"How the Samurai Ended During the Satsuma Rebellion." The Shigakko students heard that the Meiji ship was coming and emptied the arsenal before it arrived. In addition to the army, the central government also used marines and Tokyo policemen in its struggle against Satsuma. Rejecting large numbers of volunteers, he made no attempt to contact any of the other domains for support, and no troops were left at Kagoshima to secure his base against an attack. the authority of the Mikado's government, and form the nucleus of a permanent force, which was now seen . "The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori." They were followed two days later by the rear guard and artillery unit, who left in the midst of a freak snowstorm. "Southwestern War") was a revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. Here he had established an institution which, in order to disguise its object, was called a "private school." Many of the warrior Samurai during the Seinan war (Satsuma rebellion) used the tosei (modern / post 1540) style samurai armor which consisted of a ni-mai . First I developed my thesis statement. In disgust, Saigo resigned as the army general, imperial councilor, and commander of the imperial guards the next day. Satsuma Rebellion Part of the ShizokuRebellions Map of the campaign Belligerents Empire of Japan Satsuma Domain Commanders and leaders Emperor Meiji Prince Arisugawa Yamagata Aritomo Kuroda Kiyotaka Tani Tateki Saig Takamori Kirino Toshiaki Beppu Shinsuke Strength 227,000 10 warships 25,000-35,000 Casualties and losses staff and only a handful of students, the university confronted many difficulties in its early years. Imperial forces landed with few losses, then pushed north seizing the city of Miyanohara on March 19. List Price: $31.95. Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Meiji Restoration leader's lessons of sincerity", Names, Romanizations, and Spelling (page 1 of 2), On Saig and the establishment of a railway, "The Apocryphal Suicide of Saig Takamori: Samurai, "Seppuku", and the Politics of Legend", Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saig_Takamori&oldid=1130843774, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles lacking in-text citations from January 2018, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Saig Kichijir (younger brother): Killed in action in the, Saig Kohei (younger brother): Killed in action in the, This page was last edited on 1 January 2023, at 07:05. Saigo privately cheered on the rebels in other provinces, but stayed at his country house rather than returning to Kagoshima for fear that his presence might spark yet another rebellion. OutOfFighters 3 yr. ago. In October, the prime minister announced that Saigo would not be allowed to travel to Korea as an emissary. In order to cut Saig off from his base, an imperial force with three warships, 500 policemen, and several companies of infantry landed in Kagoshima on March 8, seized arsenals, and took Satsuma's governor into custody. Shiba was in the Imperial Army at the time. News article in Le Monde Illustr, 1877. date= January 29, 1877 to September 24, 1877 place= Kysh, Japan result=Imperial Victory combatant1= Empire of Japan combatant2=Satsuma domain The Last Samurai chronicles the fortuitous rise and tragic fall of Saig. Saigo Takamori was born on January 23, 1828, in Kagoshima, Satsuma's capital, the oldest of seven children. The Satsuma Rebellion. English Wikipedia. The shogunate's troops were well-armed, but their leaders had no consistent strategy, and they failed to cover their own flanks. They resisted the Imperial forces until they were destroyed to the last man. As the siege wore on, the rebels ran low on munitions, prompting them to switch back to their swords. Modern weapons were also used such as the Smith & Wesson Model No. Shortly thereafter, Saigo was promoted to the post of daimyo's attendant in 1854 and accompanied his lord to Edo on alternate attendance, taking a 900-mile-long walk to the shogun's capital, where the young man would work as his lord's gardener, unofficial spy, and confident. However, a government garrison at Kumamoto Castle stood in the Satsuma rebels' path, manned by about 3,800 soldiers and 600 police under Major General Tani Tateki. A reproduction of the same statue stands on Okinoerabujima, where Saig had been exiled. Each side had suffered more than 4,000 killed or wounded. Most of Saig's remaining forces either surrendered or committed seppuku. Bibliolife DBA of Bibilio Bazaar II LLC, 2014 - 358 pages. It turned out the be the latterthe emperor's government in Tokyo wanted a new, centralized system, not just a collection of more efficient, self-governing domains. Corrections? After centuries of samurai rule, however, many members of the warrior class were understandably reluctant to give up their status and power. As was the tradition for samurai in the event of their lord's death, Saigo contemplated committing to accompany Shimazu into death, but the monk Gessho convinced him to live and continue his political work to honor Nariakira's memory instead. As commander of Satsuma's troops, Saigo led an 1864 punitive expedition against the Choshu domain, whose army in Kyoto had opened fire on the Emperor's residence. Read 7 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Saigo's troops marched out confidently, sure that samurai in other provinces would rally to their side, but they faced an imperial army of 45,000 with access to unlimited supplies of ammunition. A battalion was 672 men strong and was organized as per the line battalions. Names, Romanizations, and Spelling (page 2 of 2), Satsuma Rebellion: Satsuma Clan Samurai Against the Imperial Japanese Army, Organization of Imperial and Satsuma Forces, Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office, Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, German preWorld War II industrial co-operation, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Satsuma_Rebellion&oldid=1121217754, Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Buck, James H. "The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Saigo spent a lot of time soaking in hot springs and strenuously avoiding politics. He led his samurai straight up the middle of Kyushu, planning to cross the straits and march on Tokyo. Meanwhile, the Joseon Dynasty in Korea refused to recognize the Mutsuhito as an emperor, because it traditionally recognized only the Chinese emperor as suchall other rulers were mere kings. There, the situation was complicated by the existence of no less than three parties two conservative groups led, respectively, by the old noble Shimadzu, the father of the young ex-daimio, and by the elder Saigo, the latter being at once the most influential and most numerous; and a thirdthe party of reformwhich looked for guidance, among other prominent men, to Okubo, Kuroda, Matsugata, Kawamura and the younger Saigo. The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty by William Hogeland. The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History ; with Maps. . Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-satsuma-rebellion-195570. Multiple legends sprang up concerning Saig, many of which denied his death. This opposition reached the boiling point in 1876 when the central government banned samurai from carrying swords and stopped paying them stipends. In the meantime, on March 9 Saig, Kirino, and Shinohara were stripped of their court ranks and titles.[3]. The Satsuma advance guard, 4,000 strong, set out on February 15, marching north. [10] Statues in Ueno Park, Tokyo and near the ruins of Kagoshima Castle stand in his memory. Later woodcut prints depicted the rebel leader kneeling to commit traditional seppuku, but that would not have been possible given his filariasis and shattered leg. The rebellion of the Satsuma samurai involved about 12000 men, almost all of which were of that class and hence would have proper swords.Wikipedia states that there were about 1200 labourers. The survivors were out of ammunition, so had to rely on their swords. At one point, he offered to visit Korea in person and to provoke a casus belli by behaving in such an insulting manner that the Koreans would be forced to kill him. 0 references. "Saigo Takamori: The Last Samurai." When the plan was rejected, Saig resigned from all of his government positions in protest and returned to his hometown of Kagoshima, as did many other Satsuma ex-samurai in the military and police forces. Gordon, Andrew. [citation needed], In English, the most common name for the war is the "Satsuma Rebellion". She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. The samurai didn't hesitate to answer this questio. Decent Essays. Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Hisamitsu did not acknowledge the departing army when the men stopped to bow at the gates of his castle. Attempts at Constitutional Government > Satsuma Rebellion. All, perhaps, over-estimated their share in the accomplishment of the Restoration. They retreated once more to Mount Shiroyama, which stands above the city of Kagoshima, where the rebellion began seven months earlier. Szczepanski, Kallie. When the offensive was resumed, Saigo retreated to Miyazaki, leaving behind numerous pockets of samurai in the hills to conduct guerilla attacks. Initial Steps toward a Constitutional State, Preview of [Report of the Artillery Attack Against (Saigo Forces) in Shiroyama], Larger image of [Report of the Artillery Attack Against (Saigo Forces) in Shiroyama], Next ( Petition by Risshisha to Establish a National Assembly ), Chapter1 Initial Steps toward a Constitutional State, a. Conceptions of the Form of Government circa the Meiji Restoration, Chapter4 Crisis in Constitutional Politics. But in Satsuma the division of feeling remained unaltered, a circumstance which, added to separatist tendencies that stood in the way of combined action, was, in the sequel, of much benefit to the Government. On December 25, 1866, the 35-year-old Emperor Komei suddenly died. During the conflict, the government side expended on average 322,000 rounds of ammunition and 1,000 artillery shells per day. Details; Description; Tabaruzaka was one of the most intense campaigns of the war. [2] He wrote poetry under the name Saig Nansh ( ).[3]. He famously opposed the construction of a railway network, insisting that money should rather be spent on military modernization.[4]. The cavalry regiment consisted of 150 men. The Daimyo of Satsuma was one of the most powerful and aggressive of the . What will you do when your traditional way of life is threatened by a powerful force in your native lands? The spy leader confessed under torture that he was supposed to assassinate Saigo. Takamori Saigo, defeated in his insistent advocacy of the invasion of Korea, resigned his councillorship in the Cabinet and returned to his native place. The imperial government in Tokyo expected Saigo to come to the capital by sea or to dig in and defend Satsuma. During the siege, many Kumamoto ex-samurai flocked to Saig's banner, swelling his forces to around 20,000 men. shizoku rebellion. The situation was especially desperate for the defenders as their stores of food and ammunition had been depleted by a warehouse fire shortly before the rebellion began. In Satsuma and the rest of Japan, though, it was not clear whether reforms like these were sufficient, or if the entire social and political systems were due for a revolutionary change. This provoked open conflict, although with the elimination of samurai rice stipends in 1877, tensions were already extremely high. Dr. Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. Ravina, Mark J. ISBN-10: 1437338992. The Apocryphal Suicide of Saig Takamori: Samurai, Seppuku, and the Politics of Legend. Journal of Asian Studies 69.3 (2010): 691-721. Roused from his seclusion, Saigo felt that this treachery and wickedness in the imperial government required a response. On its march to Kumamoto castle, the army was divided into three divisions; a vanguard of 4,000 men, the main division of 4,000 men, and a rearguard of 2,000 men. After Saig rejected a letter dated September 1 from Yamagata drafted by a young Suematsu Kench asking him to surrender, Yamagata ordered a full frontal assault on September 24, 1877. ThoughtCo. He also married a local woman namedAigana and fathered a son. Format: Paperback. Author: Augustus Henry Mounsey. His intransigence was one of the major causes of the subsequent Boshin War. Great Essays. Maebara Ikkaku, from Bumbu komei den (Story of famous figures for military and literary) 20,000 YEN TOSHIMOTO. From Kagoshima Through the Siege of Kumamoto Castle." On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Tensions with the government mounted after members of the private-school faction raided an ammunitions depot in early 1877 (Meiji 10), and secret agents were dispatched by the government to Kagoshima to spy on them. The schools resembled paramilitary political organizations more than anything else, and they enjoyed the support of the governor of Satsuma, who appointed disaffected samurai to political offices, where they came to dominate the Kagoshima government. 7. This upbringing instilled a sense of dignity, frugality, and honor in young Saigo. The decision in 1938 There were two "regiments" of line cavalry and one "regiment" of imperial guard cavalry. Takamori's parents also had to borrow money to buy farmland in order to have enough food for the growing family. 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