
distinctly progressive body. It is requisite that the real attitude of
the Satsuma chieftain towards strangers should be made clear, because
it was owing to the precipitate action of some of his followers, in
attacking a party of Yokohama residents on the highway, for no better
reason than that they did not at once alight from their horses and
stand at the edge of the roadway while the Daimio’s procession passed
on its way back to Satsuma, that the British squadron was ordered to
bombard Kagoshima in 1863. The murder of Mr Richardson near Tsurumi
was perpetrated, in fact, when the Satsuma chief was returning after
escorting to Yedo a high official whom the Emperor Komei had sent in the
spring of 1862 to announce to the Bakufu his determination to expel all
foreigners from Japan. This was the period when reactionary influences
at Kioto were strongest, and even the Shogun Iyemochi, to whom Prince
Tokugawa Keiki was at the time the appointed guardian, could do no other
than promise obedience to the Imperial mandate. The Emperor Komei’s
orders had been to the effect that Iyemochi must at once visit Kioto
and there confer with the Court nobles, the avowed intention being that
the Shogun should put forth all his strength, in concert with the clans
throughout the empire, and restore tranquillity by effecting the complete
expulsion of “the barbarians.” So long as the Court influence remained
inimical to foreigners it was almost inevitable that there should be
a vast percentage of the population averse to the treaties, to the
Shogunate which had entered into those treaties, and to everything that
was to be regarded as an alien intrusion. Shimadzu Saburo’s relations
with the Bakufu were obviously of a nature to preclude the possibility
of its calling him to account for the crime perpetrated at Tsurumi, and
the British Admiral therefore undertook the duty, with the result that
the Kagoshima batteries were silenced and three of Satsuma’s recently
purchased steamers were captured. But as so frequently happens after a
quarrel, the foes were better friends than ever within a year or two,
and on the 27th of July 1866 Sir Harry Parkes, the British Minister,
paid Kagoshima a visit at its lord’s special invitation, in the
man-of-war _Princess Royal_, accompanied by the _Serpent_ and _Salamis_,
and received a most enthusiastic welcome. The young Prince, nephew of
Shimadzu Saburo, came off in his state barge, and the British visitors
were taken to see the foundry, where cannon were being cast, and shot
and shell turned out in great quantities, almost within a stone’s throw
of the walls of the daimio’s palace. Satsuma’s acquisitions were seen
to have included a steam lathe, and there likewise was a glass works
in full operation. Saigo Takamori being temporarily in exile, he was
not there personally to attend to the training of the Satsuma rank and
file, but it was carried on by his lieutenants with ardour, in view of
possible eventualities, and the general impression created was that the
Satsuma clan had resolved to make the best use of the knowledge that it
had gained of the power of modern weapons, and of Western inventions and
appliances, and would thenceforward seek by every means at command to
maintain its position in the van of Japan’s progress.
In 1865 Saigo was again prominent at Kagoshima, having been restored to
favour by his feudal lord, and he seems to have had a great share in the
direction of affairs in his native province, more particularly in respect
of the preparations that the clan was then making for taking a leading
part in the conflict which it was becoming more and more evident would
occur in the near future between the followers of the Tokugawa house and
the supporters of O-Sei—_i.e._ Imperial Government. Saigo’s personal
efforts were directed to the drilling of a competent force, capable of
making the best use of modern weapons, and when, in the first month of
1867, the Emperor Komei died at Kioto, and was succeeded on the throne
by the present sovereign, Satsuma was able to place at the service of
the new administration a fairly well-equipped contingent of riflemen,
under the leadership of Saigo Takamori himself. For a considerable
portion of the first year of the Meiji era there was warfare between the
troops of the Shogun and the Choshiu clan, and in January 1868 came the
_coup d’état_ at Kioto by which the Aidzu clansmen were relieved of the
guardianship of the Nine Gates of the capital and the duty was undertaken
by the drilled forces of Satsuma and Choshiu combined.
In the memorable battle at Fushimi, seven miles from Kioto on the Osaka
road, Saigo was leader of the imperial troops opposed to those of the
Tokugawa Shogunate, and exhibited on that occasion marked military genius
as well as great personal bravery. His coolness under fire was ever a
subject of intense admiration to his comrades, and it was conspicuous in
this fiercest of engagements, lasting for three days, at the very outset
of the Meiji era.
The Aidzu men had retired northward after the defeat of the Shogun’s
army at Fushimi, but at Yedo the forces of the Shogunate still held
their ground, and the Emperor’s uncle, Arisugawa-no-miya, was sent,
bearing the imperial brocade banner, to suppress them. With him went
Saigo Takamori, as his Sambo, or military adviser, a post that would in
these days be described as that of Chief of Staff. There was some severe
fighting at different points on the road to Yedo, but early in 1868
Saigo Takamori, at the head of the imperial forces reached the southern
suburb of the capital at Shinagawa, and the occupation of Yedo by them
took place on the 26th of April of that year. The Tokugawa men shut
themselves up in the castle and were not subdued until a desperate fight
had occurred at Uyeno, in grounds then belonging to the temples, but at
the present day forming a beautiful public park. This battle was fought
on 4th of July 1868, his Imperial Highness Higashi Fushimi, to whom some
reference has already been made as having at a later date visited London,
having on that day borne the imperial brocade banner to victory. Though
this engagement was in July the Shogun had ceased his connection with
the rebellion—for such it had now become, being a revolt against the
administration which had received the Emperor’s authority to act,—and
after making his submission had been directed to retire for the time
being to his original home at Mito, on the east coast. At a later period
he finally went into complete seclusion at Shidzuoka, in the province of
Suruga.
The dignified manifesto to his adherents which the Shogun issued at
the time of his retirement made evident his conviction that unity was
absolutely essential to the success of the national policy and that it
was the duty of all true patriots to sink their differences and join in
unselfish endeavours to promote the influence and supreme authority of
the Imperial Court.
While Saigo was at Shinagawa, in the yashiki of the Satsuma clan, which
the recent combat and subsequent fire had left in a deplorably ruinous
condition, an old friend came to him in the person of Katsu, the lord of
Awa,—a province facing Yokohama across the Bay of Tokio,—who pleaded that
the capital should be spared the horrors of an assault, and representing
the willingness of the Shogun’s supporters to submit. Saigo consented to
place matters before his chief, the Prince Arisugawa, and terms of peace
were arranged on the lines that Katsu had suggested, namely that the
city should be spared in consideration of the vessels belonging to the
Shogunate being surrendered, and the castle of Yedo handed over to the
imperialists. With men of the type of the Shogun’s supporters, however,
it was one thing to make peace on their behalf and quite another to
induce them to abide by the bargain when it involved complete submission
in token of defeat. A number of them determined to hold out in Uyeno, and
the fleet made good its retreat from Yedo bay and was next heard of at
Hakodate, where it held out for some considerable time. Another section
of the Shogun’s supporters under Otori Keisuke, went northward, and were
followed by the imperialists under Saigo, a severe engagement ensuing
at Utsunomiya, some sixty miles north of the capital. It is related of
Katsu that he persuaded his friend Saigo to accompany him to the top of
Atago-yama, a conspicuous hill near Shiba, within the city limits, and
from that elevation showed him a great part of Yedo lying helpless, as
it were, at his feet. “If we fight, these innocent people will be great
sufferers,” said Katsu, and the appeal to Saigo’s humanity was not in
vain. Katsu, as the lord of Awa, was on the side of Saigo’s opponents,
in virtue of his holding under the Bakufu, and though the Shogun’s
Government had been rather severe with him for some of his pro-foreign
ideas, imbibed when he navigated the first Japanese vessel of war across
the Pacific to San Francisco, some few years previously, he was bound in
honour to espouse the Shogun’s side in the struggle then taking place.
On the termination of the War of the Restoration Saigo received a grant,
for his eminent services to the State, in the form of an estate of the
annual value of 2000 _Koku_, equivalent, if the present-day price of
rice be taken as a guide, to £2500 per annum. He retired to his native
province and settled at Takemura, a village close to Kagoshima, his
life from that time forward being characterised by extreme simplicity,
frugality, and the cultivation of his lands with his own hands, until
duty once more called him forth from his eminently peaceful pursuits
to take part in matters of administration. Although the idol of the
samurai, and constantly mixed up in political affairs, as was indeed
almost unavoidable in that stage of the national progress, when every
prominent man was intimately concerned with one party or another, it
was nevertheless contrary to Saigo’s personal tastes to figure as a
Government official, and he would infinitely have preferred to roam
the hills of Satsuma or Osumi, gun in hand, than to take part in State
functions.
In the Government which was formed in 1872 under the presidency of Prince
Sanjo, Saigo held the portfolio of Minister of War, and it was at this
time that the army of Japan began to take definite shape, Saigo himself
being responsible for the general plan on which the establishment of an
adequate military force was based. That Japan’s ambition did not soar
very high at that time may be gathered from the subjoined figures, which
represent approximately the strength in peace time and in war which was
then decided upon:—
In Peace time In War Household
Infantry 26,880 40,320 3,200
Cavalry 360 450 150
Artillery 2,160 2,700 300
Engineers 1,200 1,500 150
Military Train 360 480 80
Marine Artillery 720 900 ...
------ ------ -----
31,680 46,350 3,880
It was at about this period that the Korean difficulty began to make
itself felt in connection with the administration of the Japanese forces,
for there arose a strong party in the State which favoured immediate
and resolute action with regard to what was loudly proclaimed to be
a stealthy but sure advance of Russia toward the coasts of Japan, an
approach that even the coolest and the wisest heads in the Empire could
not reflect upon without apprehension. Okubo Toshimichi had placed it
on record that “Russia, always pressing southward, is Japan’s principal
danger.” The conquest of Korea, as affording a complete check to Russia’s
advance, was a step that several of the Cabinet Ministers were eager
to embark upon there and then. But in Okubo and Iwakura the nation had
two cautious statesmen, as prudent as they were patriotic, and their
influence carried the day, though Okubo was Saigo’s fellow-clansman. The
annexation of Korea was postponed indefinitely, and those who were the
strenuous advocates of the forward policy resigned, among them being
Saigo Takamori, and Itagaki Taisuke of the province of Tosa. The standard
of revolt was speedily raised in the south, not in Satsuma, for Saigo was
not then prepared for such a desperate venture, but in Hizen province,
to which belonged Yeto Shimpei, who had been one of Saigo’s colleagues
in the Cabinet, as Minister of Justice. Yeto Shimpei and his following
were soon put down, and the leader of this abortive undertaking paid the
penalty with his life.
But although Saigo had not been in a position to render his former friend
any active help, had he been disposed at that stage to embark in open
hostilities to the existing Government, it is none the less true that
he had devoted the bulk of his income of 2000 koku to the upkeep of a
school at Kagoshima, named the _Shimpei Shi-gakko_, or New Army Private
Academy, which was in reality a school for young samurai, belonging
to his own clan, wherein were taught the science and theory of modern
warfare, and the pupils were numbered by the thousand. Among them the
idea was prevalent that the honour of their country had been sullied by
the failure to exact an apology from either Korea or its suzerain China
for the insults, as they were deemed to be, levelled at Japan during the
preceding two or three years. The samurai of the south demanded that they
should be led against the Koreans to exact reparation, and when this boon
was denied them they murmured against the authorities at Tokio.
In the expectation that it would prove a safety-valve for this excessive
eagerness to be revenged upon Korea, the Government of Tokio sought to
find a vent for the ebullient enthusiasm of the Satsuma warriors in an
expedition to Formosa, to demand redress for the ill treatment of some
shipwrecked fishermen by the savages, whom China had professed herself
unable to control. This resolve was not taken without having exhausted
all ordinary means of obtaining satisfaction, and the supreme charge of
the undertaking was given to Saigo’s brother, then Minister of the Navy
in the Imperial Cabinet. Satsuma being the province nearest to Formosa,
the transports set out from Kiushiu, and the bulk of the troops on which
the task devolved of maintaining Japan’s prestige in the field on this
occasion were men of Satsuma.
In due course the victorious army returned to Japan, on the completion
of an Agreement with China whereby the Peking Government bound itself
to repay to Japan the expense which it had incurred, but it was not
until the British Minister, Sir Thomas Wade, had intervened to prevent a
complete severance of relations between Japan and China, consequent upon
the indisposition of the Tsung-Li Ya-men to fall in with Japan’s views,
that a rupture was avoided. Okubo Toshimichi, Japan’s representative in
the negotiations, was actually on the point of taking his departure from
the Chinese capital when the Chinese besought the British Minister to
rescue them from the predicament into which their procrastination had led
them. China paid half a million taels toward Japan’s expenses, and the
affair was at an end for the time, Satsuma receiving back the survivors
of the contingent that she had sent out a few months before, with regret
that fever had decimated their ranks, but with pride that her drilled
troops had acquitted themselves so well in the day of trial.
The attitude of Korea continued to be in every way a source of anxiety,
however, to the Imperial Cabinet, and though in 1875 an agreement was
made whereby Korea was opened to foreign trade, and ratified on the 26th
February, of the next year, termed the treaty of Kokwa, the war party
in Japan was by no means willing to accept this as a solution of the
problem. The Satsuma clan offered strenuous opposition to the extension
of the telegraph system of the empire into its own province, and for
the time the farthest point of the line southward that the wires could
be carried was Kumamoto, seventy-five miles by road short of Kagoshima.
It is only now, in 1906, that a State railway is being constructed to
the Satsuma stronghold, and for many years the reactionary spirit was
strong enough to give pause to both these enterprises of the Department
of Public Works. It was Saigo’s wish to chastise Korea and bring her
into complete subjection to Japan, but the Government of the day thought
otherwise, and meanwhile the Shimpei Shi-gakko persevered with its
drills, and the pupils regarded Saigo Takamori as a misjudged man whose
most patriotic wishes were being ignored at Tokio.
At last, one day in February 1877, a messenger arrived by boat at
Kumamoto and handed in a despatch for transmission by telegraph to Tokio
apprising the Government of the departure three days before of 12,000
men, fully armed, on a march to Kioto,—as the leaders put it,—to lay
their grievances before the Emperor, who happened to be making a brief
stay at his old capital. The despatch speedily reached the Government at
Tokio, and action was taken on the instant. The sovereign’s uncle was
invested with full powers to punish the rebels, as Saigo Takamori and
his companions in this desperate adventure were pronounced to be, and
troops were hurried away to Kiushiu as fast as steam could convey them.
Prince Arisugawa reached Hakata, which became the base of operations,
early in March, and meanwhile the garrison of Kumamoto, which town was
on the line of the Satsuma men’s march, placed the castle in a state of
defence. Saigo was in command of the rebels, with Kirino, and Shinowara,
who were both officers of high rank, as his lieutenants, and the Kumamoto
castle was held by a Satsuma man, General Tani, whom nothing would
induce to betray his trust. Apart from all question of its prospects of
success had it got as far as the main island of Hondo, the chances of the
expedition ever completing its projected march to Kioto were destroyed
at the outset by its leader devoting his energies to the reduction of
the Kumamoto fortress before proceeding beyond that point. Whether he
had a sufficient following to admit of his leaving a large proportion
of his force in possession of Kumamoto, numerous enough to keep General
Tani within the castle walls, while himself pushing on northward, is at
least doubtful, but at all events he did not attempt to do so, and the
garrison offered so stout a resistance that weeks were lost in a vain
effort to capture the place, all the time that the imperial forces were
gathering and marching against him from Shimonoseki and Hakata, whither
they had been brought by transport. The relief of Kumamoto was effected
on the 14th of April 1877. Some very severe conflicts took place in the
vicinity, notably at Minami-no-seki (Southern barrier) a pass in the
range of hills some miles to the north of the castle, Takase, and Uyeki.
A large percentage of the troops employed on the Government side were
men from Aidzu and other northern districts wherein the cause of the
Shogun had found its strongest support in the war of the Restoration,
and in their encounters with the Satsuma men, ten years before, had been
worsted. Under the improved military system which Saigo Takamori had
had so great a share in establishing these northern men had developed
into fine soldiers, but their efficiency was sorely tested by the fierce
onslaughts of the Satsuma swordsmen, whose habit it was to fling away the
rifles they bore and rush to close quarters on every occasion. Eventually
the Tokio police, who are all of samurai birth, were drafted into Kiushiu
to take part in the contest with the swordsmen of the south, and there
was from that time onward a vast amount of hand-to-hand fighting in the
fashion of a bygone era.
After the siege of Kumamoto had been raised the followers of Saigo
became somewhat scattered, and were driven back towards their stronghold
in Kagoshima. There were sanguinary encounters at Miyako-no-jo,
Hitoyoshi, Sadowara, and Nobeoka, all places within a short radius of
the Satsuma headquarters, and stage by stage the rebellion was crushed,
the final stand of Saigo’s adherents being made at Shiroyama (Castle
mountain) within the walls of the daimio’s residence in Kagoshima,
of which the rebels had possessed themselves in the absence of their
feudal lord. Shimadzu Saburo had been prevailed upon at the outset to
discountenance the movement, and his influence had prevailed with his
nephew to prevent him likewise from throwing in his lot with the avowed
antagonists of the Government. The end was reached on 24th September,
when a fierce assault was made by the Government forces on the Castle
hill, and Saigo was wounded, the major part of his men falling with
him to the bullets of their adversaries. When he saw that all hope was
past Saigo bade his faithful friend Hemmi perform the last office that
a samurai could undertake for a comrade, and the command was obeyed as
soon as Saigo had himself consummated the act of _seppuku_, the headless
body being found at the close of the fighting, but the head remaining for
a while undiscovered. Hemmi had fallen also, on his own sword, by his
leader’s side. Search was made, and soon the head was found and taken
to Admiral Kawamura, who had borne his share in the attack as a loyal
subject of the Emperor, though heart-broken at being compelled to oppose
his fellow-clansman and life-long friend. The admiral was indeed related
by marriage to the dead hero, and having carefully washed the head
Kawamura carried it in his own hands to his home, there to be guarded
until such time as the body could be decently interred.
However misguided may have been his actions in the opinion of some of his
compatriots, Saigo was the idol of the samurai, and almost equally so of
the nation at large. It was many years before millions of his countrymen
were willing to credit the reports of his death. When at last they were
compelled to admit it they insisted that he had taken up his abode in
the planet Mars. A man of striking personality,—he stood over six feet
high,—he was distinguished by the extreme simplicity of his tastes, his
utter repugnance to display of any sort, his bravery and contempt of
danger, his complete modesty and unselfishness, evinced in a thousand
ways. His innate kindliness and generosity of heart, concealed beneath
a certain taciturnity which is not infrequent among Satsuma people
in general, gained for him the utmost respect and esteem and won the
affections of soldiers of all ranks to a man. When the struggle was at
its height in the summer of 1877 a prominent journal thus eulogised him:—
“Though Saigo Takamori is the public enemy of the State,—although his
crime, according to the laws of Meiji, is absolutely unpardonable,—he is
still a great man. Was it not he who overturned the despotic Bakufu, and
restored the ancient imperial authority? Did he not do this with infinite
exertion and the most profound indifference to the perils which beset his
person?” It is safe to say that up to the time of the revolt of the clan
in 1877 he was the most popular of the nation’s heroes.
The Emperor gave one more proof of his extreme magnanimity of mind when
he pardoned Saigo’s transgression and ordered a statue to be erected to
his memory in Uyeno Park in Tokio. Some years afterwards his Majesty
conferred the title of Marquis on Takamori’s eldest son, in recognition
of the invaluable support that the father had rendered to the State,
in the days prior to Satsuma’s outbreak. Every line of the record of
his error has been expunged by his sovereign’s command, and naught
remains but the memory of splendid services given to his country with
whole-souled devotion and self-sacrifice. He died as became a true and
loyal samurai of his race,—died as he had hoped to die,
“... And not disgrace—
Its ancient chivalry.”
XIII
FIELD-MARSHAL MARQUIS YAMAGATA