Season 13, Episode 6: Counter-Revolution
As I hope I’ve made clear in this season’s preceding episodes, Japan’s modernization was not a simple, straightforward process nor was it universally accepted, much less championed, by the residents of Japan themselves. Thus far we’ve discussed riots against mandatory conscription, compulsory primary education, and property taxes among other unpopular new policies. It is not unusual, when any society’s leaders decide to introduce rapid, urgent change to its own status quo, for certain elements of that status quo to push back, often violently. However, until now we have only discussed the pushback which was expressed by commoners during the early days of the Meiji Period. In the mid 1870s, however, there were two major armed rebellions led not by common citizens, but by samurai.
When Saigo Takamori resigned in protest of the Meiji government’s decision not to invade Korea in 1873, he was followed by a significant number of fellow officials. Among them were Eto Shinpei and Itagaki Taisuke, two fellow samurai. While Saigo Takamori returned to Kagoshima in southern Kyushu and busied himself with his military academy, Eto Shinpei and Itagaki Taisuke joined with another similarly disaffected samurai named Goto Shojiro. The three worked together and in early 1874 they founded the Aikoku Koto, or the “Public Party of Patriots,” which was, effectively, Japan’s very first political party.
The founding principles of the Aikoku Koto were inalienable human rights, resistance to tyranny, and the fundamental right of participatory government. On the seventeenth of January, 1874, they submitted to the Meiji government an official proposal to establish a national assembly of elected representatives who could ensure that the executive branch heeded the people’s demands. This platform suggests that Itagaki Taisuke, Goto Shojiro, and all of their fellow Aikoku Koto partisans believed that the general public would support an invasion of Korea, among other policies which they felt were being ignored.
On the surface, the Aikoku Koto has a few solid points. The Meiji government was not composed of elected officials, but rather appointees who owed their jobs to the favor of the higher echelons of the executive. This didn’t mean that they were mere flunkies -- in fact, there is a decent case to be made that the Meiji government was acting in a rather meritocratic fashion, appointing men to critical jobs like prefectural governor or tax collection oversight based on their abilities rather than their lineage or even personal connection. However, most of the officials who had visited the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, and nearly every other western imperial power during the Iwakura Mission had returned believing that Japan must adopt the economic modes of production utilized by these nations but seemed to have no intention of likewise adopting the semi-democratic political methods by which said economic modes were governed. In spite of all the future acclaim from citizens whose standard of living rose throughout the later years of the Meiji Era, executive decisions were still largely the province of unelected officials acting unilaterally with no built-in function for assessing the needs and wants of those whom they claimed to serve.
In spite of its progressive platform and frankly reasonable demands, the Aikoku Koto was generally ignored by the Meiji government, who pressed on with business as usual and barely acknowledged even receiving their petition, much less reading it or taking its advice under consideration. Itagaki Taisuke was determined to continue pursuing the Aikoku Koto’s mission and convince the government to see reason; Eto Shinpei, however, grew disillusioned with party politics and decided to embark upon a different path.
Before his protest resignation, Eto Shinpei had been serving as the Minister of Justice and had previously given input when Japan was compiling its first modern penal code, the Kaitei Ritsurei. He had also contributed to the effort nationwide to establish Japan’s first police force which would be dedicated to upholding said penal code as well as the more specific prefectural laws which would later be established. Some months before his resignation, he had even been appointed as a sangi, or councilor, a position which was both highly respected and full of historical weight. After resigning, he returned to his home of Saga City, which is the capital of Saga Prefecture in northwestern Kyushu.
After the government gave a cool reception to the petition of the Aikoku Koto, Shinpei decided that the best course of action was direct action. In Saga, he began recruiting like-minded samurai who were disillusioned with the new government and soon found himself at the head of an army three thousand samurai strong. Believing that samurai around the nation were doubtless just as unhappy as he and his fellows were, Eto Shinpei launched a rebellion on February 16, 1874. He and his army raided a local bank for funds and then initiated an attack on Saga Castle, driving out the prefectural functionaries who were using it as office space and occupying the building in a symbolic protest.
Eto Shinpei believed that his rebellion would serve to inspire similar actions among his fellow disaffected samurai in Kagoshima and Tosa Prefectures. These two prefectures, or rather the domains which had preceded them, had been the heart of the anti-Bakufu resistance which had formed the early Meiji government in the first place. However, Kagoshima and Tosa both remained calm throughout Eto Shinpei’s rebellion and neither offered even tacit support, much less material assistance and military alliance.
It became clear within the first few days of what came to be called the Saga Rebellion that Eto Shinpei had grossly underestimated the willingness of his fellow samurai to rebel against the Meiji government. Meanwhile, said government dispatched Okubo Toshimichi, one of the Three Outstanding Heroes, to organize an official response to this armed uprising. Toshimichi was outraged that Shinpei had actually resorted to armed rebellion and he was determined to squash it quickly, likely fearing that if it dragged on too long, the prefectures which had so far remained peaceful might join the rebels.
Eto Shinpei seems to have realized that his assumptions of similar uprisings in Satsuma and Tosa were mistaken and he soon regretted staging this rebellion. On February 22, just six days after the bank raid and castle occupation, his army faced down government troops near the border with Fukuoka Prefecture and the resulting battle was a resounding defeat for the samurai insurgents. Shortly afterward, Shinpei announced that the army should disband while he sought support directly from Satsuma and Tosa. He departed shortly thereafter, but his army continued to resist the pacification force led by Okubo Toshimichi. After several days of brutal street fighting, the castle fell to a concentrated assault on March first.
Upon entering Kagoshima in southern Kyushu, Eto Shinpei found no support, so he moved on to Tosa Prefecture, which likewise refused to support his rebellion. Note for any would-be revolutionaries listening: you really want to forge these alliances before you launch the rebellion. While trying to book passage to Tokyo, where he had previously promised to turn himself in if his junket was unsuccessful, he was placed under arrest by local police on April ninth.
Now that Eto Shinpei was in custody, the question of what should come next loomed large. Somewhat surprisingly, he actually still had many supporters in the government who lobbied for mercy on his behalf. Kido Takayoshi, one of the Meiji Triumvirs, wrote to Okubo Toshimichi advocating for Shinpei’s life, claiming that his motives were pure and that perhaps he could redeem himself by joining the upcoming expedition to Taiwan. Toshimichi, however, was outraged at Shinpei’s actions and infuriated at the needless loss of life which he had inspired. In his mind, an example needed to be set to dissuade future rebellions of a similar nature. On April twelfth, just three days after his apprehension, Eto Shinpei was convicted of treason by a military tribunal and executed by beheading forthwith. His severed head was put on public display in Tokyo, a maneuver which was meant to emphasize the dishonorable nature of his death. While samurai had often displayed enemy heads in a viewing ceremony after a battle, this was typically limited to being seen by fellow samurai. Public display was reserved for common criminals.
Photographs of Eto Shinpei’s head quickly became a hot-selling item in Tokyo but the city government soon moved to curtail this grisly profiteering. They made the sale of such photos illegal and ordered anyone who had purchased one to give them over to city officials. Okubo Toshimichi had purchased this photo, however, and had it framed and mounted in the Home Ministry headquarters where he worked.
His hopes that the severe, dishonorable treatment of Eto Shinpei would discourage similar future uprisings were quickly dashed. In several prefectures across the nation, bands of samurai raised arms against the Meiji government, most protesting the reduction of their stipends and the removal of other former privileges. Some demanded that the domains be re-established and their former daimyos restored to office. Because these samurai generally hailed from the shizoku, or upper samurai, class, these uprisings are referred to as shizoku rebellions. Between 1874 and 1877, there were over thirty such “shizoku rebellions” across the nation, and to try and go through each one is unnecessary for our purposes. Instead, we will focus on just a few of the mini-rebellions which, in spite of their miniscule stature, proved to be very influential nonetheless.
In southwestern Kyushu lies Kumamoto Prefecture which was formerly known as Kumamoto Domain. The samurai of Kumamoto han had cheered the destruction of the shogunate but largely rejected the modernization efforts of the new central government. Many were part of the joi or “expel the barbarians” movement and were extremely unhappy to see their home transformed by rail lines, telegraph offices, rudimentary electrical services and other trappings of modern life in the late 1800s. They turned to a radical sect of Kami worship called Keishinto, which was essentially a secret society for those who believed, on a religious level, that Japan was the sacred land of the gods and that foreign innovations carried an intrinsic defilement which was unacceptable. You may recall them from the previous episode: they carried small pouches of salt to ward off the foreign corruption whenever they encountered it in daily life.
Particularly high on their list of complaints was that the government had allowed foreigners to purchase Japanese land, permitted Christian missionaries to freely proselytize, and had, in March of 1876, banned the carrying of swords in public by anyone except former daimyo, military officers, and police. When a rumor began spreading that the Emperor himself was planning an overseas tour, the Keishinto samurai rallied to their chief priest - a former samurai named Otaguro Tomoo.
Holding fast to tradition, Tomoo engaged in divination to request permission from Japan’s native deities to launch a rebellion. Believing he had received an affirmative response, Tomoo prepared a plan to seize control of Kumamoto Prefecture. His small but determined army established regular communication with like-minded groups around the nation. On October 24, 1876, Tomoo and his shizoku made their move.
He divided the two hundred-ish men under his command into three platoons and gave each group its own task. One group charged full throttle into the imperial army barracks in the dead of night and killed everyone they found there, offering no quarter. A second group destroyed the telegraph office and a third broke into the houses of prefectural officials with murderous intent. This targeted approach was nearly a successful coup, and the governor of Kumamoto Prefecture was assassinated in his home along with the garrison commander and his chief of staff. It’s worth noting that while destroying the telegraph office was in keeping with their aversion to foreign innovations, it also effectively prevented them from coordinating any further with the like-minded groups with whom they had been corresponding.
The surprise attack on the garrison met with significant early success and left three hundred dead and wounded among the imperial army soldiers stationed in Kumamoto. However, the alarm was soon raised and the officers in the barracks quickly mobilized the men under their command. Once again in keeping with the strictures of their sect, Otaguro Tomoo’s rebels were armed only with traditional swords and carried no firearms among them. When the imperial garrison responded with rifle volleys, the rebels quickly began dropping. Otaguro Tomoo himself was seriously wounded by the imperial guns and asked one of his adherents to behead him. Rightfully understanding that they would not prevail, many of his followers committed seppuku along with their leader.
The whole affair was over by morning and the remaining insurgents placed under arrest and later summarily beheaded. What came to be known as the Shinpuren Rebellion created dramatic ripple effects across the nation. Kumamoto Prefecture remained in a state of emergency for some time and a few days afterward two more similar samurai rebellions flared up in Fukuoka Prefecture in northern Kyushu and in Yamaguchi Prefecture on the western edge of Chugoku, in what used to be Choshu Domain. Western Japan had become something of a haven for disaffected samurai who rejected modernization and demanded a return to tradition.
Which brings us to Kumamoto’s neighboring prefecture to the south. In the city of Kagoshima, the capital of Kagoshima Prefecture, major trouble was brewing. After his resignation from the government in 1873, Saigo Takamori had opened a private military academy in Kagoshima where he trained samurai in the ways of modern warfare. One of the Meiji Triumvirs, Takamori had supported the overthrow of the Bakufu but greatly disliked the way the government seemed to be discarding the samurai class in the name of modernization. One of the reasons why he and his fellow partisans had so vociferously promoted an invasion of Korea was that they wanted the samurai to be integrated as an officer corps in the imperial army and believed that this invasion would revive the purpose of the fading warrior class.
He had refused to support the Saga Rebellion in 1874 because he did not think it would succeed. He was also probably hoping that the Meiji government would come to its senses and ask him to return, that they would induct the students of his military academy as officers in the imperial army and ensure that the armed forces of Japan were always led by men of samurai pedigree.
The leadership of Kagoshima Prefecture, nestled in the former Satsuma domain of southern Kyushu, seems to have broadly shared his ideals. As the central government announced repeated sweeping social reforms throughout the early 1870s, Kagoshima Prefecture refused to implement nearly all of them. By 1876, they had also stopped forwarding their tax payments to Tokyo, a situation which the Meiji government could hardly ignore.
When the central government dispatched inspectors to investigate conditions in Kagoshima, these agents were captured by a radical group of Saigo Takamori’s students who tortured them until they confessed that they had been sent to assassinate Takamori himself. These men later retracted this confession, claiming that they were simply telling their torturers what they wanted to hear. Frankly, I’m inclined to believe the inspectors.
The students were already irate at the Meiji government for snubbing their teacher, as well as relocating Kagoshima’s gun manufactory and taking steps to reduce the availability of modern armaments in southern Kyushu. They urged their teacher to take up arms against the government, certain that they would be joined by like-minded samurai and would prevail against the hated conscript army which was composed, after all, of commoners.
Of all the Shizoku Rebellions of the 1870s, Saigo Takamori’s was by far the largest and, by virtue of Takamori’s own cunning instincts, the most likely to meet with actual success. He had no intention of squatting in southern Kyushu and waiting for the imperial army to squash him like a bug. Instead, in January of 1877 he departed Kagoshima city with thousands of soldiers and marched into Kumamoto Prefecture. Kumamoto possessed its own population of disaffected shizoku samurai and Saigo Takamori put out a general call to arms, encouraging them to join his cause. Samurai from Kumamoto and other prefectures throughout Kyushu rushed to join the legendary general’s banner and Takamori soon found himself in charge of an army twenty thousand strong.
Although a certain film, which will go unnamed, depicts Takamori and his troops wearing traditional samurai armor, riding horses, and fighting with swords and bows, it’s important to remember that the military academy which Takamori ran, from which the heart of this army had been recruited, taught them to fight with rifles and cannons without cumbersome suits of armor which would offer no protection. They wore wool uniforms and were not interested in restoring the Edo Period, so much as they were trying to restore their privileges, salaries, and elevated place in the social order.
The rebel vanguard marched on Kumamoto Castle and laid siege in mid-February. Kumamoto Prefecture was still reeling from the Shinpuren Rebellion which had occurred only four months before. Takamori believed that the garrison of Kumamoto Castle - a mere 3,800 soldiers along with 600 police officers - would be demoralized because of their recent rebellion experience. Had Major General Tani Tateki, the commandant of Kumamoto Castle, attempted to meet Takamori’s rebel army in the field, the imperial forces would have almost certainly lost. However, Tani Tateki was not foolish enough to attempt such a maneuver, and instead ordered his garrison to dig in and prepare to endure a siege. When Takamori’s troops attempted to force an entry on February 19, the imperial garrison opened fire and the siege was officially underway.
A few days later, the main bulk of Saigo Takamori’s army arrived and attempted to assault the castle in a pincer maneuver with the vanguard attacking the far side. The battle that ensued was intense -- bullets flew, large numbers of soldiers on both sides dropped dead, cannon ripped into charging masses of infantry, and both sides took significant losses. The garrison managed to hold the castle in spite of ferocious onslaught by a superior force. This was an unexpected complication, as Takamori and his lieutenants had been expecting Kumamoto to fall and to serve as their own secure staging base during their inevitable face-off with a mobilized imperial army which was already approaching from the north. The rebels backed off into a stagnant siege, hoping to starve the garrison out before the main imperial army arrived.
Though this might seem like a classic misstep, the garrison was actually in pretty bad shape. A warehouse fire just before the siege had destroyed a significant portion of their food and also burned through some of their powder and ammunition. The assaults had worn down their supplies and if they didn’t see some relief soon, there was a real possibility that they would surrender or mutiny.
Another complicating factor was that Saigo Takamori seemed to be winning the battle of public perception. Samurai from Kumamoto Prefecture and indeed, from throughout southern Kyushu, flocked to his banners and pledged allegiance. The rebel army’s numbers ballooned to around forty thousand. From the perspective of the besieged conscripts and police officers, it looked like their enemy’s numbers were growing while they starved.
Regardless of the perspective of the besieged, however, the central Meiji government had not been idle. In early March, imperial forces were approaching Kumamoto from the north and a segment of the rebel army rushed to prevent them from relieving the siege. The imperial army was ninety-thousand strong, however, while the rebel detachment numbered around fifteen thousand. The two forces met on a hill about ten miles north of Kumamoto Castle called “Tabaruzaka” and in the midst of several small-scale skirmishes, battle lines were roughly established.
Heavy rain fell during the first few days of battle, which hindered either side’s ability to engage. While the imperial army carried breach-loading rifles which accepted cartridge rounds, many of the rebels were still using muzzle-loading muskets which had been useful during the Boshin War but were now woefully outdated. Their supply was also already dwindling by this point because of how heavy the fighting over Kumamoto Castle had been. Thus the rebels resorted to surprise charges and heavily utilized their swords and other melee weapons.
On March 15, the rains finally ceased and the imperial troops launched a major assault across the six-and-a-half-mile battle line which effectively pushed the rebels back. Five days later, they were in retreat and attempted to regroup at a place called Ueki, which is seven miles from the castle, but they were soon driven from that position as well.
In the midst of the Battle of Tabaruzaka, the government decided to engage in a classic game of court politics. They arranged for Saigo Takamori and two of his lieutenants to be stripped of their court rank and official titles. This happened shortly after Takamori had sent a letter to the government protesting that he saw the rebellion as a way of getting their attention and that he preferred to settle the matter of samurai privilege and subsequent Korean invasion peacefully. The court stripping his titles was an unmistakable message from the government; there would be no such negotiation.
Now that nothing lay between a ninety-thousand member imperial army and Kumamoto Castle, Takamori called for a general retreat. Unfortunately for the rebels, Kagoshima was no longer an option. On March 8, while the Imperial army was pressing from the north, imperial warships carrying more soldiers and police officers seized control of Kagoshima City to the south, leaving no safe haven for Takamori and his rebel samurai.
The remainder of his force sought shelter in the mountains of southern Kyushu, waiting for the inevitable imperial offensive which would finally wipe them out. They were granted several weeks of reprieve as the imperial army regrouped and resupplied. In late July, the imperial army began a series of maneuvers that pushed Takamori’s army south, then north, then coordinated a pincer attack with several divisions who attacked from the north. What should have been Saigo Takamori’s last stand turned into a surprising stroke of luck, however, as his troops managed to cut through the attempted encirclement and escape.
However, by mid-August his forces had diminished dramatically. It is believed he had around three thousand troops remaining under his command but most of their guns had been destroyed or lost and they possessed no field artillery. They occupied Mount Enodake and were soon once again surrounded by the imperial army. In yet another surprising turn of fortune, Saigo Takamori managed to slip past enemy lines again and escape with about five hundred men. They traveled toward Kagoshima and decided to occupy Shiroyama, a mountain which overlooked Kagoshima City.
General Yamagata Aritomo, the primary leader of the imperial forces, was, by this point, absolutely livid that Takamori continued to escape. He was determined to put an end to this rebellion once and for all. He sent a letter to Saigo Takamori on September first, asking him to lay down arms and surrender. When Takamori refused, General Aritomo ordered his army to build a vast network of ditches and walls across the slope of Shiroyama which would prevent another daring escape by Takamori and his partisans. He proceeded to bombard Shiroyama with artillery fire, causing mass casualties among the defenders and further destroying their morale.
In late September, the ditches had been dug, the walls had been built, and the stage set for a final showdown. On the twenty-third, the remaining rebels were promised that their lives would be spared if they handed over Saigo Takamori, giving them a 5pm deadline to respond. When no such response came, the bombardment commenced, followed by assault from the imperial army.
The fighting was fierce and desperate. Takamori’s rebels had been busy during the three weeks it had taken their enemies to build their traps. They were short on muskets as well as ammunition, so some melted down metal statues which they had brought and made bullets. This ready-made ammunition was exhausted soon after the battle commenced, and a few times the rebels hurled themselves at the conscript army and used their swords.
In spite of their bravery, the rebels on Shiroyama were doomed. Eventually the army closed in and Saigo Takamori himself was wounded in the leg as a bullet lacerated his femoral artery. He committed seppuku in the field, though some sources claim that he died of his wound and was subsequently beheaded by his second to preserve his honor. The remaining samurai charged the imperial lines and were unceremoniously gunned down.
Thus ended the Satsuma Rebellion. Next time, we will discuss the lasting effects of the rebellion, as well as the fates of Saigo Takamori’s fellow Outstanding Heroes of the Meiji Revolution.