satsuma rebellion primary sources
These cookies track visitors across websites . Saig's rebellion was the last and most serious of a series of armed uprisings against the new government of the Empire of Japan, the predecessor state to modern Japan. Today, he serves the thoroughly modern nation of Japan as a symbol of its samurai traditionstraditions that he reluctantly helped to destroy. This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. The Last Samurai's Katsumoto Moritsugu is based on the iconic Japanese samurai Saig Takamori. The imperial government in Tokyo expected Saigo to come to the capital by sea or to dig in and defend Satsuma. Saig Takamori (Takanaga) ( (), January 23, 1828 September 24, 1877) was a Japanese samurai and nobleman. SAIGO, who was then living in seclusion, had no choice but to rise to action after the private-school faction beseeched him to do so. 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. Who are Satnamis? 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. However, despite their successes, the Satsuma army failed to take the castle, and began to realize that the conscript army was not as ineffective as first assumed. The training provided was not purely academic: although the Chinese classics were taught, all students were required to take part in weapons training and instruction in tactics. 0 references. 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.. Forty-six other military officers from the southwest resigned as well, and government officials feared that Saigo would lead a coup. Satsuma Rebellion. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. He was one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history and one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration. Szczepanski, Kallie. In the 7th century, Japan took a . The Shigakko students heard that the Meiji ship was coming and emptied the arsenal before it arrived. Satire picture of Boshin War, diptych. Satsuma Rebellion The first test of the young Meiji government came with the revolt of the powerful Satsuma clan based in the southern region of the island of Kyushu. 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. The formal ceremony took place on April 4, 1868, and the former shogun was even allowed to keep his head! shizoku rebellion. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-satsuma-rebellion-195570 (accessed March 1, 2023). He initiated a military advance the following month, on February 15, intending to march on Tokyo, because of "questions I intend to press on the government." 0 Reviews. After a failed assault, Saig settled for a siege. During the battle of Shiroyama, Saig was badly injured in the hip. The cavalry regiment consisted of 150 men. In addition to the army, the central government also used marines and Tokyo policemen in its struggle against Satsuma. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. This provoked open conflict, although with the elimination of samurai rice stipends in 1877, tensions were already extremely high. English Wikipedia. ISBN-13: 9781142113520. Saigo Takamori likely was killed in the initial barrage, although tradition holds that he was just gravely injured and committed seppuku. "The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori." The Satsuma Rebellion. The samurai then attacked imperial facilities around the province, seizing weapons and parading them through the streets of Kagoshima. Most of Saig's remaining forces either surrendered or committed seppuku. Saigo Takamori: The Last Samurai. Because of the Satsuma Rebellion, the government faced serious financial difficulties., the greatest, revolt came in Satsuma in 1877. 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. Contemporary illustrations show the cavalry armed with lances. . A battalion had 640 men in peacetime and theoretically 960 men in wartime. The Shigakko students set out with him, bringing rifles, pistols, swords, and artillery. 4, Sophia University, JSTOR, 1973. The shogun's men were still hunting him, so Saigo went into a three-year internal exile on the small island of Amami Oshima. Living during the late Edo and early Meiji periods, he later led the Satsuma Rebellion against the Meiji government. In October, the prime minister announced that Saigo would not be allowed to travel to Korea as an emissary. Tabaruzaka was held by some 15,000 samurai from Satsuma, Kumamoto and Hitoyoshi against the Imperial Army's 9th Infantry Brigade (some 9,000 men). Then, Japan attacked forcing the Joseon king to sign an unequal treaty, which eventually led to the outright annexation of Korea in 1910. 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. ThoughtCo, Sep. 2, 2021, thoughtco.com/figures-and-events-in-asian-history-s2-3896549. 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. However, the exact manner of his death is unknown. 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. Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Hisamitsu did not acknowledge the departing army when the men stopped to bow at the gates of his castle. However, the Satsuma army was able to cut its way free from encirclement. HOME > Initial Steps toward a Constitutional State > b. Satsuma rebeliion.svg 703 965; 1.09 MB. The Linked Data Service provides access to commonly found standards and vocabularies promulgated by the Library of Congress. It was believed by some that he had fled to Russia, or ascended to Mars. On December 25, 1866, the 35-year-old Emperor Komei suddenly died. Above all these classes were the Mikado, the secluded divinity of Ki6to, still theo- retically the source of all authority; . revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. 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. 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 Era controlled most of Japan, except for a small area in the southwestern part of Japan, which was the Satsuma. On his return to Kobe on February 12, Hayashi met with General Yamagata Aritomo and It Hirobumi, and it was decided that the Imperial Japanese Army would need to be sent to Kagoshima to prevent the revolt from spreading to other areas of the country sympathetic to Saig. The Guard infantry was divided into 2 regiments of 2 battalions each. 2 See Augustus Mounsey, The Satsuma Re-bellion, London, 1879, p. 274 and appendices. Marching north, his army was hampered by the deepest snowfall Satsuma had seen in more than 50 years, which, because of the similarity to the weather that had greeted those setting out to enact the Meiji Restoration nine years earlier, was interpreted by some as a sign of divine support.[3]. Two describe a bullet wound to the hip or thigh. The Imperial Artillery consisted of 18 batteries divided into 9 battalions, with 120 men per battery during peacetime. With these deaths, the Satsuma rebellion came to an end. 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. Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned, returning power to the Emperor in what came to be known as the Meiji Restoration. Japanese Government Documents, 1867-1889 (special issue of Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan; 1914), by Japan, ed. 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. 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. Kumamoto castle, built in 1598, was among the strongest in Japan, but Saig was confident that his forces would be more than a match for Tani's peasant conscripts, who were still demoralized by the recent Shinpren rebellion. A battalion was 672 men strong and was organized as per the line battalions. During war, the mountain artillery had a nominal strength of 160 men per battery and field artillery had 130 men per battery. Despite a rocky relationship with the new daimyo of Satsuma, Nariakira's half-brother Hisamitsu, Saigo soon was back in the fray. Updates? The rebels' momentum soon stalled when they settled into a months-long siege of Kumamoto Castle, just 109 miles north of Kagoshima. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. 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. Fearing a rebellion, the Meiji government sent a warship to Kagoshima to remove the weapons stockpiled at the Kagoshima arsenal on January 30, 1877. Notwithstanding the great sacrifices it was called upon to make, the Imperial Government was fortunately able to give proof of its ability to maintain the unified rule over the nation, and was left virtually free to proceed on its way toward administrative reforms and general public improvements. In real life, Saig initially led the Imperial forces and won the four-day Battle of Toba-Fushimi in January 1868. The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History ; With Maps. Although all of the rebels were killed, the imperial troops managed to locate Saigo's buried head. He also married a local woman namedAigana and fathered a son. Satsuma Rebellion. Today, building on this tradition, Sophia has developed By March, Saigo realized that his rebellion was doomed. A primary source of its causes and events. The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History (1879) Author: Augustus Henry Mounsey. 1794 by H.M. Brackenridge. When the attack finally came, the Satsuma forces withdrew, leaving small pockets of samurai to hit the larger army in guerrilla-style strikes. Already a popular figure, after his death, Saigo Takamori was lionized by the Japanese people. He led his samurai straight up the middle of Kyushu, planning to cross the straits and march on Tokyo. The second crisis, the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, was even . Roused from his seclusion, Saigo felt that this treachery and wickedness in the imperial government required a response. This provoked open conflict, although with the elimination of samurai rice stipends in 1877, tensions were already extremely high. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. 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 April 1877, Saig reorganized the army into nine infantry units of 350 to 800 men each. Bonded by their distaste for the shogunate, Choshu and Satsuma gradually formed an alliance. [9], A Japanese hand fan commemorating the event, which survives in the collection of the Staten Island Historical Society in New York, features a depiction of Saig Takamori in a scene labeled (in English) "The Battle Near the Citadel of Kumamoto".[10]. Morale was extremely low, and lacking any strategy, the Satsuma forces dug in to wait for the next Imperial Army offensive. Ten years passed after the Restoration, and during that time order was gradually restored within the country. Determined not to let the rebels escape again, Yamagata sent in a large force which outnumbered the Satsuma army 7:1. [9] On 22 February 1889, Emperor Meiji pardoned Saig posthumously. The members of his retinue carried in cotton bags the swords they were no longer allowed to wear; and when, at the end of his journey, the gates of the yashiki at Kagoshima closed upon his palanquin, he may have realized that he had passed for ever out of the political life in which he had at one time played so conspicuous a role. Samurai scaled the walls repeatedly, only to be cut down by small arms fire. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. The new conscript levies initially struggled to defeat Saig, and the government found it necessary to enlist former. Saigo and his army made a seven-day march south to Hitoyoshi, where they dug trenches and prepared for the imperial army to attack. The end of the Satsuma Rebellion also marked the end of the samurai era in Japan. In the end, he was killed by the imperial army he organized. (2021, September 7). The rebellion lasted from January 29, 1877, until September of that year, when it was decisively crushed and its leader, Saig Takamori, was shot and mortally wounded. In addition, there were 200 artillerymen and 1,200 laborers. Artillery consisted of over 100 pieces, including 5.28 pound mountain guns, Krupp field guns of various calibers, and mortars. The Satsuma Rebellion proved that a conscript army of commoners could out-fight even a very determined band of samuraiprovided they had overwhelming numbers, at any rate. 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