Illustration of the Navy Landing at Sukuchi Village (battle of Tabaruzaka Hill), Kagoshima Shinbun: Illustration of the Battle of Yamagaguchi, March 1877. Even before the Restoration the contentions of rival parties had led in Choshiu to grave disorders, which had weakened that clan in its conflict with the Tokugawa Government; while in Mito the struggle of opposing factions, supporting, respectively, the Shogunate, and the Court party represented by the old Prince of Mito, had resulted in prolonged and fierce fighting. However, he soon learned that 50 Tokyo police officers who were Satsuma natives had returned home with instructions to assassinate him in the case of an uprising. The Satsuma Rebellion which took place in 1877was the most famous, and the final major instance out of a series of shizoku rebellionsled in the late 1870s by former samuraiof southwestern Japan against the prospect of the Meiji governmentabolishing their elite status and the rice stipends which had traditionally been the samurai's chief or sole 0 references. Friction among the Cabinet members over the question of Korean conquest, added to the local disturbances, made the already confused state of things worse confounded, and the result was the famous Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Multiple legends sprang up concerning Saig, many of which denied his death. Saigo's nearly bloodless victory won him national fame, eventually leading to his appointment as an elder of Satsuma in September of 1866. The imperial government in Tokyo expected Saigo to come to the capital by sea or to dig in and defend Satsuma. ISBN-10: 1437338992. Ever since his retirement from office, and his withdrawal to his native province in 1873, the elder Saigo had remained in Kagoshima, the chief town of Satsuma. The surviving rebels made a stand on the slopes of Mount Enodake, and were soon surrounded. After two days of fruitless attack, the Satsuma forces dug into the rock-hard icy ground around the castle and tried to starve the garrison out in a siege. The second crisis, the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, was even . By HORACE WALLER, FRGS, Rector of Twywell, Northampton. Originally, they were a militant sect of Hindu Worshippers. However, Yamagata was determined to leave nothing to chance. List Price: $31.95. The Commandant of Kumamoto Castle Major General Tani Tateki had 3,800 soldiers and 600 policemen at his disposal. Shortly thereafter, a private military academy known as the Shi-gakk was established in Kagoshima for the faithful samurai who had also resigned their posts to follow him from Tokyo. 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. Satsuma Rebellion. Although kubo Toshimichi and others were more active and influential in establishing the new Meiji government, Saig retained a key role, and his cooperation was essential in the abolition of the han system and the establishment of a conscript army. All three accounts report that the body was decapitated. Economic effects of the Satsuma Rebellion resulted in the passing of the Act of February 4, 1877, which reduced the land tax from 3% to 2.5%. Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified. History of the Western Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, Commonly Called the Whiskey Insurrection. The Satsuma advance guard, 4,000 strong, set out on February 15, marching north. Szczepanski, Kallie. The main Imperial Army, under General Kuroda Kiyotaka with the assistance of General Yamakawa Hiroshi arrived in Kumamoto on April 12, putting the now heavily outnumbered Satsuma forces to flight. List Price: $32.75. The Satsuma vanguard crossed into Kumamoto Prefecture on February 14. 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. image. Troops were landed at ita and Saiki north of Saig's army, and Saig was caught in a pincer attack. It began to promote samurai officials based on talent, rather than rank, and also encouraged the development of modern industry. The five government warships in Kagoshima harbor added their firepower to Yamagata's artillery, and began to systematically reduce the rebel positions. The first prints portraying the rebellion did not appear until early March, likely due to government restrictions on coverage "prohibiting the 'publication in newspapers of material about the Army for Subjugation of the Kumamoto Rebels. Request Permissions. Saigo Takamori likely was killed in the initial barrage, although tradition holds that he was just gravely injured and committed seppuku. [6] The costs of pacifying the former samurai led to the Meiji government becoming virtually bankrupt; the government was forced to sell off state-owned enterprises such as factories and mines to politically-connected merchants and former officials at low prices, leading to the instant formation of large industrial firms or zaibatsu. 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. Just four days after his return, he had an audience with the daimyo, Hisamitsu, who shocked him by appointing him commander of the Satsuma army in Kyoto. Despite Yamagata's efforts over the next several days, Saig and his remaining 500 men reached Kagoshima on September 1 and seized Shiroyama, overlooking the city. As a result, Takamori and his siblings all shared a single blanket at night even though they were large people, sturdy with a few standing over six feet tall. 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. The Korean government even went as far as having a prefect publicly state that by adopting western-style customs and clothing, Japan had become a barbarian nation. In the hostilities which followed he took no part, being content to show his disapproval of the new regime by withdrawing into a retirement from which he never again emerged. 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. This upbringing instilled a sense of dignity, frugality, and honor in young Saigo. Presented with this sudden success, the greatly dismayed Saig was reluctantly persuaded to come out of his semi-retirement to lead the rebellion against the central government. On February 22, the main Satsuma army arrived and attacked Kumamoto castle in a pincer movement. Publish Date: Oct 08, 2018. Decent Essays. Eventually Saig and his final remaining samurai were encircled and annihilated at the Battle of Shiroyama. Pro-emperor daimyo and radicals called for an end to the shogunate and the expulsion of all foreigners. Saig was severely wounded. The formal ceremony took place on April 4, 1868, and the former shogun was even allowed to keep his head! On December 25, 1866, the 35-year-old Emperor Komei suddenly died. Not being allowed to travel by sea, he went back to Satsuma by land, following the historic route he and other nobles had so often taken before. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Ravina, Mark. ISBN-10: 1142113523. Surely no conscript army of peasants could fight like the samurai! Publication Date: 2006. His father, Saigo Kichibei, was a low-ranking samurai tax official who only managed to scrape by despite his samurai status. Their artillery consisted of 28 5-pounders, two 16-pounders, and 30 mortars. [2] He wrote poetry under the name Saig Nansh ( ).[3]. Sources describe him as dressed in an austere yellow kimono . . the authority of the Mikado's government, and form the nucleus of a permanent force, which was now seen . The Satsuma Rebellion, also known as the Seinan War ( Japanese: , Hepburn: Seinan Sens, lit. [6] In debate, some scholars have suggested that neither is the case and that Saig may have gone into shock following his wound, losing his ability to speak. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 signaled the beginning of the end for Japan's samurai warriors. Saig was initially confident of his ability to take Kumamoto Castle, but he had underestimated the effectiveness of the imperial conscripts defending the castle. Saigo supported a stronger role for the Emperorbut distrusted the others' millennial rhetoric. On September 24, 1877, at 3:45 am, the Emperor's army launched its final assault in what is known as the Battle of Shiroyama. Following the repression of the Satsuma Rebellion, a samurai uprising in 1877, Japan again forged ahead toward political unity, but there was an increasing trend of antigovernment protest from below, which was epitomized by the Movement for Peoples Rights. His first signature was Sanesada (). The Last Samurai's Katsumoto Moritsugu is based on the iconic Japanese samurai Saig Takamori. Japan Currency Museum. 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 . During 1867, Saigo and officials from Choshu and Tosa made plans to bring down the Tokugawa bakufu. to undertake publication of Monumenta Nipponica despite these problems symbolized the founders' commitment to 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 Rebellion reduced Japan's yearly expenditure from 13,700,000 to 10,250,000, and it raised Japan's national debt from 28,000,000 to 70,000,000. Page 1 of 17 - About 161 Essays Improved Essays. On March 4, Imperial Army General Yamagata ordered a frontal assault against Tabaruzaka, guarding the approaches to Kumamoto, which developed into an eight-day-long battle. The Wealthy Chiefs Inspecting the Decapitated Heads of Enemies, Presentation of the Emperor's Gift Cup for the second time to commanders involved in pacifying Western Japan (Saigoku), 1877, Report: The Whole Nation Living in Perfect Contentment (Empress, Empress Dowager and Court Ladies in Waiting Sewing Pledgets), 1877, Iwai Hanshir VIII, Ichikawa Danjr IX and Ichikawa Sadanji in The Morning East Wind Clearing the Clouds of the Southwest, March 1878, Bronze Statue of Saig in Ueno Park, 1899, The Debate Over Invading Korea (Seikanron), http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090913a6.html, http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/bunko10/b10_8333/index.html. What will you do when your traditional way of life is threatened by a powerful force in your native lands? This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. Satsuma rebeliion.svg 703 965; 1.09 MB. Ten years passed after the Restoration, and during that time order was gradually restored within the country. Many rules and regulations changed, from the number of soldiers to the type of weapons used.laws were changed to prevent any further uprisings against the Japanese government." 2. Datasets available include LCSH, BIBFRAME, LC Name Authorities, LC Classification, MARC codes, PREMIS vocabularies, ISO language codes, and more. In December 1876, the Meiji government sent a police officer named Nakahara Hisao and 57 other men to investigate reports of subversive activities and unrest. Ravina prefers the English name "War of the Southwest."[12]. Improved Essays into Kumamoto Prefecture on February 22, the 35-year-old Emperor Komei died. The surviving rebels made a stand on the slopes of Mount Enodake, and the expulsion of all foreigners fight! 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