Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 by Donald Keene Read Free Book Online Page B

some weeks in duration. On February 19 messengers sent by the governor of Kagoshima arrived and attempted to show the commandant, Major General Tani Tateki, three documents—Saig ō ’s original letter asking permission to go to T ō ky ō , the governor’s response, and a transcript of Nakahara Hisao’s confession relating to the planned assassination. The documents were rejected, and the messengers were informed that if Saig ō ’s soldiers attempted to go by the castle, the defenders would have no choice but to stop them. The vanguard of Saig ō ’s army was now a bare five miles away.
    The first shots of the war were exchanged on February 19. Units of the Kagoshima army attempted to force their way into Kumamoto Castle but were repulsed by cannon fire from the defenders. General Tani sent a telegram to army headquarters (now in Ō saka) reporting the opening of hostilities, and Yamagata forwarded the message to Sanj ō Sanetomi in Ky ō to. A message was sent from Ky ō to to Tani urging him to hold firm and to destroy the rebels with one bold attack. The arrival of the first and second brigades was promised by February 25.
    The main body of the rebel forces began their attack on the castle from two sides on the twenty-second. They stepped up the attack on the twenty-third but were unable to advance. This made them realize that the peasant-soldiers inside the castle were not as ineffectual as they had supposed, and they resigned themselves to a long siege.
    On the night of February 22, in moonlight bright as day, the Kokura Fourteenth Regiment, commanded by Acting Major Nogi Maresuke (1849–1912), and rebel troops clashed. The rebels, raising war cries, fought at close quarters with drawn swords. The government troops fell back, unable to withstand the attack. Later that night in the midst of fierce fighting, the standard bearer of the regiment was killed and the regimental flag was lost. Nogi was horrified and tried, disregarding personal danger, to recapture the flag, but he was held back. The commander in chief of the expeditionary force never asked Nogi what had happened to the flag, preferring to overlook the incident, but Nogi did not forget it, and twenty-five years later he committed suicide to atone for the loss.
    In the meantime, Kumamoto samurai began to desert in numbers to Saig ō ’s army, citing the government’s addiction to Western practices and the neglect of Japanese traditions which, they believed, had prevented Japan from regaining its ancient glory. Desertions by samurai of this persuasion soon swelled the ranks of Saig ō ’s army to some 20,000 men. The prevalence of sonn ō j ō i thought was not surprising in these samurai; they not only resented the changes that Westernization had brought to their lives but had been stirred by the heroic deaths of members of the Shinp ū ren. Saig ō himself was not anti-Western (George Washington was one of his heroes), but the private school students displayed a strong element of j ō i , as we can infer from the song they sang, which begins:
    Though this is the Land of the Gods
    Today as in the distant past,
    People are dazzled by stupid foreign ways
    And, paying no attention to the confusion in Japan,
    They borrow their laws from abroad…
    Not only was foreign influence decried, but the achievement of the Restoration was questioned:
    When they wiped out the daimyos
    They said they were returning to the past,
    But now we know they were lying….
    After singling out Ō kubo and Sanj ō for special attack, the song makes this accusation:
    What happened then to their traitorous hearts?
    They sold the country to the dirty foreigners
    And ordered us to give up our weapons and swords
    A decree never heard before or since….
    The conclusion of the song, expressing the fascination that death exerted over these samurai, contrasts with the triumphant note typical of the war songs of other countries:
    We’ve reached a point we can take no more
    We warriors