23. Hara Kiyoshi, Boshin sensō [The Boshin war] (Hanawa shobō, 1963), 52–53.
24. Ibid., map 184; MatsushitaYoshio, Meiji no guntai [The military of the Meiji era] (Shibundō, 1963), 42–45. Kuroda was a wife beater, and in March 1878 during a drunken rage he stabbed his wife to death. Home Minister Ōkubo declared that Kuroda was not that type of person, and a subsequent police investigation exhumed the corpse only to conclude that there was insufficient evidence of murder. The case was buried in silence. Irogawa Daisuke, Nihon no rekishi [A history of Japan] 21, Kindai kokka no shuppatsu [The starting point of the modern nation] (Chūō kōronsha, 1966), 13–14.
25. Asakawa Michio, “Ishin kengunki ni okeru Nihon rikugun no yōhei shisō” [Strategic and tactical thought in the Japanese army during the restoration] Gunji shigaku 38:2 (September 2002), 11.
26. Mōri Toshihiko, Taiwan shuppei [The Taiwan expedition] (Chūkō shinsho, 1996), 157; Rikusen gakkai, eds., Kindai sensōshi gaisetsu [An overview of modern war history] jo (Rikusen gakkai, 1984), 12.
27. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 21–22.
28. Wagatsuma Hideki, ed., Nihon seiji saiban shiroku, Meij—zen [A historical record of Japan’s political trials—the early Meiji period] (Dai ichi hōki shuppan kabushiki kaisha, 1968), 102–110.
29. Wagatsuma, Nihon seiji saiban shiroku, 102–110.
30. Hata, Tōsuiken to teikoku, 104–105.
31. Headed by Iwakura Tomomi, the most important court noble in the Meiji government, the mission returned in September 1873.
32. Hata, Tōsuiken to teikoku, 114; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 15.
33. Yui Masaomi, “Meiji shoki no kengun kōsō” [Plans for building the army during the early Meiji period], in Yui Masaomi, Fujiwara Akira, and Yoshida Yutaka, eds., Nihon kindai shisō taikei 4 [An outline of modern Japanese thought], Guntai to heishi [The military and the soldiery] (Iwanami shoten, 1989), 426.
34. Inoue, Meiji ishin, 176–177.
35. Yui, “Meiji shoki,” 436; Inoue, Meiji ishin, 168; Kumagai Tadasu, Teikokurikukaigun kisō chishiki, 113, 157; Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun to jinteki seidō to mondai ten no kenkyū, 24–25; Fujiwara, Gunjishi, 24.
36. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 26–27; Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 12.
37. Hara Takeshi, Meijiki kokudo bōeishi [A history of homeland defense during the Meiji period] (Kinseisha, 2002), 26; Fujiwara, Gunjishi, 23–25; Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 12; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 26; Tobe Ryōichi, Nihon no kindai [A history of modern Japan] 9, Gyakusetsu no guntai [The military paradox] (Chūō kōronsha, 1998), 34.
38. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 27; Daihon’ei rikugunbu part 1, 5, 9.
39. Yui, “Meiji shoki,” 452–454.
40. Hara Takeshi, Meijiki kokudo, 16.
41. Kumagai Tadasu, Teikokurikukaigun kisō chishiki, 114; Yoshida Yutaka, Nihon no guntai [The Japanese military] (Iwanami shinsho, 2002), 36–37, 46; Stewart Lone, Army, Empire and Politics in Meiji Japan (London: St. Martin’s, 2000), 16; Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun to jinteki seidō, 24–25.
42. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 23–25; Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun to jinteki seidō,30, 40; Nishioka Koshoku, “Kanbu kyōiku seidō no sōsetsu to hatten” [The establishment and development of the officer education system], in Okumura Fusao and Kuwada Etsu, eds., Kindai Nihon sensōshi [A history of modern Japan’s wars] 1, Nisshin Nichi-Ro sensō [The Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese wars] (Dōdai keizai konwakai, 1996), 61.
43. Nishioka, “Kanbu kyōiku seidō,” 58.
44. Rikusen gakkai, Kindai sensōshi gaisetsu, 12. The army abolished the NCO academy in 1899.
45. Nishioka, “Kanbu kyōiku seidō,” 60; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 24; Endō Yoshinobu, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū [A study of the history of modern Japanese military education] (Aoki shoten, 1994), table 314, 92–93; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 31.
46. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 56;YoshidaYutaka, Nihon no guntai, 36–37, 46; Lone, Army, Empire, 16.
47. YoshidaYutaka, Nihon no guntai, 20.
48. Nishioka, “Kanbu kyōiku seidō,” 57; Tanaka Keimi, Rikugun jinji seidō gaisetsu, zenkan [An outline of the army’s personnel system, pt. 1], Bōeicho bōei senshibu kenkyū shiryō 80 RO-1H [Japan, self-defense agency, self-defense military history department, research document 80-1H], mimeo, 1981, 62.
49. Richard Sims, French Policy towards the Bakufu and Meiji Japan, 1854–95 (Surrey: Curzon, 1998), 241–242; Nishioka, “Kanbu kyōiku seidō,” 64; Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun no jinjiteki seidō, 57. The academy would move to Zama, about 25 miles southwest of Tokyo, in 1937.
50. Kumagai Tadasu, Kisō chishiki, 214; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 91–92.
51. Kumagai Tadasu, Kisō chishiki, 126–127, 248. The three generals were Tanaka Giichi, who also became prime minister; Yamanishi Hanzō; and Mutō Shingi.
52. Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 92–93; see also Ernst L. Presseisen, Before Aggression: Europeans Prepare the Japanese Army (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1965), 67; Sims, French Policy towards the Bakufu, 195.
53. Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun no jinjiteki seidō, 56, 65–66.
54. Asakawa, “Ishin kengunki,” 5.
55. Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun to jinteki seidō, 40–41; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 53.
56. Heiyama Kanki, “Nihon rikugun ni okeru sakusen jō no yōkyū to kenkyū kaihatsu no kankei: yasenhō wo shūtai toshite” [The relationship of developmental research and operational requirements in the Japanese army, mainly for artillery], Bōeicho bōei senshibu kenkyū shiryō, 85 RO-2H, mimeo, 1985, 3–4, 6.
57. Janet E. Hunter, The Emergence of Modern Japan: An Introductory History since 1853 (London: Longman Group UK, 1989), 111; Mikiso Hane, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986), 141–142.
58. Kumagai Mikahisa, Nihongun to jinteki seidō, 55–56; Yui, “Meiji shoki no kengun kōsō,” 439–440.
59. Yui, “Meiji shoki no kengun kōsō,” 440; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 27.
60. Hackett, Yamagata, 66. The standard work is Katō Yōko, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon 1868–1945 [The conscription system and modern Japan, 1868–1945] (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1996); Rikusen gakkai, Kindai sensōshi gaisetsu, 6.
61. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 46; see also Hackett, Yamagata, 66.
62. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 28; Yui, “Meiji shoki no kengun kōsō,” 459; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 108.
63. Fujiwara, Gunjishi, chart 34; Kawano Hitoshi, “Gyōkusai” no guntai—“seikan” no guntai [An annihilated army—an army returning alive] (Kōdansha, 2001), 28–29.
64. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 41–42, 45–46; Hackett, Yamagata, 67.
65. Hara Takeshi, Meijiki kokudo bōeishi, 45; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 42–43, 50.
66. Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels, and Outcasts: The Underside of Modern Japan(NewYork: Pantheon, 1982),18; Kumagai Tadasu, Kisō chishiki, 26–27; Hara Takeshi, Meijiki kokudo, 16; Hackett, Yamagata, 62; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 31; Hata, Tōsuiken to teikoku, 105–106.Yamadawould return to active duty in 1877 to command a brigade with distinction during the Satsuma Rebellion and later would found Nihon University.
67. Takamae Eiji, The Allied Occupation of Japan (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002), 372; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 58.
68. Tobe, Gyakusetsu 140; Kurono Taeru, Sanbō honbu to rikugun daigaku [The general staff and the army staff college] (Kōdansha, 2004), 21; Yui, “Meiji shoki no kengun kōsō,” 497.
69. Nishioka, “Kanbu kyōiku seidō,” 67; Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 109; Fujiwara, Gunjishi, 71.
70. Asakawa, “Ishin kengunki,” 7; Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 59; Presseisen, Before Aggression, 30; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 58.
71. Kumagai Tadasu, Kisō chishiki, 116, 119; Asakawa Michio, “Shinbi chōhei ni kansuru hitotsu kenkyū” [Research concerning the 1871 conscription act] Gunji shigaku 32:1 (June 1996), 30–32.
72. Kitaoka Shin’ichi, “The Army as Bureaucracy: Japanese Militarism Revisited,” Journal of Military History, Special Issue, 57:5 (October 199
3), 70.
Chapter 3. Dealing with the Samurai
1. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 10.
2. Hackett, Yamagata, 70–71.
3. Mōri, Taiwan shuppei, 118–119; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 54, 57.
4. Inoue, Meiji ishin, 398.
5. Wagatsuma, Nihon seiji saibanshi roku, 339; Ogawara Masamichi, Seinan sensō: SaigōTakamori to Nihon saigō no naisen [The southwest war: Saigō Takamori and Japan’s final civil war] (Chūkō shinsho, 2007), 8.
6. Mōri, Taiwan shuppei, 124–129. Since the early seventeenth century the Satsuma domain had claimed the Ryūkyūs as a vassal, and the government used this pretext for intervention.
7. Kaneko, Heiki to senjutsu, 160; Kojima Keizou, Boshin sensō kara seinan sensō e [From the Boshin war to the southwest war] (Chūkō shinsho, 1996), 210–211; Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 11.
8. Ōe Shinobu, Nihon no sanbō honbu [Japan’s general staff headquarters] (Chūkō shinsho, 1985), 23.
9. Hata, Tōsuiken to teikoku, 107.
10. Hara, Meijiki kokudo bōeishi, 45–48; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 50; Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 47.
11. Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 8, 17.
12. Ibid, 40, 50. Ikai Toshiaki, Seinan sensō: sensō no taigi to dōin sareru minshu [The southwest war: duty and mobilization of the populace for the war] (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2008), 7.
13. Kaneko, Heiki to senjutsu, 163; Morris, Nobility of Failure, 263; James H. Buck, “The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877: From Kagoshima through the Siege of Kumamoto Castle,” Monumenta Nipponica 28:4 (Winter 1973), 431; Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 239.
14. Kaneko, Heiki to senjutsu, 167.
15. Kuwada Etsu, “Taigai rikugun gunbi no kakuchō” [The expansion of the army’s military preparations for overseas (operations)], in Okumura and Kuwada, eds., Kindai Nihon sensōshi, 140; Presseisen, Before Aggression, 55; Kurono, Sanbō honbu to rikugun daigaku, 25; Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 65, 68.
16. Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 81–83; Buck, “Satsuma Rebellion of 1877,” 437.
17. Ōe, Sanbō, 27.
18. On Tani’s suspicions see Ikai, Seinan sensō, 46.
19. Kaneko, Heiki to senjutsu, 168, 177.
20. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 74; Ōe, Sanbō, 25; Kurono, Sanbō honbu to rikugun daigaku, 25; Hata, Tōsuiken to teokoku, 71.
21. Hashimoto Masaki, “Tabaruzaka-gunki sōshitsu zenya” [The battle of Tabaruzaka—on the eve of the loss of the military colors], pt. 1, Rekishi to jimbutsu (October 1971), 243–245. During the fighting at Kumamoto, the garrison’s chief of staff was seriously wounded. Maj. Kodama Gentarō replaced him and believed that Nogi should have committed suicide to atone for losing his colors. The colors were recovered in January 1879, and that May, Kodama ordered Nogi confined to quarters for three days as punishment for the lost standard. Rikusenshi kenkyū fūkyūkai, ed., Rikusen shishu [Collected land warfare history], vol. 11, Ryōjun yōsai kōrakusen [The reduction of the Port Arthur fortress]. Hara shobō, 1969, 205–206. Ōe, Sanbō, 30. Nogi’s later rehabilitation seemed to hinge on his pre-Satsuma Rebellion service as Yamagata’s confidential agent in Kyūshū. Nogi and his wife committed ritual suicide in September 1912 to follow Emperor Meiji in death. His last will and testament stated that the loss of his regimental standard was the reason for his suicide. Yamamuro Kentoku, Gunshin [War gods] (Chūko shinsho, 2007), 108.
22. Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 88.
23. Ibid., 121–122.
24. Yamamoto Daisei, Shōhai no kōzō: Nichi-Ro senshi o kagaku suru [The structure of victory and defeat: thinking scientifically about the Russo-Japanese war] (Hara shobō, 1981), 13; Heiyama, “Nihon rikugun ni okeru sakusenjō,” 6. Apparently an April 11, 1877, dispatch by Inukai Ki, a future prime minister, to the Yūbin hōchi newspaper first mentioned the three characteristics. See Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 125.
25. Inoue, Meiji ishin, 448; Hata Ikuhiko, Nihon no horyo [Japanese prisoners of war] jō (Hara shobō, 1998), vol. 1, 20; Ogawara, Seinan sensō, 226.
26. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 60.
27. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 38.
28. Heiyama, “Nihon rikugun ni oekru sakusenjō,” 4; Kurono, Sanbō honbu to rikugun daigaku, 24; Yokoyama Hisayuki, “Military Technological Strategy and Armaments Concepts of [the] Japanese Imperial Army—Around the Post-WWI Period,” National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), NIDS Security Reports, No. 2 (March 2001), 118–119.
Chapter 4. The Army of Meiji
1. Wagatsuma, Meiji zen, 441.
2. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 53; Kuwada, “Nisshin sensō mae,” 8.
3. Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 67; Kaneko, Heiki to senjutsu, 180.
4. Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 67; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 42; Yui Masaomi, “Meiji shoki no kengun kōsō,” in Guntai heishi, 484–485. Several Japanese military historians claim that Yamagata also intended to stifle military participation in the popular rights movement. Hata Ikuhiko, however, points out there is no supporting documentary evidence for such an interpretation (Hata, Tōsuiken, 97), which in any case seems premature in 1878, a time well before the popular movement peaked in the early 1880s.
5. Kurono, Sanbō honbu to rikugun daigaku, 6, 27, 29–30.
6. Katsura followed Ōmura Masujirō’s advice to learn about foreign military institutions by studying abroad. Kurono Taeru, Teikoku rikugun no “kaikaku to teikō” [Reform and resistance in the imperial army] (Kōdansha, 2006), 52.
7. Ōe, Sanbō, 31, 34–35; Presseisen, Before Aggression, 62, 64; Morimatsu Toshio, Daihon’ei [Imperial general headquarters] (Kyōikusha rekishi shinsho, 1980), 31.
8. Ōe, Sanbō, 35–36.
9. Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 31–33; Kurono, Kaikaku to teikō, 29–30; Fujiwara, Gunjishi, 77.
10. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 97; Kumagai Mikahisa, “Kyūrikukaigun shōkō no senbetsu to kyōiku” [Officer selection and education in the former army and navy], Bōeicho bōei senshibu kenkyū shiryō 80 RO-12H [Japan, self-defense agency, self-defense military history department, research document 80-12H], mimeo, 1980, 60–61; Maebara Toshio, “Nihon rikugun no ‘kōbō’ ni kakawaru riron to kyōgi” [The Japanese army’s theory and doctrine for offensive and defensive operations], Bōeichō bōei senshibu kenkyū shiryō 86 RO-5H, mimeo, 1986, 45. The number of prize-winning graduates varied between six and ten students, depending on class size.
11. Suzuki, Shiba Ryōtarō to mitsu no sensō, 22–23; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 43; Harada Keiichi, Kokumingun no shinwa [The myth of the people’s army] (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2001), 213.
12. John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert M. Craig, East Asia: The Modern Transformation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 299; Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan from Tokugawa Times to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 87–88.
13. Ōshima Akiko, “Iwayuru Takebashi jihen no ‘yoha’ ni tsuite” [Concerning the after-effects of the so-called Takebashi incident], Gunji shigaku 32:3 (December 1996), 34–35, 42, 44.
14. Rikusen gakkai, Kindai . . . gaisetsu, 6; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 56; Katō, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon, table 46–47.
15. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 65. Lt. Gen. Torio Koyata commanded the Imperial Guard in 1881 and became the cabinet statistics institute director. Lt. Gen. Tani Tateki was the commandant of the military academy and concurrently the Toyama school commandant. He later became agriculture and commerce minister and retired from the army in 1889. Lt. Gen. Miura Gorō commanded the western army district and between 1882 and 1884 was the military academy commandant. In 1884 he was placed on the inactive list; he retired from the army in August 1886. Maj. Gen. Soga Sukenori was the acting central army director in 1881. The next year he became vice chief of staff, and in 1885 he commanded the Sendai garrison. He retired in 1886.
16. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 71; Hackett, Yamagata, 86; Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 53–54.
17. Fujiwara, Gunjishi, 68.
18. Yamagata Aritomo, “Shinrinpō heibi ryakuhyō” [Memorial to the th
rone on the military advances in neighboring China], November 13, 1881, in Guntai-heishi, 279–287; Kuwada Etsu, “Nisshin sensō” [The Sino-Japanese war], Gunjishi gaku 119 (December 1994), 8; Kuwada, “Taigai rikugun gunbi no kōchō,” 143.
19. Kurono Taeru, Dai Nihon teikoku no seizon senryaku [The imperial Japanese empire’s strategy for survival] (Kōdansha, 2004), 20.
20. Ibid., 21, 23–24.
21. Kuwada, “Nisshin sensō,” 9.
22. Kurono, Daigaku, 37–38; Kuwada, “Nisshin sensō,” 9; Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 38; Kuwada, “Taigai rikugun gunbi no kōchō,”145; Kurono, Dai Nihon teikoku no seizon senryaku, 21–22.
23. Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 35; Hara, Meijiki kokudo bōeishi, 187; Kuwada, “Taigai rikugun gunbi no kōchō,” 147–148.
24. Katō, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon, 46–48; Kumagai Tadasu, Kisō chishiki, 120–121.
25. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 109. The personnel strength figures are from Rikusen gakkai, ed., Kindai sensōshi gaisetsu, shiryō hen [An outline of modern war history: documents appendix] table 2-1-2, 39.
26. Treaties signed with the United States and Great Britain by the bakufu in 1858 surrendered tariff autonomy, among other humiliating concessions that made Japan economically subordinate to foreign governments.
27. Kurono, Kaikaku, 53; Fujiwara, Gunjishi, 78; Kurono, Daigaku, 43.
28. Kurono, Dai Nihon teikoku no seizon senryaku, 27–28.
29. Gordon, Japan, 91. Tani continued to criticize the government and was seconded to the reserves the following year. Further talks on treaty revision occurred in 1890 and 1894. In July 1894 Britain agreed to end extraterritoriality in 1899 and customs control in 1911. Other western powers followed the British lead.
30. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 109.
31. Kuwada, “Nisshin sensō,” 10; Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 38; Hara, Meijiki kokudo, 110–113.
32. Kurono, Kaikaku, 85; Kurono, Daigaku, 48; Kurono, Teikoku, 25.
33. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 55; Kuwada Etsu and Maebara Toshio, Nihon no sensō zūkai to deta [The wars of Japan—maps and data] (Hara shobō, 1982), plate 5 on type divisions.
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