by John Man
Saigo, as commander, should not have been in the action, but with his usual recklessness insisted on going anyway. He wrote elated letters claiming victory over forces not twice, but five times, even ten times his own. People grasped his hands in the street to thank him, fêting his troops with food and drink, revealing to him for the first time the depth of feeling against the shogunate. His younger brother Tsugumichi, he said with pride, had a wound on his neck, but would be okay. It was exhilarating to experience action, but at his age (he was just forty), he had had bouts of sickness and thought he was getting too old to fight. “To tell the truth,” he wrote in a letter to the man in charge of his family back in Kagoshima, “I can no longer serve like a man, and I am so timid and self-conscious that it’s unbearable.”
Victory threw up other problems. His agenda—the agenda he had inherited from his former lord Nariakira—had been to work for a council of all the daimyos. But the shogunate had been defeated by only a few of them. And the army: was it to be a mix of domain divisions, or a proper unified imperial army? In early 1868 both existed. And what was his role? He was the highest-ranking samurai in the army, but still a staff officer, lumbered with boring desk work and (in theory) detached from the action. What did all this mean for his future, and the nation’s? As Mark Ravina puts it, “one of the founders of the modern Japanese state was deeply ambivalent about his own creation.”
The troops of the Satsuma alliance closed in on Edo, meeting little opposition. By early April they were ready to move in for the kill, demanding the surrender of castles, warships and weapons; the execution of officials and the ritual suicide of the ex-shogun Yoshinobu. But Yoshinobu was no longer in command; that position had been taken, strangely, by Saigo’s old friend Katsu, for reasons that underlined the conflicting principles being played out. He had opposed the shogunate when it wanted to attack Choshu, but then fought for it to stop a war he thought was totally unnecessary. Now he contacted Saigo to negotiate peace. He argued that there was neither sense nor morality in a harsh settlement. Yoshinobu was honorable, had resigned and was prepared to surrender property. To be magnanimous would spread justice throughout the land. Saigo was swayed, and put the case to his superiors.
It worked, briefly. Edo Castle gave up three weeks later, on April 27. Yoshinobu withdrew to a hilltop temple, Kan’ei-ji, in what is now Tokyo’s Ueno Park; his officials proved amenable; and weapons were surrendered. There remained only some two thousand obdurate members of a brigade known as the Shogitai, the League to Demonstrate Righteousness, who had set themselves up as guardians of the Ueno temple, where Yoshinobu was in his self-imposed retirement. Then the peace process stalled. With several guerrilla bands mounting small-scale attacks in the city and the police impotent, anarchy threatened as the league’s resistance blocked a definitive settlement. Imperial forces were running short of money, and Edo’s merchants made excuses when asked to contribute. Saigo delayed an assault because, with imperial troops deployed in mopping-up operations elsewhere, his forces were outnumbered. Days passed, chaos loomed. “The people are seized with apprehension,” Katsu confided to his diary. “Noisy ruffians loot and commit murders—they are unable to wait calmly for the imperial terms of settlement as true bushi should. Merchants have closed their doors and impoverished people have lost their means of livelihood. The streets at night are deserted. Is this the sign of the degenerate world?” So it seemed. In a memo to the police chief, he lamented that the castle was overgrown, its towers crumbling, its enclosures dens for beggars. At night, he said, thieves cut down the unfortunate, the aged are left to die in the streets, bands of young men pillage and plunder. The Shogitai grew in strength daily. The Shogitai had to be crushed and Edo pacified, or the new government would fall.
When the attack came, in the rainy dawn of July 4,5 it was almost a disaster. Saigo himself led the assault on the temple’s Black Gate, and suffered heavy casualties when troops from Choshu failed to back him up. Saigo, still a samurai at heart, did not complain: it gave him a chance to glory in the risk. But at some cost. The tide turned only when the Choshu men attacked the rear of the temple. At the end of the day, Armstrong cannons had reduced the temple to flaming ruins, littered with dead bodies and abandoned by the survivors.
The new regime ordered the Tokugawa family and its retainers—twelve thousand families, one hundred thousand people—out of the city. In midsummer 1868 Edo became the eastern capital—Tokyo—and the era name was officially changed from Keio to Meiji (“Bright Rule”). In October, to mark the new age, the emperor—“the mysterious Presence on whom few are privileged to look and live,” as the Japan Times put it—was carried past awestruck crowds to the shogun’s castle.6 To ease his passage, the emperor ordained a two-day holiday and the distribution of 2,563 barrels of sake. That raised the city’s mood. Locals called it “the wine of renovation.” But there was no renaissance yet. By the end of the year another two hundred thousand had fled, and the place “assumed the appearance of a deserted city.” A local newspaper, the Hiogo and Osaka Herald, commented in labored English that “ravenous, sluggish and dronish usurpers have appropriated to themselves with grudge the once flourishing Paris of their country, now converted into a den of depredators.”
In other parts of the country there were pockets of dissent—firearms going missing, guerrilla bands attacking imperial troops—and in the northeast of Honshu, large-scale resistance. It took until the year’s end to achieve complete victory. Saigo himself took three platoons north from Kagoshima in September, arriving in time to find his brother Kichijiro wounded. Four days later, he died of his injuries: a terrible loss, because Kichijiro had been left at home with the day-to-day responsibility for the family. “Just when it was I who should have been the first to die,” Saigo wrote, “I let my younger brother go ahead of me” to the front. In victory Saigo showed such restraint that he became something of a hero, even in this recalcitrant region. Indeed, as Ivan Morris puts it, “there can be few violent transformations in history that were accomplished with so little actual bloodshed,” an outcome for which Saigo bore much responsibility.
This was the end of the war for Saigo, though in fact it continued for another six months. The ten remaining ships of the Northern Alliance, with three thousand troops and some French advisers, fled farther north, to Hokkaido, intending to create a new, independent state. The Republic of Ezo never received recognition, and surrendered to an overwhelming imperial force at the end of June 1869.
There is a place that commemorates those from Satsuma who fell in the Boshin War. Very suitably, it is in the grounds of the Hokoshui sub-temple where Saigo used to meet Gessho for their secret talks in Kyoto. You go along a paved path between well-trimmed hedges, climb steps through gently sloping woodland, pass beneath a Shinto-style stone gateway and arrive at a hilltop shrine. A courtyard of flagstones surrounds six pillars engraved with the 524 names of the fallen. One of the pillars displays a poem with the signature line “Saigo Takamori wrote it,” as if the delicate incisions were spray-canned graffiti.
It is a haven of peace, in a nest of maple trees. The shaven-headed monk who told me about Saigo and Gessho and the teahouse explained that it was peaceful because it was not open to the public, except in November, when people were allowed in to see the maples arrayed in their autumn colors. “This is a famous place, but they don’t know much about the monuments. They come for the maples.” I wondered how the place survived, without much public access. It was hard, he admitted. “We have fifteen families sponsoring us, but we really need a hundred.” He lectured on philosophical subjects, there was the occasional funeral, the temple held tea ceremonies, and so he made enough to keep the temple going. It was his life, a commitment inherited from his father, which he would pass on to his son. And so the shrine would remain, in remembrance of those who fell in the war of the Meiji Restoration, almost forgotten except for those who come to admire the autumnal maples.
It was in the end a very strange sort of revolut
ion, full of paradoxes, as the next few years would show. It had been led by samurai to restore an ancient tradition of imperial rule, yet they sidelined the emperor and legislated themselves out of existence in a sort of collective seppuku. They spoke for their domains, yet centralized the administration. They said they despised foreigners and the outside world, yet embraced the one and could hardly wait to experience the other. Ancient hierarchies would vanish, to be replaced by advancement according to merit. Men who had once proclaimed the virtues of ancient styles of dress soon wore unknotted hair and dress coats, rode in carriages and flourished umbrellas. That’s what it took to put into effect their slogan: “Enrich the country, strengthen the army.” Not surprisingly, as time would tell, some would not be able to stand it.
Saigo, it seemed, was not one of those. His task done, he had returned to Kagoshima, to a well-earned rest, recovery from debilitating illness and (so he dreamed) permanent retirement.
PHOTOGRAPHIC INSERT
THE SAMURAI SPIRIT
For over 250 years the upper-class samurai cultivated a very deliberate image: ferocious, exotic and distinctive in battle. This was reflected in their elaborate helmets and armor, and also in the craftsmanship of their swords.
This helmet, with face mask with blackened teeth and bristling mustache, was brought to England by the British collector, Charles Wade. The antlers recall the regalia of Honda Tadakatsu, a famous early seventeenth-century general, but its history is unknown.
(Samurai helmet and face mask, Green Room, Snowshill Manor: Andreas von Einsiedel © The National Trust Photolibrary/Alamy)
A portrait of a samurai shows his lamellar armor and topknot. It is by Felice Beato, the brilliant British Italian pioneer of photography in the East.
(Samurai in traditional armor, hand-colored photograph by Felice Beato, 1860s: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Dep Eo 97(1) fol.a)
This exotic suit of segmented armor, with its horned and flared helmet, belonged to Saigo’s lord, Nariakira.
(Armor used by Shimazu Nariakira, late Edo period, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo: Getty Images/The Bridgeman Art Library.)
Two late nineteenth-century samurai in kimonos and trousers carry the pair of swords that were the prime attributes of samurai.
(Two men in traditional samurai costume, 1880s: © RMN (musée Guimet, Paris)/droits réservés armor used by Shimazu Nariakira, late Edo period, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo: Getty Images/The Bridgeman Art Library)
This long sword, made c.1600, has the classic shape, strength and flexibility that made the katana “the soul of the samurai.”
(Samurai sword, c. 1600: Mary Evans/Interfoto)
A short sword (wakizashi) shows the wavy temper line (hamon) marking the transition from the hardened cutting edge to the more flexible body of the blade.
(Short samurai sword: © Oleksiy Maksymenko/Alamy)
In Kagoshima today, children learn Jigen-ryu, a style of fighting using sticks instead of swords.
SAIGO’S WORLD:
SATSUMA, KYOTO AND EXILE
These images evoke some of the influences and experiences that marked Saigo’s life before he achieved high office.
Kagoshima’s restive volcano, Sakurajima, made the mountains that kept Satsuma isolated from the rest of Japan.
(Kagoshima volcano, Kagoshima: Gyro Photography/amanaimagesRF/Photolibrary)
In Kyoto: Kiyomizu, one of Kyoto’s grandest Buddhist temples, was the base for Gessho, the priest who was Saigo’s contact with the imperial court. Gessho met Saigo in the Tofuku temple, where a shrine honors Satsuma men who were killed in the coming war.
(Kiyomizu-dera temple, Kyoto, photo c. 1900: Getty Images)
Saigo as portrayed by a childhood friend—perhaps the most accurate portrait of him.
Exiled in semitropical Amami Oshima, Saigo made a new life, living in a simple house with his “island wife,” Aikana.
The island of Saigo’s second exile, Okinoerabu, is a flat place of sugarcane fields surrounded by coral cliffs.
Condemned to solitary confinement, Saigo spent several weeks in a specially constructed prison cell, recalled by this reconstruction. A statue of him in meditative pose suggests his stoical response, but looks nothing like him.
A statue of him in meditative pose suggests his stoic response, but looks nothing like him.
Sheltered by admiring locals, Saigo was drawn into the island’s Ryukyu culture, which included rich costumes and traditional dances performed with astonishing zest today.
REVOLUTION
During the tumultuous years leading to the restoration of the emperor in 1868, the nation seemed on the point of collapse. In 1862, a merchant, Charles Richardson, was cut down by Hisamitsu’s samurai. His murder was seen as an outrage by other nations, especially Britain, and led to a punitive expedition against Satsuma.
The main Kyoto–Edo coast road, the Tokaido, was a succession of villages, inns and official way stations. It is now a highway.
(View of the Tokaido, 1867–8, photo by Felice Beato: Getty Images)
This is how the upper class traveled: in a palanquin carried by samurai eager to display their loyalty to their lord and their disdain of almost everyone else.
(Daimyo and his retainers preparing to go to Edo, c. 1867, hand-colored photo by Felice Beato: © RMN (musée Guimet, Paris)/droits réservés)
Hisamitsu, the father of Satsuma’s daimyo. He was the real power in the province—and an extremely temperamental one. It was he who sent Saigo into exile—and brought him back.
(Portrait of Shimazu Hisamitsu by Harada Naojiro: Shoko Shukeisan, Kagoshima)
Yoshinobu, the last Tokugawa shogun, at twenty-nine. A year later, in the face of pressure in part engineered by Saigo, he resigned. Despite a civil war fought for the shogunate, he had nothing to do with the action. He lived in retirement for another fifty years.
(Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 1863–8, hand-colored photo by Felice Beato: © Alinari Archives/Corbis)
Envoys from Satsuma in Yokohama, where they arrived late in December 1863 for negotiations with representatives of the foreign powers.
(Satsuma’s envoys, 1863–6, hand-colored photo by Felice Beato: Royal Photographic Society/Science and Society)
Following the Richardson Affair and the bombardment of Kagoshima. Representing Britain were Vice Admiral Kuper (middle, upper row) and Colonel Neale. (far right, lower row).
(Meeting of Western diplomats, 1863–4, left to right: Captain Benjamin Jaurès, Captain Dew, Robert Pruyn U.S. minister to Japan, Vice-Admiral Augustus Leopold Kuper, Col. Edward St. John Neale, Gustave Duchesne, Prince de Bellecourt, French diplomat, photograph by Felice Beato from an album in the British Museum, Asia Department, 2006, 0218,0.34: © The Trustees of the British Museum)
Richardson’s body, cleaned up.
(Charles Richardson’s corpse, 1862, photo attributed to W. Saunders: Pacific Press Service)
In another antiforeign incident in 1863, Choshu fired on Dutch, French and American ships in the straits of Shimonoseki. In September 1864, a joint Western force destroyed some sixty guns. Beato was with the invaders, and took this picture of the British landing party.
(British naval landing party at Shimonoseki, September 6, 1864, photo by Felice Beato: Nagasaki University Library)
The Boshin War, 1868: a painting of a shogunate soldier and a photograph of a company show them to be armed with both firearms and swords.
(Shogunate soldier, Osaka, 29 April 1867, from Hakodate Bakumatsu and Restoration by Jules Brunet, c. 1867)
(Shogunate soldiers before 1868, from Bakufu panorama kan, by Yoshino)
The emperor Mutsuhito, posthumously known as Meiji, came to the throne in 1867 at the age of fourteen. He was just fifteen when he proclaimed the end of the shogunate and his own return to full imperial power in 1868. Here he is in Western military dress.
(Emperor Mutsuhitsu, 8 October 1873: © RMN (musée Guimet, Paris)/droits reservés)
TO KUMAMOTO – AND DEFEA
T
In mid-February 1877 Saigo and his army of keen young followers struggled through snow over these paving stones, slippery even in summer. Hauling a few old-fashioned cannons and poorly clad against the cold, they hoped to take the fortress town of Kumamoto. Their dream slowly turned to nightmare.
The half dozen cannons fired balls, not explosive shells.
The army consisted mainly of samurai armed with swords and dressed in cotton with rope sandals—hardly any protection against the rare snowfall that turned the road to ice and slush.
In an overdramatized contemporary print, Saigo (on horseback, right) urges on his sword-wielding samurai outside the walls of Kumamoto. There was no fighting like this, though the fortress with its burning tower is shown accurately.
(Battling with the Kagoshima samurai at Kumamoto Castle, February 22, 1877, woodblock print by Yoshu Chikanobu, March 1877, British Museum, Asia Department, 1983.0701.0.3.1-3: © The Trustees of the British Museum)