Advertisement Advertisement. In addition, there were 200 artillerymen and 1,200 laborers. Brilliant Essays. Ravina, Mark. Who are Satnamis? Imperial forces fell back, and Acting Major Nogi Maresuke of the Kokura Fourteenth Regiment lost the regimental colors in fierce fighting. During the Boshin War, Saig led the imperial forces at the Battle of TobaFushimi, and after led the imperial army toward Edo, where he accepted the surrender of Edo Castle from Katsu Kaish. ISBN-10: 1142113523. Forty-six other military officers from the southwest resigned as well, and government officials feared that Saigo would lead a coup. Already a popular figure, after his death, Saigo Takamori was lionized by the Japanese people. The government had just dealt with several small but violent samurai revolts in Kysh, and they found the prospect of rebellion by the numerous and fierce Satsuma samurai, led by the famous and popular Saig, an alarming one. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-satsuma-rebellion-195570 (accessed March 1, 2023). The Death of the Last Samurai 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. (2021, September 7). As a peer-reviewed international forum for researchers across the globe, it carries original scholarly contributions on premodern and modern history, literature, art history, religion, and thought; translations of important Japanese literary and historical sources; and authoritative reviews of recent books on Japan. Most of Saig's remaining forces either surrendered or committed seppuku. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had been influential in the Restoration and became home to unemployed samurai after military reforms rendered their status obsolete. The spy leader confessed under torture that he was supposed to assassinate Saigo. This provoked open conflict, although with the elimination of samurai rice stipends in 1877, tensions were already extremely high. He went to the Emperor's court in Kyoto in March and was amazed to meet samurai from other domains who treated him with reverence for his defense of Gessho. Page 1 of 17 - About 161 Essays Improved Essays. Sophia University was established in Tokyo in 1913 by the Society of Jesus. Satire picture of Boshin War, diptych. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. (2021, September 2). When an Imperial Navy landing party reached the arsenal at Somuta under cover of night, locals raised the alarm. Rather than risk desertions or defections, Tani decided to stand on the defensive. In all, about 12,000 Satsuma men marched north toward Tokyo, starting the Southwest War, or Satsuma Rebellion . SAIGO's army campaigned as far as Kumamoto and Miyazaki (both in Kyushu), but then returned to Kagoshima in September, where it holed up in Shiroyama. During the battle of Shiroyama, Saig was badly injured in the hip. Japan. The Satsuma Rebellion (February 1877 - September 1877) and Its Woodblock Prints In riding through the streets one notices the crowds in front of the picture shops, which are bright in color from the war prints. 2 Army, Colt M1861 Navy, and the Russian Model 1857 Six Line muzzleloading rifles that could fire approximately one round per minute. The Last Samurai chronicles the fortuitous rise and tragic fall of Saig. Just about 400 or 500 of the Satsuma samurai escaped the mountain slope on August 19, including Saigo Takamori. Because of the Satsuma Rebellion, the government faced serious financial difficulties. opposition to the Meiji Restoration In Japan: Abolition of feudalism the greatest, revolt came in Satsuma in 1877. Szczepanski, Kallie. Small-scale rebellions broke out around Japan, and the shogun's troops proved shockingly unable to put down the uprisings. The Satsuma Rebellion. One of the most noteworthy incidents in the history of Japan's transition from a feudal regime to a modern state was the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877. Format: Paperback. 28, No. The Satsuma Rebellion. Illustration of the Navy Landing at Sukuchi Village (battle of Tabaruzaka Hill), Kagoshima Shinbun: Illustration of the Battle of Yamagaguchi, March 1877. From humble beginnings in the capital of Satsuma, Saigo followed the path of the samurai through his brief exile and would go on to lead reform in the Meiji government, eventually dying for his causeleaving a lasting impact on the people and culture of 1800s Japan. revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. As none of the eyewitness accounts mention a wound to the abdomen, or any fresh sword wound at all, it is unknown if Saig pierced his stomach with his sword. Armed uprisings erupted successively in the Chugoku Region (western Honshu) and Kyushu, with the protagonists arguing for going through with the conquest of Korea and restoring samurai privileges. However, the Imperial Army was likewise depleted, and fighting was suspended for several weeks to permit reinforcement. Down to about 3,000 men, the Satsuma forces made a stand on Mount Enodake. The imperial governments conscript levies were hard-pressed to defeat Saig, but in the end superior transport, modern communications, and better weapons assured victory for the government. He also married a local woman namedAigana and fathered a son. Fighting continued into the night. The coming into force in January, 1877, of the edict, issued in the previous year, prohibiting the wearing of swords, was followed by Shimadzu's resignation of the high office he held in the Ministry. His letter indicated that he was not committed to rebellion and sought a peaceful settlement. He suffered from angina and also filariasis, a parasitic infection that gave him a grotesquely enlarged scrotum. In Kagoshima prefecture (formerly Satsuma domain), the samurai of the 'private-school faction' (referring to graduates of the private school set up by SAIGO Takamori and his disciples), organized by KIRINO Toshiaki, et al., joined forces with the Prefectural Governor OYAMA Tsunayoshi to advance their own policies. 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. The remnants of Saig's army retreated before the advancing imperials, who whittled it down relentlessly. 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. In real life, Saig initially led the Imperial forces and won the four-day Battle of Toba-Fushimi in January 1868. The Satsuma Rebellion was the last civil war in Japan, occurring in the tenth year of the Meiji era (1877), when the Satsuma rebel forces centering on Saig Takamori of Kagoshima collided with the regular army of the new Meiji government not long after it had formed. ThoughtCo, Sep. 7, 2021, thoughtco.com/the-satsuma-rebellion-195570. Modern weapons were also used such as the Smith & Wesson Model No. 0 references. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Saigo's retirement project was the Shigakko, new private schools for young Satsuma samurai where the students studied infantry, artillery, and the Confucian classics. 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 . After months of fighting the Satsuma forces had dwindled to approx 400 . The government, however, refused to negotiate. The Satsuma Rebellion, also known as the Seinan War (Japanese: , Hepburn: Seinan Sens, lit. ThoughtCo. Superior Essays. 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. The new conscript levies initially struggled to defeat Saig, and the government found it necessary to enlist former. 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. traffic source, etc. Complete Chronicle of the Subjugation of Kagoshima: Illustration of Government Forces Attacking Miyazaki, Illustration of the Rebels Being Suppressed at Kagoshima, October 4, 1877. Secretary of the British Legation in Tokyo during the rebellion, Mounsey relied on the 'most authentic sources, oral and documentary'. However, most of the garrison was from Kysh, while a significant number of officers were natives of Kagoshima; their loyalties were open to question. They were armed with breech-loading Snider rifles and could fire approximately six rounds per minute. shizoku rebellion. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions By May, the rebel army was in retreat southward, with the imperial army picking them off up and down Kyushu until September of 1877. Saig Takamori was labelled as a tragic hero by the people, and his actions were considered an honorable example of bushido and Yamato-damashii. By this time much uneasiness prevailed. Satsuma Rebellion: Satsuma Clan Samurai Against the Imperial Japanese Army In 1877, the samurai of Satsuma province and their reluctant leader, Takamori Saigo, hurled a final challenge at Japan's westernizing government. To understand the dynamism of the Meiji years, one must begin with the factors in the Tokugawa era (1600-1868) that made Japan a unique and sophisticated nation. Paperback, 1 edition, Wiley, February 7, 2005. Battle of Tabaruzaka: Imperial troops on the left, rebel samurai troops on the right, Saigo's army clashes with the government's forces. Three years later, he began work in the local bureaucracy as an agricultural adviser, where he continued to work through his brief, childless arranged marriage to 23-year-old Ijuin Suga in 1852. By May, Saigo's army had surrounded Edo and threatened to attack, forcing the shogun's government to surrender. Japanese samurai (18281877) who led the Satsuma Rebellion. Saig was defeated and killed at the . Although Nakahara later repudiated the confession, it was widely believed in Satsuma and was used as justification by the disaffected samurai that a rebellion was necessary in order to "protect Saig". The Satsuma Rebellion, also known as the Seinan War was a revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. 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. On January 30, 1877, the central government launched a raid on the arms and ammunition storage areas in Kagoshima, without any prior warning to the Satsuma authorities. He hoped to raise the samurai of other domains along the way. [citation needed], In English, the most common name for the war is the "Satsuma Rebellion". He was born on May 26 th in the fourth year of Keian (, 1651). 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. A battalion was 672 men strong and was organized as per the line battalions. [3], Saig Takamori, one of the senior Satsuma leaders in the Meiji government who had initially supported the reforms, was especially concerned about growing political corruption - popular prints depicted the rebel army with banners bearing the words shinsei-ktoku (, new government, high morality). The Japanese people appreciated the fact that he remained loyal to his virtues until his death in 1877. Support for Saig was so strong that Satsuma had effectively seceded from the central government by the end of 1876. The Apocryphal Suicide of Saig Takamori: Samurai, Seppuku, and the Politics of Legend. Journal of Asian Studies 69.3 (2010): 691-721. By August 17, the Satsuma army had been reduced to 3000 combatants, and had lost most of its modern firearms and all of its artillery. It signaled the beginning of the Japanese Imperial Army's rise to domination in eastern Asia, which would end only with Japan's eventual defeat in World War II almost seven decades later. This includes data values and the controlled vocabularies that house them. This was witnessed by the American sea captain John Capen Hubbard. Updates? Saigo Takamori likely was killed in the initial barrage, although tradition holds that he was just gravely injured and committed seppuku. By 6 a.m., only 40 rebels were still alive. He was the third son of Nakamura Kiyosada (). 0 Reviews. Not long after the wedding, both of Saigo's parents died, leaving Saigo as the head of a family of twelve with little income to support them. Fearing a rebellion, the Meiji government sent a warship to Kagoshima to remove the weapons stockpiled at the Kagoshima arsenal on January 30, 1877. #ga-ad {display: none;} In August 1786, tensions culminated in what is now known as Shays' Rebellion, an uprising in Massachusetts that lasted until the summer of 1787. 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. His father, Saigo Kichibei, was a low-ranking samurai tax official who only managed to scrape by despite his samurai status. [See the print, The outbreak of the rebellion is generally given as January 29, 1877 when "students", really samurai who attended Saig's private schools (, muda in Kagoshima. Saigo and his army made a seven-day march south to Hitoyoshi, where they dug trenches and prepared for the imperial army to attack. It did not bother him, thoughhe welcomed the opportunity to die for his principles. The division of feeling which existed in several of the clans following the Meiji Restoration was most conspicuous in Satsuma, Choshiu and Mito. Primary Sources 1. The first thing about which historians often comment is the period's stability. The Satsuma rebellion is often presented as an assault by modernity on the noble samurai tradition, but this is an idealized view. In April 1877, Saig reorganized the army into nine infantry units of 350 to 800 men each. Great Essays. At the height of the battle, Saig wrote a private letter to Prince Arisugawa, restating his reasons for going to Tokyo. Saig also started an artillery school. . On February 19, the first shots of the war were fired as the defenders of Kumamoto castle opened fire on Satsuma units attempting to force their way into the castle. 7. In the autumn of 1875 it was already in a flourishing condition, and in the course of the following year there were in Kagoshima alone some seven thousand pupils, or associates. The myth stems from the fact that the legions used a phalanx system with spears as primary system before the manipel system was introduced and the Gladius became thr primary weapon for most of the empire. The Linked Data Service provides access to commonly found standards and vocabularies promulgated by the Library of Congress. Conscription System in Japan Author : Ogawa, Gataro Year- 1921 Type- book "The Satsuma Rebellion led Japan to turn over a new leaf. This upbringing instilled a sense of dignity, frugality, and honor in young Saigo. He excelled more as a scholar than a warrior, reading extensively before he graduated from school at 14 and was formally introduced to the Satsuma in 1841. The Satsuma samurai fought on with fierce determination; meanwhile, the defenders ran out of artillery shells. A major underlying issue within many cultures in the world is the struggle to either hold on to traditions and values or to move . 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. Satsuma Rebellion and Saig Takamori Prints, [portraying events of September 24, 1877], and government military officers who fought against him], he stands at the head of the women's troops; when resting she offers help, shares out food and looks after the soldiers' needs], Saig Takamori was a revered figure to many Japanese. Physically he was imposing, standing six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. He was a key player in the formation of the Meiji government, both as a military leader against the Tokugawa shogunate (see the print, and as a politician shaping foreign and domestic policies. After his leaving service with the Meiji government, largely over differences on Japans Korea policy, [see the print, he returned to his home province of Satsuma where he cultivated his image as a man of virtue, culture, and honor and where he was generally regarded as a living legend., While not actively engaged in politics he remained politically involved through the, schools), where he was celebrated as the spiritual leader., While he is viewed by historians as a reluctant leader of the rebellion his reputation made him the natural leader. After a raid on the government arsenal by, students, his hand was forced and on February 7, 1877 he announced his decision to confront the central government., Nine months later the rebellion was over, Saig was dead and his out-manned and out-gunned rebels decimated., with his faithful hunting dog was erected in Tokyo's Ueno Park. The Last Samurai's Katsumoto Moritsugu is based on the iconic Japanese samurai Saig Takamori. Though in Satsuma the rivalry of individual leaders had stopped short of open hostilities, the division of feeling was not less marked. Mark Ravina, the author of The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, argued that "Satsuma Rebellion" is not the best name for the war because the English name does not well represent the war and its Japanese name. Imperial reinforcements eventually forced their way through the rebel lines at the Battle of Tabaruzaka, lifting the siege. Then I introduced the leader of the rebellion. Soon, Saigo was Daimyo Shimazu Nariakira's closest adviser, consulting other national figures on affairs including the shogunal succession. Surely no conscript army of peasants could fight like the samurai! The rebellion also effectively ended the samurai class, as the new Imperial Japanese Army built on heimin conscripts had proven itself in battle. [2] He had six siblings and his younger brother was Marshal-Admiral Marquis Saig Jd. The very rapid and massive changes to Japanese culture, language, dress and society appeared to many samurai to be a betrayal of the ji ("expel the barbarian") portion of the sonn ji justification used to overthrow the former Tokugawa shogunate. They had, they considered, paid the piper, and they wished to call the tune. [9] On 22 February 1889, Emperor Meiji pardoned Saig posthumously. After Oyama departed, a flotilla of small ships filled with armed men attempted to board Takao by force, but were repelled. The Imperial Guard (mostly ex-samurai) was always maintained at wartime strength. He was succeeded by his 15-year-old son, Mutsuhito, who would later become known as the Meiji Emperor. Ravina, Mark. Each entry is based on a primary source we analysed ; We used a website to compile the entries because it's easier to navigate with; HERE is the link to the primary documents/analysis In the about page there will be a video on the Satsuma Rebellion and a brief paragraph describing what was going on in the rebellion Then we have Luke's entry. Although the samurai were heavily outnumbered, they made a heroic stand and counterattack against the Japanese Army and showed their legendary skills off to the world in their final fight. [4], Word of Saig's academies was greeted with considerable concern in Tokyo. Vol. At the start of the Satsuma Rebellion, the Imperial Japanese Army (including the Imperial Guard) numbered approximately 34,000 men. Made by Takamura Kun, it was unveiled on December 18, 1898. Roughly one-half of the work is devoted to the entire course of the rebellion. After Saigo's death, Beppu and the last of the "ex-samurai" drew their swords and plunged downhill toward the Imperial positions and to their deaths. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had been influential in the Restoration and became home to unemployed samurai after military reforms rendered their status obsolete. Later, they would have said that he committed seppuku to preserve his status as a true samurai.[7]. Satsuma Rebellion. Datasets available include LCSH, BIBFRAME, LC Name Authorities, LC Classification, MARC codes, PREMIS vocabularies, ISO language codes, and more. It threatened an all-out attack on Choshu, even though it did not have the military might to defeat that large domain. In this rebellion, Saigo Takamori, one of the veteran statesmen of the Restoration, who enjoyed a wide popularity and was well versed in military tactics, acted as the head of the insurrection. The Shigakko students heard that the Meiji ship was coming and emptied the arsenal before it arrived. Sources of the Meiji Restoration. Several samurai, upon seeing him in this state, would have severed his head, assisting him in the warrior's suicide that they knew he would have wished. yucatan express ferry 2021, muffley funeral home clovis, nm obituaries, mike donahue portland, oregon, Appreciated the fact that he was the third son of Nakamura Kiyosada ( satsuma rebellion primary sources the Japanese people appreciated the that! Struggle to either hold on to traditions and values or to move by Takamura Kun, was... Dwindled to approx 400 samurai chronicles the fortuitous rise and tragic fall of Saig into nine infantry units of to... 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