by John Man
The best swords had genealogies as detailed as their owners’. One of Masamune’s swords is named after the late sixteenth-century general Ishida Mitsunari, whose famous defeat at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 ushered in the 250 years of peaceful rule under the Tokugawas. Once, a few years before this battle, Ishida was escorted safely to his estate by a son of the man who would later defeat him. As if foreseeing his fate, Ishida gave the sword to his protector, thus ensuring that when he died the sword—the Ishida Masamune, as it is known today—would be safe in the hands of the ruling shoguns. In Japan’s first autobiography, Told around a Brushwood Fire, the scholar Arai Hakuseki, writing in the early eighteenth century, recalled his father’s words:
“My own sword originally belonged to a man called Goto, a native of Kozuke Province. His elder brother had cut an enemy’s head clean in two with a horizontal blow of this sword. Goto said he used that skull for a plaything when he was a child. After I heard the story, I begged the sword from him for many years, until finally he gave it to me. You must never let it leave your side and must hand it on.”
He was referring to the long sword: a samurai had two, long for duels and short for hand-to-hand combat and for committing suicide by “slicing the belly.”
Swords also had their own names, a common feature in sword cultures (like King Arthur’s Excalibur, Charlemagne’s Joyeuse and Roland’s Durendal). Arai’s sword in the quotation above “is the narrow decorated one called ‘Lion.’” One story from the days of the bow, when swords were still in their infancy, tells of how Minamoto Yorimatsu (944–1021), the first of the Minamotos to become famous for his military exploits, used a sword named Dojigiri—the Monster Cutter—to quell the giant fiend Shuten-doji (“Drunkard Boy”), who lived on human blood. The tale is legendary, but the sword is real: the Monster Cutter was made by the ninth-century master smith Yasutsuna of Hoki, whose work, in the words of one sword history,1 “possesses a wild beauty that seems beyond mere human contrivance.” This sword was one of the “Five Best Swords under Heaven,” the others being the Demon, the Quarter Moon, the Rosary and Great Tenta, all of which survive in museums.2
It took high-level alchemy to turn a rough lump of iron into a work of art and a killing device. Nature herself provided the three elements—iron from the earth, fire and water—each of which, in Japan’s ancient animistic religion, Shintoism, had its own spirit, lending the sword itself spiritual properties. Making the sword was a spiritual act, for which smiths often underwent purification ceremonies, and the swords themselves were often thought to have personalities of their own. According to one legend, two great smiths, the fourteenth-century master Masamune and his supposed pupil Murumasa (who in fact lived a generation later), decided to compete to see who could make the best sword. They suspended their blades in a river, with the cutting edges facing upstream. Murumasa’s sword, named Ten Thousand Cold Nights, cut every fish and leaf that drifted into it. Masamune’s sword, Tender Hands, cut nothing but water, because everything floated to one side or another. A watching monk explained the meaning of what had happened: Murumasa’s sword was bloodthirsty and evil, with no powers of discrimination; Masamune’s was finer, because it “does not needlessly cut that which is innocent and undeserving.” Again, fiction and fact are forged together: several signed Masamune blades survive in museums today.
Of course, there is no dueling anymore, no need for real samurai. But the traditions live on, in men like Matsunaga. He may not douse himself with cold water to purify himself in preparation for his work, but he still surrounds his forge with string from which dangle countless twists of paper to encourage the kami—the spirits—to give the process the right spiritual aura. And they survive in other rather more dubious ways. Criminal gangs (yakuza) punish an errant member by ordering him to cut off bits of his fingers, starting with the little finger of the left hand, the rationale being that this weakens the sword grip and makes an individual more reliant on the boss, thus guaranteeing obedience. In the age of the handgun, the myth of the sword lives on.
And the katana blade was just a beginning. Samurai also revered the shorter blade, the tanto, used in hand-to-hand fighting. Vast collections and worlds of expertise are devoted to the accoutrements of both: mountings, belts, suspension braids, scabbards, scabbard knobs, hilts, handles, handle covers (ray skin gives a particularly good grip), sword collars, guards—all are subspecialties with their own arcane vocabularies and schools and histories.
Then there was the armor, which underwent its own evolution in response to the growing sophistication of weapons and tactics, from bows and arrows to swords, from infantry to cavalry, from warrior gangs to field armies. In Europe, the knightly armor made to be worn by horsemen eventually turned them into the military equivalent of crabs, so unwieldy that a fallen knight could hardly stand up on his own. In Japan, the style of combat with bow and sword meant that armor had to be kept flexible, which was done by using scores of little plates or scales sewn together to make so-called lamellar armor (in Latin, a lamina is a layer, from which comes laminate, and its diminutive, lamella, is a “little layer” or small piece of something, usually metal). Designs changed. Lamellar armor could be a misery in extreme heat or cold, and the bindings became heavy in rain and tended to rot, all of which forced experimental variations in scales and single-piece elements. By the sixteenth century, armor had become so rich and varied that a battle array looked like a confrontation among many species of exotic beetle.
A rich samurai’s o-yoroi, or “great armor,” had plates and scales bound into skirts and aprons and shoulder pads and shin pads and earflaps, all designed to stop arrows and deflect swords, but also to proclaim wealth and status, and at the same time allow the wearer to shoot and swing and ride and walk. His helmet alone was a work of art. Some helmets were made of dozens of semicircular plates, like the outside of a sliced-up half melon, others of a single piece of metal in a conical shape, like a witch’s hat, with a visor and anything up to six side flaps to protect both ears and neck. Some helmets sported vast horns or wave shapes or mountains or crabs (to suggest crablike powers of self-protection) or rabbits’ ears (to suggest longevity). The samurai might also have a mask covering the whole lower face, with a detachable nosepiece, a little hole in the chin for the sweat to run through and a built-in grimace to terrify the opposition. Often the inside was lacquered red, which would add a frightening reflected tinge to the warrior’s eyes and mouth. It was a simplified version of the samurai mask, helmet and earflaps that inspired the design for Darth Vader from the shoulders up, though he lacks a hole at the top of the helmet through which the samurai passed his topknot or cap. Since the outfit covered the whole body, it was impossible to recognize who was inside, a disadvantage in the heat of battle, so our hero would be a walking, riding flag, gaudy with colored scales and flapping banners. And he would, of course, be carrying his two swords, bow, arrows and spare bowstring.
Though the decoration was rooted in practicality, once the Tokugawas had imposed peace in the early seventeenth century armor increasingly evolved away from its roots, being made not to protect its owner in battle but to proclaim an image of militarism, rather as Victorian grandees in England stocked their stately homes with mock medieval armor. For their theatrical marches from province to capital, every samurai lord and every samurai retainer wished to outshine his peers, lord it over lower orders and, in the second half of the nineteenth century, impress foreigners. Real military ability gave way to display. Old armor, once serviceable, was burnished and garnished with excrescences, new armor commissioned with ever more outlandish additions of lacquered scales, and these accretions spread like some sort of skin disease to retainers and their clothing, to horses and their accoutrements—all of it a way of claiming dignity and significance for men who were, after all, mere courtiers and pen pushers.
And, after 250 years of show, what happened to all these glorious accoutrements as the samurai neared the end of their days? They became the equal
and opposite of the emperor’s new clothes. In that story, the emperor wore none, but was flattered into believing himself richly attired. The samurai were richly attired, but in clothes that meant nothing. A whole class became all outward show, no substance. Over decades, the gorgeous remnants were sold off by a class unable to earn a proper living and snapped up by foreigners impressed not by power or glory but by sheer artistry.
And the swords, the wonderful objects that were the inspiration for the armor? They have entered another dimension. They are still as effective as ever, as anyone knows who has seen one cut through a soaked tatami mat or a plastic pipe. But no one ever again will hear two of them clash in conflict or see a limb struck off. They are as useless as they are gorgeous, their power carefully controlled by health and safety regulations. Yet it is still there, and people tap into it vicariously. Instead of dealing in death with steel, they wield wooden swords and learn life skills: self-control, physical fitness, concentration and dedication.
4
THE COMING OF THE AMERICANS
THE JOURNEY FROM JAPAN’S MOST SOUTHERLY PROVINCE TO the shogun’s capital, Edo (Tokyo to us), was an extraordinary undertaking. It was mid-January 1854: winter, damp, with occasional flurries of snow. Imagine one thousand people, all on foot, spread out in three columns. Most of them are samurai warriors in thick winter kimonos, armor of baroque complexity and concave hats, with their two swords, one long and one short, tucked into the sashbelts; others carry spears or staves. The only one not on foot is the lord himself, who rides in a palanquin like a burnished throne (there’s one in Kagoshima’s Museum of the Meiji Restoration): heavy blackpainted wood, lacquered to keep off the rain and decorated in squirls of gold, with little sliding windows, each one flanked by two red tassels. A black, lacquered beam like a girder runs through metal clasps attached to the top, so that six men—three in front, three behind—can carry this 150-kilo burden on their shoulders. For each bearer, that’s the weight of a heavy suitcase to be carried for several hours a day, moving at a slow walking pace, to the shouts of arrogant samurai: “‘Shita ni iyo, shita ni iyo!’ [Get down, get down!], at which all men of low degree go down upon their knees and bow their heads in the dust while the great man passes.” (The words were written by Algernon Mitford, one of the most remarkable characters of the Victorian era, who is worth the small digression when I introduce him properly later on.)
Walking for several hours every day, Nariakira’s entourage would cover some twenty kilometers a day, depending on the terrain, for six or seven weeks. They circled Kinko Bay, turned inland at a village called Kajiki and struck up into the forested hills. The road would in former times have been a trail of slippery mud and tangled roots leading through firs and stands of bamboo, but this being the main route away from Kagoshima a previous daimyo in the mid-eighteenth century had paved it with great pillowlike slabs of rock. It is still there today, winding steeply upward through the gloomy forest, its stones slick with moss even in high summer. In winter, in armor, let alone carrying the palanquin, it would have been a misery. It took three days to reach the frontier between Satsuma and the next province, Kumamoto, a journey that today’s bullet train makes in twenty minutes.
It was the first time Saigo had left his home province. Every day presented some new happening. Everyone knew they were coming. Traders crowded the roadside offering food, sweets and perhaps shochu, the alcoholic drink distilled from sweet potato that Nariakira advocated as a cheaper alternative to sake. Messengers on horseback came and went on business from Kagoshima, or Edo, or other lords, or galloped back and forth between way stations ahead. After two weeks of travel, they all boarded ferries to cross the few hundred meters of sea, the Shimonoseki Strait, that divide Kyushu from the main island, Honshu.
Shortly before the crossing, a messenger had brought strange news from Edo: foreign warships had appeared in a bay near the capital. With progress along the coast easier now, it took only a month to cover the next one thousand kilometers, and on April 2, Saigo saw for himself the vessels whose arrival would blow open the country after 250 years of isolation and alter the course of Japanese history. They were the “black ships of evil mien” as the Japanese called them: the fleet of the American Commodore Matthew Perry.
For many ordinary Japanese, Perry’s arrival was as amazing as an alien invasion, which is in fact what it was, technically. It was less of a surprise for the government, because they knew he was on his way. A Japanese sailor picked up at sea had spent years in America and had written an account of his stay, which was reassuring, if a little on the thin side. “The people of America are upright and generous,” he wrote. “For their wedding ceremony, the Americans merely make a proclamation to the gods, after which they usually go on a sightseeing trip to the mountains. They are lewd by nature, but otherwise well behaved. Husband and wife are exceedingly affectionate to each other, and the happiness of the home is unparalleled. The women do not use rouge, powder and the like.” The Dutch in Nagasaki were well informed, and some in Edo knew what pressures were building: that the United States was now a continental power, with whalers ranging the Pacific in need of provisions, traders eager for business and Americans at home and abroad pressing for action to open up Japan. Every official in Edo knew of the insult delivered to Commodore James Biddle, who in 1845 had come proposing a treaty, been invited aboard an official junk and then, having misunderstood an instruction, been knocked down by a guard. To reinforce the message, the shogun’s response was, in brief: sorry, but no trade can be allowed, except with Holland. Soon, given the pressures and America’s injured pride, there would be a reckoning.
Here it was, in overwhelming force, personified by its leader. Scion of a naval family, and famous for his efficiency, Perry loomed large. At age sixty, he was as massive in body as in ego, with great bushy eyebrows, carefully curled hair and absolutely no sense of humor. As one of his midshipmen wrote, “No one appreciates a joke less than he does.” He, unlike Biddle, would not allow a loss of “face,” or anything else. Many feared him, but all respected him for his experience, fair-mindedness and learning. He had commanded the largest fleet in American history in the recent war against Mexico. His main vessel on this voyage, the Mississippi, his flagship in the Mexican war, was a three-masted, iron-clad paddle steamer and, he thought, the best ship in the world. He had twelve ships in all, 130 cannon and 2,600 men, enough to make history, as he intended. Forget Manifest Destiny and shore to shining shore: he foreshadowed American imperialism, pure and simple. “It seems to me that the people of America will, in some form or other, extend their dominion and their power, until they shall have . . . placed the Saxon race upon the eastern shores of Asia.” Such was the importance of the mission and his own ambitions that he wished to record it himself. In fact he didn’t because, as he said, he “had no talent for authorship.” Instead, the task was done in three mighty volumes by a friend—ghostwriter, compiler and editor—named Francis Hawks, doctor of divinity (DD) and of laws (LLD).1 The books cover everything, from A (anthropology) to Z (zoology), including history, geography, politics and international relations, with particular attention paid to Russia. Luckily, several others on the voyage managed to keep surreptitious diaries, providing historians with other excellent sources. Never was a turning point so well foreseen, made and recorded.
(Portrait of a North American, Japanese woodblock print of Admiral Matthew Perry, c. 1854)
(Admiral Matthew Perry, photo by Matthew Brady, 1854–8: both Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.)
America’s Commodore Matthew Perry, in a Japanese print and photograph. He was “as massive in body as in ego, with great bushy eyebrows, and absolutely no sense of humor”—but supremely efficient in opening Japan to the outside world.
The squadron traveled via China and landed in Okinawa, following the route of many previous foreigners as they approached Japan. Perry then traveled on up the coast with two iron-clad steamers, the Mississippi a
nd the Susquehanna, and two sloops-of-war, Saratoga and Plymouth. With the steamers towing the sloops into a contrary wind, guns at the ready, Perry moved slowly through a thin mist toward Edo Bay, admiring the sight of Mount Fuji emerging above its surrounding peaks as the mist lifted. Ashore, the sight of these enormous black ships moving against the wind caused chaos. Fishing boats scuttled for safety, bells rang, ordinary people took shelter, officials gathered at the dockside. Perry dropped anchor just inside the mouth of the bay on July 8, 1853, determined to play high status, “to demand as a right, not to solicit as a favor, those acts of courtesy which are due from one civilized nation to another.” He acted like royalty, remaining aloof, seeing only the highest officials, believing that “stately and dignified reserve joined to perfect equity” would earn respect and make the Japanese “suspend for a time their accustomed arrogance and incivility toward strangers.” It worked. Not that the Japanese had much choice, because they had only 11 cannon on the bay of the same caliber as the Americans’ 130. After many contrived delays and negotiations about who could speak to whom, a letter from U.S. president Millard Fillmore was forwarded to the emperor, demanding a treaty to allow trade, guarantee the security of shipwrecked whalers and allow refueling. Perry—His High and Mighty Mysteriousness, as the Japanese called him—said he would be back the following year, and departed, to spend the winter, such as it was, in Hong Kong and Okinawa.
For Japan, Perry’s demand was a crisis. Rejection would mean war, and disaster. Acceptance would mean the end of 250 years of isolation, and disaster of a different kind. Extremists denounced any contact with foreigners as pollution. The shogun was dying, and incapable of a decision. Opting for the lesser of two evils, the chairman of the shogun’s council of elders finally decided to accept some form of treaty, with as many limitations, caveats and delays as possible.