The samurai then attacked imperial facilities around the province, seizing weapons and parading them through the streets of Kagoshima. However, the imperial government gradually sent more than 45,000 reinforcements to relieve Kumamoto, finally driving the Satsuma army away with heavy casualties. Bonded by their distaste for the shogunate, Choshu and Satsuma gradually formed an alliance. Saig initially disagreed with the modernization of Japan and the opening of commerce with the West. 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Contemporary illustrations show the cavalry armed with lances. 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. Although greatly dismayed by the revolt, Saig was reluctantly persuaded to lead the rebels against the central government. The Satsuma advance guard, 4,000 strong, set out on February 15, marching north. With Portrait, Maps, and. In disgust at this latest move of a Government with which he had never from the first been in sympathy, he left Tokio. ThoughtCo. The survivors were out of ammunition, so had to rely on their swords. By clicking Accept All Cookies, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. 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. ISBN-13: 9781437338997. The work is generally accurate and has much of . [1], Saig Kokichi ( ) was born in Kajiya, Kagoshima, Satsuma Domain, the eldest son of samurai squire (koshkumi) Saig Kichib and his wife Masa. They were followed two days later by the rear guard and artillery unit, who left in the midst of a freak snowstorm. The head was somehow retrieved by government forces and was reunited with Saig's body, which was laid next to that of his deputies Kirino and Murata. The Imperial Guard (mostly ex-samurai) was always maintained at wartime strength. Early on February 22, the Satsuma attack began. Samurai scaled the walls repeatedly, only to be cut down by small arms fire. There are no published reports by eyewitnesses. Roughly one-half of the work is devoted to the entire course of the rebellion. traffic source, etc. 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. However, Yamagata was determined to leave nothing to chance. 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. With an army in place, the Meiji government summoned the remaining daimyo to Tokyo in mid-July, 1871 and abruptly announced that the domains were dissolved and the lords' authorities abolished. Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Hisamitsu did not acknowledge the departing army when the men stopped to bow at the gates of his castle. Read 7 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Paperback, 1 edition, Wiley, February 7, 2005. After the Restoration the condition of things became less unsettled in Mito, and to some extent also in Choshiu. Saig expected both that a war would ultimately be successful for Japan and also that the initial stages of it would offer a means by which the samurai whose cause he championed could find meaningful and beneficial death. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. He led his samurai straight up the middle of Kyushu, planning to cross the straits and march on Tokyo. The men were captured, and under torture, confessed that they were spies who had been sent to assassinate Saig. The Battle of Shiroyama ( Shiroyama no tatakai) took place on 24 September 1877, in Kagoshima, Japan. 1868-1912 -- Sources. 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. 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 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. Saigo was getting accustomed to the second island when he was transferred to a desolate penal island further south, where he spent more than a year on that dreary rock, returning to Satsuma only in February of 1864. Though in Satsuma the rivalry of individual leaders had stopped short of open hostilities, the division of feeling was not less marked. During war a company's strength was to be increased to 240 privates. '", The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints, Gorykaku (surrender of the Ezo rebels to Saig, The Rebellion Begins, Issue 1 from the Osaka newspaper Kagoshima-ken ari no sonomama, March 5, 1877, The Huge Win of the Armed Forces, Issue 4 from the Osaka newspaper Kagoshima-ken ari no sonomama, March 5, 1877, The Debate Over Invading Korea (Seikanron), May 15, 1877, The Arraignment of Oyama Tsunayoshi, August 27, 1877, Illustration of the Rebels Being Suppressed at Kagoshima, October 1877, Report on the Actual Condition at the Battlefield, September 21, 1877. This includes data values and the controlled vocabularies that house them. Although Satsuma had been one of the key players in the Meiji Restoration and the Boshin War, and although many men from Satsuma had risen to influential positions in the new Meiji government, there was growing dissatisfaction with the direction the country was taking. Imperial forces emerged victorious, but with heavy casualties on both sides. The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History ; With Maps. 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 Although the Satsuma Rebellion far exceeded the next largest disturbance, the 1874 Saga Rebellion of 2, 500 samurai, it followed a general pattern of samurai protest. The Satsuma Rebellion (also known as "seinan sens" - the Southwestern War) was a turning point in Japanese history. The line infantry was divided into 14 regiments of three battalions each. The first thing about which historians often comment is the period's stability. After his failure to take Kumamoto, Saig led his followers on a seven-day march to Hitoyoshi. RF HA13E4 - The donjon or central keep of the castle is a reconstruction built in the 1970s of the original sacked and burned during the AD.1877 Satsuma rebellion RM P3P0W0 - Battle of Seinan (1877)from Dainihon Rekishi Nishikie, published between late Edo and early Meiji period, Artist Yoshusai (Toyohara) Chikanobu, Private Collection. By 1877, he sided with rebel forces and fought in what's now known as the Satsuma Rebellion. 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. 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. Led by Daniel Shays, the rebel "Shaysites" of . Saig's death brought the Satsuma Rebellion to an end. Saig was initially confident of his ability to take Kumamoto Castle, but he had underestimated the effectiveness of the imperial conscripts defending the castle. 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. Legend says that one of his followers, Beppu Shinsuke, acted as kaishakunin and aided Saig in committing seppuku before he could be captured. On February 22, the main Satsuma army arrived and attacked Kumamoto castle in a pincer movement. He funded but was not directly involved with the schools, so did not know that the students were becoming radicalized against the Meiji government. French newsmagazine Le Monde Illustr / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain. On September 1, Saigo and his 300 surviving men moved to Shiroyama mountain above Kagoshima, which was occupied by 7,000 imperial troops. This upbringing instilled a sense of dignity, frugality, and honor in young Saigo. However, the Imperial Army was likewise depleted, and fighting was suspended for several weeks to permit reinforcement. 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. 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. [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. ISBN-13: . Saigo was shot through the femur in the last suicide charge and one of his companions cut off his head and hid it from the imperial troops to preserve his honor. 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. The shogunate's troops were well-armed, but their leaders had no consistent strategy, and they failed to cover their own flanks. The decision in 1938 Modern Asian Studies, Volume 28, Issue 3, Cambridge University Press, July 1994. Few would return. The Imperial Japanese Armed Forces (IJAF) were the combined military forces of the Japanese Empire.Formed during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, they were disbanded in 1947, shortly after Japan's defeat to the Allies of World War II; the renewed Constitution of Japan, drafted during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, they were disbanded in 1947, shortly By ending the samurai class's privileges, the Meiji government had essentially abolished their identity, allowing small-scale rebellions to erupt all over Japan. Publication Date: 2006. A Modern History of Japan from Tokugawa Times to the Present, Second Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 84. In 1873, the central government began to conscript commoners as soldiers, replacing the samurai. Bibliolife DBA of Bibilio Bazaar II LLC, 2014 - 358 pages. Japan was divided into six military districts: Tokyo, Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima and Kumamoto, with two or three regiments of infantry, plus artillery and other auxiliary troops, assigned to each district. He changed his name to Saigo Sasuke, and the domain government declared him dead. These cookies track visitors across websites . Historian Ivan Morris described him as "the quintessential hero of modern Japanese history". At the start of the Satsuma Rebellion, the Imperial Japanese Army (including the Imperial Guard) numbered approximately 34,000 men. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. Soon, Saigo was Daimyo Shimazu Nariakira's closest adviser, consulting other national figures on affairs including the shogunal succession. A primary source of its causes and events. List Price: $32.75. His political organizing ran afoul of the new daimyo, however, who had him arrested and banished to a different small island just four months after his return from Amami. Saigo Takamori had led the way in Meiji reforms including the creation of a conscript army and the end of daimyo rule. Feb. 15, 2023. 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. Saigo's nearly bloodless victory won him national fame, eventually leading to his appointment as an elder of Satsuma in September of 1866. However, other evidence contradicts this, stating that Saig in fact died of the bullet wound and then had his head removed by Beppu in order to preserve his dignity. His first signature was Sanesada (). These attacks on the ramparts continued for two days, until Saigo decided to settle in for a siege. 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. image. Battle of Tabaruzaka: Imperial troops on the left, rebel samurai troops on the right, Saigo's army clashes with the government's forces. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-satsuma-rebellion-195570 (accessed March 1, 2023). After receiving reinforcements, the imperial force, now totaling 4,000 men, attacked the rear elements of the Satsuma army and drove them back. 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. Saig met the noted British diplomat Ernest Satow in the 1860s, as recorded in the latter's A Diplomat in Japan, and Satow was present at the unveiling as recorded in his diary. How the Samurai Ended During the Satsuma Rebellion, Overview of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, A Long History of Japanese Women Warriors, The Four-Tiered Class System of Feudal Japan, J.D., University of Washington School of Law, B.A., History, Western Washington University. 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.

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