Samurai

by John Man

  The group was full of stories like this. He often went fishing, they said. People were eager to go with him, even though he was so big that when he moved around the boat water used to flood over the side. It didn’t matter because they had a bailer to throw the water out. “One time,” said Mr. Yasuda, to widespread laughter, for the group knew what was coming, and this was not a story to be told by women. “One time he got a terrible stomachache, and had to relieve himself in the bailer, which he then held in the water to attract fish, which he used to make a sashimi meal. Naturally no one would eat it.”

  To hear them talk, you would think that Saigo became an angel thanks to Aikana. He was good and kind. He received a stipend from Satsuma, but courted poverty by giving much of it away to help the poor. He taught the local children how to wrestle. He loved hunting boar, even though he was not a good shot, and when he got anything he would share it with the people. When locals were jailed by unscrupulous officials for not producing enough sugar, he got them out.

  “So he was prepared to go against the government?”

  “Not really. It was the local abuse of power that he fought. There was so much profit to be had here that officials had to build a special warehouse in Kagoshima.”

  These years marked another long turning point in a life of many turning points. Saigo had arrived a broken man, responsible for the manslaughter (as a western judge would put it) of his best friend, shamed by his failed suicide, destroyed by the collapse of his hopes and facing the possibility of eternal exile in a place he loathed. After two years he was, if not content, then at least reconciled to his new life, and accepted, and a pillar of the community, fully restored to physical and mental health.

  In that case, I wondered, why the undertow of disapproval from the ladies, the determination to make Aikana the real angel? Partly because Saigo was embarrassed about her. He hardly mentioned her in his letters, and in one passing comment about the birth of his son he wrote: “I have done something unseemly in the wilderness.” But there is another, deeper reason, which involved what happened when he left the island.

  It was early 1862 when astounding news arrived. He had been on the island for three years, and the new house had been finished just a couple of months earlier. Now, back in Kagoshima, Hisamitsu, the still-powerful father of the daimyo and the moving force behind Saigo’s banishment, had come to the decision that he needed to expand Shimazu influence. His plan was to mount a huge embassy to Kyoto to persuade the emperor to order reforms, in particular to appoint a guardian for the young shogun. He needed imperial loyalists onside, but without the risk of violent radicalism. Okubo pointed out that Saigo, admired by loyalists but untainted by violence, was just the man.

  So the order came. And Saigo, the loyal retainer, remembered that he was surely destined for great things, and left.

  Aikana and the children stayed. There was no question of his bringing an “island wife”—that is, a local mistress—to the mainland, where she would have been utterly out of her depth. Saigo never forgot her, and would see her again rather sooner than he expected; and later he sent for the children and had them educated in Kagoshima. Indeed, their son Kikujiro was sent to America for a couple of years, fought alongside his father and survived, and went on to become mayor of Kyoto. But Aikana stayed on the island, alone. “How sad she must have been,” said one of the ladies over a lunch of miso, noodles, tea and guava juice. She lived to the age of sixty-seven, weaving silk to make a living (as people still do), and is buried close by.

  We stopped to pay our respects. There were flowers on her tombstone.

  “We remember her,” the ladies agreed. “Because she is a role model for people who love this island.”

  10

  A BRIEF TASTE OF POWER

  TALK ABOUT TURNING POINTS: IT WAS MORE LIKE A RESURRECTION, from near death to a new life and, it seemed, a return to the center of the political web, an insider charged with masterminding a revolution. That was in March 1862. Two months later he was out again, cast into an oblivion way beyond Amami Oshima. What on earth went wrong?

  This is where things stood on his return: Nariakira, Saigo’s revered lord, had started modernizing before his death. The new lord was Tadayoshi, but power was in the hands of his father and guardian, Hisamitsu, who carried on Nariakira’s policies: industrialization to produce steel and textiles; new weaponry; more power to the emperor, more to the daimyos, less to the shogun. The danger was that this strategy, which was very appealing to Satsuma’s samurai, would inspire violence among the younger, lower-rank, more volatile ones. Tadayoshi had once written the group a letter, addressing them flatteringly as “sincere and faithful samurai.” They had seized on the phrase, and named themselves the League of the Sincere and Faithful. If the League were protesters on the march, they would shout: “What do we want?—Emperor power!—When do we want it?—Now!” and then set about getting it, with drawn swords. That’s why Hisamitsu needed Saigo, to pilot through reform, while reining in the hotheads.

  As soon as Saigo arrived in Kagoshima he was led into a meeting with top aides of Hisamitsu, who explained the plan—a large force marching to Kyoto in two weeks’ time to demand an imperial decree imposing reform on the shogun. Saigo would head this force, in effect a revolutionary army. He would then take it on to Edo, confront the shogun, who, with a pistol (as it were) to his head, would instantly comply. However, this must not seem like revolution; it must come across as merely reform to give Satsuma a greater say in national affairs.

  They wanted Saigo because he was experienced. And on the basis of that experience, Saigo turned them down flat. It was a crazy scheme, he said. What was the backup? He ticked off grim alternative scenarios. What would happen if the emperor refused? How long was this samurai force to sit around in Kyoto? What would happen if the shogun teamed up with foreigners to raise an opposing force? What guarantees did they have that upper and lower samurai would not fall out? Whichever way you looked at it, locally, nationally, socially, the plan was a disaster in the making—a recipe for civil war. Hisamitsu disagreed, arguing that the shogunate was fatally weakened and ready to be reformed. He was determined to go ahead, whatever Saigo said. The most he would agree to was a month’s delay.

  Frustrated, Saigo went off to restore his spirits by burying himself in hot sand. This was not as eccentric as it sounds. Forty kilometers south of Kagoshima, the subterranean furnaces of Kinko Bay—the same ones that keep Sakurajima’s internal fires belching smoke on a daily basis—come close enough to the surface to force heat through the dark, volcanic sands that fringe the village of Ibusuki. Since the eighteenth century, people have claimed that lying in the hot sands cures all sorts of ailments, especially rheumatic ones. In Saigo’s day, the sands were open to all; today, you pay to change into a light kimono and walk down steps to a line of tents, where attendants in tracksuit trousers and T-shirts wait with spades to cover you up to the neck. People lie in neat rows, like badly buried corpses, heads swathed in towels.

  It’s an odd experience, in fact a whole series of experiences, none of which I could have predicted. First, you lie in your newly dug grave, head on towel, carefully arranging your kimono. Then comes the weight of the warm, coarse, volcanic sand as your attendant covers you. The heat is delicious, like a sauna, except that your breathing is not oppressed by heated air. The sand presses your chest, moving slightly with every breath. The pleasure lasts for half a minute. Then you realize that you are actually beginning to cook. Where the pressure is greatest, namely on your buttocks, it’s really burning. You shuffle your hands under your buttocks, relieving the pressure and the heat. So you relax, and all is well. You drowse. Not for long, because now you’re beginning to sweat. Drops trickle and tickle down your forehead. You want to use the towel, but your hands are locked by sand and buttocks. After fifteen minutes, I burst out like a zombie breaking free from a tomb, dripping sweat and sand. Yes, it made me feel good, twice over—from the heat and from having endured an invigoratin
g and mildly uncomfortable experience: rather as a monk might have felt after removing a hair shirt. It would have suited Saigo very well.

  Two weeks later, Saigo’s friend Okubo tracked him down in Ibusuki and persuaded him that he should at least see what other samurai thought by crossing Kyushu to the ferry at Shimonoseki. Surely he had a duty to make contact with the League of the Sincere and Faithful and make sure they did nothing stupid? Assuming he was impressed, he could join Hisamitsu and go on to Kyoto. He agreed.

  At Shimonoseki he was overwhelmed by the reception he received from, among others, his friend Hirano, one of those who had pulled him out of the sea after his suicide attempt with Gessho. All samurai knew of him, all adored him—the one who had risked all for his ideals, unparalleled in courage, unequaled in suffering: he was just the person to speak for the samurai in Kyoto. And they all knew about the planned march on the imperial city, which they assumed would be the beginning of an armed uprising. Already many were gathering in Kyoto, awaiting his arrival. He, Saigo, was the one to defuse this volatile situation—but it had to be done fast, by first sailing to Osaka, a 350-kilometer journey that would cut several days from the journey to Kyoto. There was no time to wait for Hisamitsu as planned, or to ask permission. He, Hirano and two others left at once.

  In Osaka, his worst fears were realized. The place was alive with young samurai eager for violence, all, as he put it, warriors “on the field of death”—or “deadly ground” in another translation—“with whom I would like to die in battle,” all having left their families, “all counting on me.” Mark Ravina suggests that the words “the field of death” or “deadly ground” are references to The Art of War by the fourth-century BC Chinese strategist Sun Zi (Sun Tzu), who lists “deadly” or “desperate” ground (translations vary) among the nine varieties of battleground. In this case, in which death seems inevitable, there is no choice but to face death with resolve: “Throw the troops into a position from which there is no escape, and even when faced with death they will not flee. For if prepared to die, what can they not achieve? Then officers and men together put forth their utmost efforts. In a desperate situation, they fear nothing; when there is no way out they stand firm.” Already Saigo apparently believed that the cause was worthy enough—made worthy enough by the bravery of the warriors—to risk, even court, death. This would be a default position for him from now on.

  Next stop would be Fushimi, a great mountain shrine close to the temple where Saigo used to meet secretly with Gessho. He never made it. Hisamitsu, already angry that Saigo had gone ahead without permission, heard about what he was up to, mainly from Hirano, who had convinced himself that Saigo was about to lead a samurai rebellion. Hisamitsu leaped to the same conclusion and ordered Saigo’s arrest, refusing to listen to any evidence on Saigo’s behalf.

  After six months in the spotlight, Saigo was suddenly powerless again, locked up in Yamakawa at the mouth of Kinko Bay, awaiting judgment. It came in July: guilty on four counts, namely, leaving Shimonoseki without permission, conspiracy, incitement to violence and treachery. Saigo, who had acquired almost mystical status among rebellious samurai, was too dangerous to be allowed to return to friends in Amami Oshima. The verdict: exile again, this time as a criminal, on Tokunoshima, the island next in line to the south of Amami Oshima. It was fifty kilometers farther away, under half the size, but with similar forested mountains, and its own subspecies of habu.

  Saigo was naturally bitter: “Even men whom I thought of as family branded me a criminal without so much as asking for the truth . . . I want nothing more to do with this stupid loyalism.” Bitter, but more resilient this time. There were no thoughts of suicide. If this was what fate had in store, so be it. He would happily put the disgusting world of politics behind him, and prepare to make whatever he could of island life. One thing he could do was check up on his family. Soon after his arrival Aikana turned up with the two children; but Saigo was not going to share his tough existence with them, only ensure there was a friend at hand on her home island who would buy the silk she wove and make sure she didn’t starve.

  He didn’t get the chance to make anything of life on this new island, because there was no time. In August, a month after his arrival, constables from Kagoshima stepped ashore with the news that his daimyo had concluded he was too dangerous, even there. He would be transferred instantly, in close confinement, to an island even farther off, even smaller and much harsher. The place was a penal colony, and he was to be kept in a cell, alone, with the door always locked, under constant surveillance by two guards. It was a sentence harsh enough to freeze the soul.

  11

  THE PRISONER

  HOW DECEPTIVE FIRST IMPRESSIONS CAN BE. OKINOERABU—the vowels separate out in pronunciation, “Okino-erabu”—is the opposite of Amami Oshima: no hills, no delightful inlets, no beaches, no forests. It is shaped like a cartoon version of a Stone Age club, as if dropped by a giant on his way to batter Japan. Officials back in Kagoshima thought they were sending Saigo to a hardscrabble, poverty-stricken back of beyond, yet what he found here enriched him beyond measure.

  As I approached from the air, I saw a grim pancake of an island, all fields of either dull green or bare red earth edged with rough rocks—coral, as I discovered—too low to count as cliffs. Yet what I found was entrancing, not because of its landscape, but because of its people. Why such a place should produce inhabitants of such zest and charm I have no idea. But it does, and Saigo thrived there.

  He came prepared for the worst, and that helped. The officers escorting him carried the order that he was to be kept in an “enclosure.” On August 16 one of them came ashore from the little ship and hastened to the capital, Wadomari, four kilometers away, with the order. But there was no suitable enclosure. The island’s superintendent, Tsuzurabara, would have to make one, fast. He was puzzled. There were about one hundred people in exile on the island, but they were all free to walk around. This was an unprecedented order, applying only to Saigo. What could it mean? He assumed that the word meant a prison of some kind, so he ordered one built. Meanwhile, Saigo had to remain onboard for two more days.

  What happened next, like almost everything to do with Saigo on Okinoerabu, is a matter of both detailed historical record and folklore. It’s not often the two come together, but the islanders are well educated, meticulous and great storytellers, largely thanks to Saigo.

  We were quite a party. Since Michiko had worked here and was given an ecstatic welcome, I had the benefit of two ancient scholars in white floppy sunhats, Saoda Tomio and Oyama Yasuhiro, who were not only well educated, meticulous and great storytellers, but also displayed a terrific combination of older expertise and youthful enthusiasm, having written a book together about Saigo’s stay here. We were being driven by another enthusiast, Take Yoshiharu, who was, basically, an extremely cheerful cube, as broad as he was tall and as enthusiastic about tennis and sake as history.

  When the prison was ready, officials came to the landing site to welcome the Great Saigo, bringing a horse to carry him, his size being well known.

  “And our first words to him,” said the eighty-year-old Saoda, as if he had been on the spot, “were, ‘We have prepared a horse for you. Please ride, and we will accompany you.’”

  I could imagine the scene, because we were at the place where he landed: the little port of Inobe, now fringed by an immense wall scattered with piles of vast four-pronged bits of concrete, as if that passing giant’s child had tossed down a handful of jacks. They were there to defend the shore from typhoons, which in the old days would sweep inland three or four times a year. But the beach of white coral sand was still there, and so were the rolling breakers beyond the wall.

  My apologies for interrupting Mr. Saoda: “—and we will accompany you.” To which Saigo, with great dignity, replied—well, his words are recorded on a pillar that marks the spot and the date: a new one, because the old one was destroyed in a typhoon in 1947. But the words on the pillar are rather form
al. I prefer Mr. Saoda’s version: “‘I am very grateful to you,’ Great Saigo said, ‘but please let me walk, because this is my last chance to step on the soil.’ So the officers and the horse all walked with him to Wadomari. That was really touching. The people who came to welcome him were very impressed with his attitude.”

  We walked the same path, beside a sugarcane field (for this island, too, was all sugarcane fields farmed by slave labor imposed from Satsuma). When Saigo came by in mid-August it would have been in full, head-high growth. We trailed a river, now hemmed in with concrete walls and clogged with grass, turned a corner and were back almost at the sea. There, in an open area some two hundred meters inland, was the prison.

  I saw a cage, a cube of wooden slats, two meters square, two meters high, just about big enough for Saigo to lie down and stand up. It had a shaggy thatched roof, but no walls to keep out wind-driven rain. A half door was made of the same slatting, chained and padlocked. Yes, I saw at once it could have been built in two days. What a fearful place to spend the rest of one’s life, which was the prospect facing Saigo when he arrived. Inside was a dim figure, a statue of Saigo sitting cross-legged, in a meditative pose. I saw, and believed. This was “his prison,” and he was on the island for eighteen months, therefore this is what he suffered for all that time, in solitary confinement. Any naive new arrival would, I think, feel the same, sympathy for the prisoner vying with admiration for his powers of endurance.

  I was wrong, in many ways. The truth, as it slowly emerged that day, was far more interesting, and also in a small way raised the question of the nature of authenticity in historical evidence.