by John Man
Tabaruzaka was the turning point. As the surviving Satsuma troops began to trail back to rejoin Saigo, who had been directing the assault from a hill overlooking the castle, certain truths had been revealed. It had been a close-run thing for Meiji, because almost the entire peacetime force of 31,000, plus 15,000 reserves, plus several thousand armed police, militia, marines and cadets—some 65,000 in all, well armed and well supplied—had been committed to the fray, a number vastly in excess of Saigo’s ragtag, underfed, underarmed but extremely spirited forces. The imperial army was still an undertrained, ill-coordinated, small-scale force compared to the army that would build Japan’s empire in decades to come, but it was massive superiority, not some new spirit, that won the day. Until now, almost everyone had accepted that samurai alone could be soldiers, that no others had the right or ability to bear arms, which should, of course, be swords. Moreover, samurai tradition held that all fighting was local, in defense of one’s lord and one’s domain. Now it was clear that ordinary men could fight, and that they would do so for a new entity, the nation. Imperial forces, from the top down to ordinary conscripts, took heart. The oligarchs who had seized power in the emperor’s name—among them, of course, Saigo’s ex-friend Okubo—could wield that power nationally, and no local force, certainly no traditional force, could stand in their way.
The sad truth was that the Way of the Warrior was a thing of the past, and had been for the last nine years. All that remained was for the warrior—in this case Saigo—to see the truth, and surrender. But he could not, would not do so, for that would betray the trust of his followers and deny his life’s essence, his identity, his ideals. He was not, he said, fighting for victory, but for the “chance to die for principle.” This was not a vision with much appeal; but his example was enough.
There would be no surrender, only a slow retreat in the face of overwhelming odds, until no further retreat was possible.
16
RETREAT
IT IS EXTREMELY HARD TO FORCE SURRENDER UPON AN ENEMY who (a) is an excellent leader; (b) has an impregnable belief in his own rectitude; and (c) is prepared to die for his cause. That was the case with Saigo, and it was infectious. After two major defeats, he showed no flickers of self-criticism, or regret, or defeatism. Instead, he masterminded a slow seventy-kilometer retreat, regrouping, fighting off assaults, and finally, after a week, reestablishing a base at Hitoyoshi, about halfway back the way he had come. He knew the place well, because it was from here that he had taken a boat down the Kuma River on his way north in the snows of February.
By now it was early summer, and the surrounding steep hills were lush with new growth. For three weeks, until mid-May, he stayed there, hoping for more help from other disaffected areas, while his army blocked the river valley with a series of stockades. No help came. Imperial troops took the stockades one by one. It was time to retreat again. Some of the rebels were beginning to fret about their food and cash. A few of Saigo’s men, now well down from the original twelve thousand, opted to make for home, and some three hundred others chose to surrender to take advantage of an offer of amnesty. The rest, following Saigo’s still confident lead, trailed south, along winding mountain roads, with the imperial troops in pursuit.
They might have headed back to Kagoshima, but that was now in imperial hands, as they soon discovered. A squadron of imperial ships had arrived at the end of April, with seven thousand troops and eight field guns. The place was, of course, entirely undefended, and in terrible shape. The rich had fled, the poor had looted stores and houses. It took just a couple of weeks for the new arrivals to surround Kagoshima with gun batteries, stockades and rifle pits. By the time the bulk of Saigo’s army approached at the end of May, it was too late to reclaim the city. Intense attacks over the next few weeks killed twenty-two imperial troops and wounded two hundred, but made no lasting impact, and the rebels withdrew into the hills of central Kyushu. Pro-government newspapers in Tokyo hopefully claimed that the rebels would soon fall before the superior power of the government armies.
Some hope. There was still no thought of surrender. Far from it: this was ideal country for guerrilla warfare, thanks to the one-hundred-meter layer of ash dumped by Sakurajima and twenty-two thousand years of rain. As you can see today if you take the train to the east coast of Kyushu, it is all steep green hills and twisting little valleys, with the occasional gray scar where an earth slide has exposed the underlying soil. This, the Yakushima National Forest, is as wrinkled as a duvet after a restless night. Streams wander the valley floor, smoothing out the rich soil, making space for farmhouses and paddy fields beneath the towering forests of cedars and bamboo. Geography often makes history, and it certainly did here, in the summer of 1877, because there was no way that imperial troops from far away, faint in the muggy heat, with baggage trains and cannons and heavy uniforms and leather boots that gave them blisters, could catch locals in rope sandals with friends everywhere. The rebels did whatever they could. They planted pointed bamboos along trails and in front of their positions. They rolled barrels of gunpowder on to enemy positions. On one occasion, they staged a successful ambush by placing a man in the barrel and rolling it downhill toward an imperial outpost; when the man stepped out, the unsuspecting imperial troops rushed forward, swords drawn, only to be mown down by fire from above.
A “banknote”—actually an IOU backed by nothing more than wishful thinking—printed by Saigo when he was retreating cross-country in the summer of 1877.
(Saigo banknote, 1877: Japan Currency Museum, Tokyo)
On the other hand, the rebels could not win, and their cash was gone, and friends were harder to find as time went on, because all they had now were promissory notes with Saigo’s name printed on them. That was all well and good while Saigo looked like he was winning. But when erstwhile supporters started raising eyebrows at these worthless bits of paper, the rebel guerrillas had to do what special forces often do: steal provisions from those who could ill afford to lose them, even snatching metal tools to melt down into bullets. In late July an imperial assault overran the latest rebel base, Myakonojo, and that was the end of the brief guerrilla war in the mountains. Saigo led his rebels eastward.
The hills give way to a wide open plain, and then, fifteen kilometers farther on, a flat coastline with gray volcanic sand and the town of Miyazaki, where Saigo now based himself, hoping for reinforcements from disaffected samurai from the north. He even had some of his promissory notes printed here, so there was still hope. But no help came. The imperial troops, strengthened by another ten thousand new arrivals, gathered for yet another assault, which would surely be the last. Once again, Tokyo’s papers predicted an imminent rebel collapse, imminent government victory.
No, not yet. The rebels, now down to 3,500 and outnumbered many times over, backed away up the coast along a corridor between sea and hills, taking and then surrendering every town along the way—Sadawara, Takanabe, Hososhima, Nobeoka. Out in the open, they had few weapons to fight with, and didn’t know what to do with those they had. Expecting an attack from the sea, they mounted brass cannons at two harbor mouths, Hososhima and Nobeoka. They even tried making wooden cannons—hollow pieces of wood bound with bamboo hoops—but if these amateurish devices fired at all they either had a very short range or burst apart.
Just north of Nobeoka, however, the landscape gave them a chance to confront their tormentors. You cross a river, the Hori, and ahead is a nose of flat land beyond which, only two kilometers away, is another river, the Kita. But even if you were up high you couldn’t see that far, because there are hills in the way, blocking Saigo’s escape route northward. The hills gave the rebels a slim chance of slowing down their pursuers, allowing yet another escape, yet another chance for Saigo’s loyal remnants to scatter and wage guerrilla war and perhaps link up with whatever dissident forces waited for them in the neighboring domain. So now you can drive up a winding road onto a forested ridge thirty meters or so above the surrounding countryside, where the
trees are broken by a little monument. The spot is called Wadagoshi, which is also the name of the battle that took place below. This was where Saigo and his number two, Kirino, stood to look over the plain and watch events unfold. The odds were frightening—3,500 against 50,000; at least, that’s what it says on the plaque, though other sources speak of 35,000 or 40,000 on the imperial side. On a mound just under two kilometers to the southwest—which on Google Earth stands out as a clear patch of green among suburban roads—was Saigo’s nemesis, General Yamagata.
It was obvious as soon as the sun rose on August 15 that the rebels didn’t have a hope. The imperial troops, armed with cannons and breechloaders, were crowding in on both sides along the ridge on which Saigo’s men stood, and down on the plain. The rebels held just this little saddle of rising ground, an easy target for the imperial guns, which opened up soon after sunrise and fired for several hours. All the rebels could do in response was pick off the occasional target with their flintlocks, shooting some two hundred imperial troops for the loss of one hundred of their own (if the plaque at the site is to be believed).
My guide put a generous speech into Saigo’s mouth, acknowledging the martial spirit of his enemies. Turning to Kirino, he said: “You told me those peasants [meaning the imperial troops] can’t do anything. But my private school men are in difficulty fighting against them. That means that Japan will be all right in their hands. If that is the case, I can die in peace.”
At 2:00 P.M. Saigo ordered that Wadagoshi, too, be abandoned. Many of the troops surrendered; many were captured; and a hard core retreated upriver, seeking refuge in the hills and ravines that tumbled almost to the riverside.
By chance, on the evening of this day, August 15, 1877, an American steamship captain named John Hubbard, who worked for the Mitsubishi Steamship Company, arrived in Nobeoka. In one of his letters to his wife back in Yokohama, he described what he saw.1 For two days, he was kept aboard by incessant firing. “From our steamer we could see the smoke of both sides, and trace the lines among the hills and valleys as the rebels fell back and the Imperialists advanced.” Then on the nineteenth, he went inland, traveling with colleagues by rowboat up the Kita River.
As soon as we entered the river we saw boats coming with rebel prisoners who were being put on a small island in the river. As we passed close to many of these boats we saw what a hard looking lot they were and plainly showed the fatigue they had undergone during the last six months, while being hunted from place to place. We learned that in the last two days’ fight 5,200 prisoners had been taken [a vast exaggeration: Saigo had only 3,500 fighting for him]. But Saigo and Kirino, with the other leaders and about 5,000 samurai had broken out of the magic circle, as they have done so often before.
After pulling up the river for two miles, we landed [on the east bank] and walked across the country, constantly meeting Imperial soldiers and rebel prisoners, and wounded of both sides. We reached the village after a three-mile walk and found every house occupied by soldiers. In one we were shown a large quantity of arms that had been captured the day before. There were old Springfield muskets, Spencer and Remington rifles, but among the most numerous of the fire-arms were the old-fashioned match-locks. The swords were in a pile at least ten feet from the ground and were all sizes and lengths, and appeared to have had some very rough usage. Going through the village we came to a river with quite a strong current. Here was a pontoon bridge of boats . . . quite strongly built, and that day a constant stream of soldiers was crossing in both directions, amongst them many wounded. We saw numbers of dead bodies floating away at sea, all of which seemed to be rebels. Soldiers were stationed on the bridge to prevent the bodies getting foul of the boats and bridge. While crossing [to the west bank] we counted nine dead rebels. Another two-mile walk brought us to the battleground [of 15–17 August], but the only indications of the recent fight were the marks of bullets on the trees here and there; the fields were ploughed up by large balls and a few houses burned to the ground.
Hubbard and his party then stopped for a picnic, and took a walk where charming views made up for the distasteful scenes they had just witnessed. Having made their way back to the pontoon bridge, they hired a boat, sailed back downriver to find their own vessel, and rowed across to the island where the prisoners were being kept.
We found them a sorry looking lot, mostly lying under the trees, listless and black with dirt. Their clothes were of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions. Hats seemed to be the main uniform; of the greatest variety and the worst looking that one could imagine; there were even black and white felts of all shapes. Before we were finished our inspection my attention was called to two fellows in black frock coats, no pants, but tall black top hats. None of the prisoners were tied and all were very lightly guarded—we thought about one soldier to fifty men. The poor fellows looked too used up to ever attempt to escape.
The letter was dated August 22, and all had been quiet for the last three days. Obviously, the imperial troops were off into the mountains, hunting the rebels, “but I fancy it will take some time to find them, and they will probably turn up in some place where they are not expected.” He was right. But no one could possibly have guessed that by the time Hubbard had finished his letter, Saigo had already slipped clear yet again in perhaps the most audacious escapade of this doomed campaign.
Saigo had known how weak his position was at Wadagoshi; so, even before the battle, he had made arrangements for a further retreat, to a ravine four kilometers to the north where there was a village named Nagai. To the east was the river, fast flowing, with neither bridges nor boats. To the west were the forested flanks of a precipitous ridge and a peak, Mount Eno. Here an advance guard somehow persuaded the villagers to make a house and rooms available for senior officers, set up a hospital and bring in food. On the evening of the fifteenth, Saigo, Kirino and perhaps two thousand of the surviving rebels arrived. The imperial troops began to close in on them again. Anyone but Saigo would have said this really was the end.
What happened next is not in many books, but it is well known in these parts because there is, as usual with sites connected with Saigo, a museum. A signpost in a familiar shape—big eyes, kimono, dog—points you off the main road, under a bridge to a courtyard, a ticket office and three neat single-story houses with wooden walls and gray-tiled roofs. This is the Saigo Takamori Lodging Place Museum, looked after by its resident keeper. Kodama Gosei is in his fifties, with a suntanned face—because he’s out a lot in his immaculate garden—and mournful eyes. He reminded me of a Labrador I knew once, friendly, appealing and eager to reveal what would have remained hidden.
“So when they came Saigo found lodging at this house, the main one by the courtyard. Kirino stayed over there, with everyone else scattered through the village, under trees, resting wherever they could. There was no space for even an ant to penetrate.”
It was clear to Saigo that there was no chance of winning, either in a pitched battle or by guerrilla warfare. The following afternoon, as enemy forces crept into position for the final showdown, he made a symbolic gesture, bringing his general’s uniform into the yard—yes, right there, said Mr. Kodama, just between the ticket office and his house—and burning it, along with some documents, as if admitting finally that he could no longer play the loyalist. There would be no reconciliation. His army was beaten, and it was time for a choice.
This was not just his decision. There was a council of war, which has been re-created in a life-size tableau in the very room where the council met. You slide open the screen door and join the meeting—Saigo, kimono open to the top of his enormous belly, kneeling in front of the Satsuma logo and his old slogan “Revere Heaven, Love Mankind”; Kirino standing to summarize the dire position; and five others kneeling around the low table. One of them is Saigo’s aide Beppu Shinsuke, whom he had perhaps already asked to act as his right-hand man when the time came for seppuku. All are dressed as samurai, of course. It is a timeless scene. There is nothing to say this is 18
77 as opposed to 1600.
So, said Mr. Kodama, a decision was made, and Saigo addressed a public meeting.
“The only choice is death in some form. There are three ways to die: the first is to commit seppuku; the second is to die in battle; the third is to surrender and die in prison.”
To which one senior officer, speaking for the majority who were samurai from other domains, not from Satsuma, replied that death by seppuku or on the field of battle would be to choose between two kinds of death, and both of them anonymous. The purpose of seppuku or battlefield death was to save honor, but that could only be achieved if the death was verified. In the present case, this would be impossible: families, in particular, would never know how their sons or husbands had died. Perhaps not even the names would be recorded. There would be no dishonor, but there would be no honor either. Better to surrender and save hundreds of useless deaths. Most accepted this reasoning, and decided that they could surrender.
That left a hard core of some six hundred private school students from Kagoshima, whose loyalty to Saigo was rock solid. If Saigo was going to go out in a blaze of glory, so were they. To those who wished to fight on, he had just the sort of message they wanted to hear. “This is no place to die,” he said (supposedly, for there is much folklore in the accounts). There was, perhaps, a way out. Not along the river northward, or back southward, or into the surrounding hills, but taking the one route that looked impossible, that no one in their right mind would choose, that Yamagata and his officers would never, in their wildest nightmares, think of—straight up the slope behind the village, over the top of Mount Eno.