Part 21

In the year 1862 he had purchased the steamer _Fiery Cross_ for his 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.