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. 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. In the final battle, the Battle of Shiroyama, 30,000 imperial troops bore down upon Saigo and his few hundreds of surviving rebel samurai. Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Hisamitsu did not acknowledge the departing army when the men stopped to bow at the gates of his castle. Saigo's retirement project was the Shigakko, new private schools for young Satsuma samurai where the students studied infantry, artillery, and the Confucian classics. Saigo Takamori of Japan is known as the Last Samurai, who lived from 1828 to 1877 and is remembered to this day as the epitome of bushido, the samurai code. Saig did insist, however, that Japan should go to war with Korea in the Seikanron debate of 1873 due to Korea's refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Emperor Meiji as head of state of the Empire of Japan, and insulting treatment meted out to Japanese envoys attempting to establish trade and diplomatic relations. 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. The end of the Satsuma Rebellion also marked the end of the samurai era in Japan. They retreated once more to Mount Shiroyama, which stands above the city of Kagoshima, where the rebellion began seven months earlier. The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History; with Maps - Primary Source Edition. 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. 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. These attacks on the ramparts continued for two days, until Saigo decided to settle in for a siege. At age six, Saigo Takamori started at the local gojuor samuraielementary schooland got his first wakizashi, the short sword used by samurai warriors. Publish Date: Oct 08, 2018. Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Saga and other places in Kyushu, not to speak of Satsuma, his birthplace, responded to his call. 25,000 YEN TOSHIMOTO. 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. [2] He wrote poetry under the name Saig Nansh ( ).[3]. What will you do when your traditional way of life is threatened by a powerful force in your native lands? However, Yamagata was determined to leave nothing to chance. ThoughtCo. . The true story that inspired the 2003 Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai, the Satsuma Rebellion (seinan sens, or "Southwestern War" in Japanese) was an 1877 rebellion of disaffected ex-samurai from Satsuma domain against the newly constituted Meiji government of Japan.Led by an erstwhile member of the government's highest circle, the legendary samurai Saigo Takamori, the . Saigo Takamori helped to usher in the modern era in Japan, serving as one of the three most powerful officials in the early Meiji government. The Satsuma samurai were initially organized into six battalions of 2,000 men each. Later, they would have said that he committed seppuku to preserve his status as a true samurai.[7]. The influential Satsuma samurai, Saigo Takamori, was away at the time and had no knowledge of these events, but hurried home when he heard the news. The Guard infantry was divided into 2 regiments of 2 battalions each. History of the Western Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, Commonly Called the Whiskey Insurrection. 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. After centuries of samurai rule, however, many members of the warrior class were understandably reluctant to give up their status and power. He was settling happily into island life but reluctantly had to leave the island in February of 1862 when he was called back to Satsuma. 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. There were many causes of the Indian Rebellion. Officially, the Meiji Emperor's government had authority over those facilities after 1871, but Satsuma officials actually retained control of them. When the attack finally came, the Satsuma forces withdrew, leaving small pockets of samurai to hit the larger army in guerrilla-style strikes. Saigo supported a stronger role for the Emperorbut distrusted the others' millennial rhetoric. Soon, more than 1,000 Satsuma samurai appeared and drove off the intruding sailors. By early 1873, Japanese militarists who interpreted this as a grave affront called for an invasion of Korea but in a July meeting that year, Saigo opposed sending warships to Korea. Legend says that one of his followers, Beppu Shinsuke, acted as kaishakunin and aided Saig in committing seppuku before he could be captured. Call Number: E315 .H64 2006. At its head was Saig Takamori, a hero of the restoration who had directed the military campaign against the Tokugawa. 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. These disaffected samurai came to dominate the Kagoshima government, and fearing a rebellion, the government sent warships to Kagoshima to remove weapons from the Kagoshima arsenal. Szczepanski, Kallie. They resorted to digging up unexploded Satsuma ordinance and refiring it. 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. Each battalion consisted of four companies. In February 1877, the Meiji government dispatched Hayashi Tomoyuki, an official with the Home Ministry with Admiral Kawamura Sumiyoshi in the warship Takao to ascertain the situation. On July 24, the Imperial Army forced Saig out of Miyakonoj, followed by Nobeoka. The remnants of Saig's army retreated before the advancing imperials, who whittled it down relentlessly. In real life, Saig initially led the Imperial forces and won the four-day Battle of Toba-Fushimi in January 1868. 724 Words; 3 Pages; Themes In Keeper N Me. 1868-1912 -- Sources. He did not want to rebel, still feeling deep personal loyalty to the Meiji Emperor, but announced on February 7 that he would go to Tokyo to "question" the central government. On the third day of battle, the artillery division from Tsu domain defected to Saigo's side and began to shell the shogun's army instead. The rebellion lasted from January 29, 1877, until September . Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified. Ten years passed after the Restoration, and during that time order was gradually restored within the country. The rebellion also effectively ended the samurai class, as the new Imperial Japanese Army built on heimin conscripts had proven itself in battle. Paperback, 1 edition, Wiley, February 7, 2005. Themes In Keeper N Me. Rather than risk desertions or defections, Tani decided to stand on the defensive. The shogunate's troops were well-armed, but their leaders had no consistent strategy, and they failed to cover their own flanks. Along with troops from Aizu, Saigo's massive army marched on Choshu, where he negotiated a peaceful settlement rather than launching an attack. 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 Meiji government, with an army numbering 300,000 to 350,000 and was able to cripple the Satsuma rebellion in a matter of months. 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. 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. by HistoryNet Staff 6/12/2006 instance of. This upbringing instilled a sense of dignity, frugality, and honor in young Saigo. The samurai were armed with traditional weapons including katanas, naginata and yari polearms, yumi bows, and Sengoku era gunpowder weapons such as tanegashima, baj-zutsu, and wooden cannons. In 1877, the samurai of the Satsuma Province rose up in the Satsuma Rebellion or Seinan Senso (Southwestern War), challenging the authority of the Restoration Government in Tokyo and testing the new imperial army. The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History ; With Maps. shizoku rebellion. #ga-ad {display: none;} Saig was severely wounded. The Commandant of Kumamoto Castle Major General Tani Tateki had 3,800 soldiers and 600 policemen at his disposal. Founded by a saint named "Birbhan" in 1657 in Narnaul in Haryana. The Daimyo of Satsuma was one of the most powerful and aggressive of the . List Price: $31.95. This rebellion was led by the restoration hero Saig Takamori and lasted six months. The Satsuma rebellion furnishes themes for the illustrators. Publication Date: 2006. Each man was armed with a small firearmeither a rifle, a carbine, or a pistolas well as 100 rounds of ammunition and, of course, his katana. From Kagoshima Through the Siege of Kumamoto Castle", This page was last edited on 11 November 2022, at 04:04. 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. By 1861, Saigo was well-integrated into the local community. Location. The Satsuma Rebellion : Illustrated Japanese History - the Last Stand of the Samurai by Wilson, Sean and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. Despite the overwhelming odds, the Imperial Army did not attack immediately upon arrival on September 8 but instead spent more than two weeks carefully preparing for its final assault. His first signature was Sanesada (). The Battle of Shiroyama ( Shiroyama no tatakai) took place on 24 September 1877, in Kagoshima, Japan. By May, the rebel army was in retreat southward, with the imperial army picking them off up and down Kyushu until September of 1877. It is said that he was shot in the femur, then he thrust a sword into his stomach region, then had his head decapitated deliberately by a fellow citizen. It began to promote samurai officials based on talent, rather than rank, and also encouraged the development of modern industry. Maps - Primary Source Edition samurai. 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