Greatest Battles
KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN, 1-24 SEPTEMBER 1877
The rising that began on 15 February 1877 had the gravitas and splendour of the Sengoku Jidai (the bygone Warring States period) that roiled Japan from 1467 to 1600. But the circumstances of 1877 were different as samurai in their thousands, armed to the teeth, swept through northeast Kyushu – Japan’s prominent southern island.
Outwardly, these fighting men of Satsuma Province announced a long trek to the imperial capital Tokyo as a means for pressing their cause. Within weeks, however, the campaign faltered as a botched siege and a wobbly command structure undermined the rebels.
Adding insult to injury, the response from Tokyo was the arrival of army and police regiments in their drab marine-blue uniforms. Leading the imperial forces were aristocratic samurai and courtiers who were determined to uphold the new era: the end of the Tokugawa bakufu and the permanence of Emperor Meiji.
Leading the rebels was Saigo Takamori, once a champion of restoring the emperor but now fully committed to overthrowing the state.
Opposing him was not just the young Emperor Meiji, formerly known as Prince Mutsuhito, but the imperial court, or mikado, that was staffed by the heads of other samurai clans, all firm believers in a modern society that could stand among the world’s industrial powers.
The schism between these two factions was not the samurai heritage in particular but the conduct of foreign policy. The rebelling Shimazus under Saigo wanted violent conquests abroad as a means to raise Japan’s prestige. The imperial court decided otherwise and set the country on a rapid course toward industrialisation and, for the meantime, Japan would not go to war against any state.
SEEDS OF REBELLION
The limited historiography on the Satsuma Rebellion, often tucked into summaries of the Meiji era, focuses on the discontent that gripped the Shimazu samurai clan when the Tokyo government acted on its policies for overhauling Japan’s economic order. With the creation of a financial system patterned after European countries, the feudal organisation of society was dismantled. This meant what had once been clan domains were erased in favour of prefectures, with a governor responsible for the citizens’ welfare. The local daimyo and their samurai retainers were abolished and, as some compensation, were entitled to receive small pensions. Most importantly, for the Meiji court a modern armed force was to be founded that sidelined the prominence of samurai.
The re-organisation of local government was seen as an onerous burden as samurai families in the
