Category Archives: nationalism

by Joel | 31 December 2018 · 4:24 pm

Why Japan Invaded Taiwan in 1874

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 551-554:

Kaishū’s rather uneventful career at the center of the Meiji government ended just ten months after his dual appointments as navy minister and cabinet member. His resignation, it seems, had to do with problems with China, which were directly related to Japan’s invasion of Taiwan in April 1874. Ostensibly, the purpose of the invasion was to punish aborigines in southeastern Taiwan who had murdered shipwrecked Ryūkyūan sailors around the end of Meiji 4 (1871). The Ryūkyū Islands were formerly the suzerainty of Satsuma; and after the Meiji Restoration, Japan, which considered the Ryūkyūs part of its empire, claimed the right to protect Ryūkyūans and to punish the Taiwan aborigines because China, which also claimed Taiwan, had refused to accept that responsibility by punishing the savages or compensating the victims’ families. But Japan’s real objective in the invasion was to affirm its sovereignty over the Ryūkyūs, which had been under the nominal suzerainty of China since 1372.

Japan had yet other motives for invading Taiwan, which overlapped those for the proposed invasion of Korea. We have seen that Shimazu Nariakira, probably no less revered by Ōkubo Toshimichi and other Satsuma men in the central government than by Saigō Takamori himself, had called for the conquest of Taiwan and Fuzhou to defend against foreign encroachment. We also know that since the closing years of the Tokugawa period samurai of Mito and Chōshū had advocated Japanese expansion to demonstrate their country’s strength, with the aim of fending off Western encroachment in East Asia. And, according to certain historians, through Taiwan, Japan perceived an opportunity to dispel the widely held belief in the West that it was still the weakened nation it had been during the final years of the Bakufu. A Taiwan expedition also promised to provide dispossessed former samurai with a livelihood—and, Parkes observed in a letter dated April 14, 1874, it would “quiet the hot bloods [who still called for a Korea invasion, and], who think Japan should enter on a career of conquest.”

The cabinet in Tōkyō approved a punitive expedition to Taiwan on February 6, 1874, ten days before the outbreak of the Saga Rebellion. Kaishū attended that meeting; but it is unknown whether he opposed or supported the expedition. His words and actions over the coming months suggest that he opposed it, as does his prior vision of a Triple Alliance between Japan, China, and Korea. The only clear dissenter in the cabinet was Kido Takayoshi, who did not attend the February 6 meeting. Kido, as we know, had supported Kaishū’s scheme for a Triple Alliance; and he had opposed a Korea invasion. His opposition to foreign intervention had not changed. Some two months later, on April 2, Kido was the only cabinet member not to affix his seal to the resolution on the Taiwan expedition. Kaishū, who attended the April 2 meeting, signed the resolution (although this seems to contradict his true intent).

…

Saigō Tsugumichi’s forces easily achieved their purported objective of chastising the aborigines on Taiwan. But the real trouble began soon after that, when the Chinese government demanded the immediate withdrawal of Japanese troops from Taiwan, while Japan challenged China’s jurisdiction over the southern part of the island because it had failed to accept responsibility for the actions of the aborigines. Neither side showed any sign of backing down, and war seemed imminent. The government in Tōkyō, meanwhile, was divided over the issue of withdrawal. One side argued that since the primary objective of punishing the aborigines had been accomplished, it was time to bring the troops home. Theirs was a practical viewpoint. We have already noted Parkes’ assessment of the meager state of Japan’s navy. A war with China, they feared, would be too dangerous. Supporting their argument was the minister of war himself. On August 4, Yamagata Aritomo reported on the feeble state of the Japanese military, and warned that the instability at home redoubled the danger of a foreign war.

The other side, represented by Home Minister Ōkubo, Finance Minister Ōkuma, and Justice Minister Ōki, insisted that before withdrawing the troops, Japan must obtain an indemnity from China as a matter of honor. To that end they needed a diplomatic settlement. If a settlement could not be reached, they insisted, there must be war. The hard-liners, led by the powerful home minister, prevailed—but even so Ōkubo, advised by Yamagata, was mindful of the grave danger of a war with China. Ōkubo was dispatched to China to negotiate a settlement, with the powers to decide on war or peace. On August 6, Kaishū was among a party who saw Ōkubo off on his journey at Shimbashi Station in Tōkyō, where the latter boarded a train for Yokohama. Kaishū wished Ōkubo a quick return to Japan upon accomplishing his mission “without difficulties”—implying, it seems, his hope for a peaceful settlement with China. Ōkubo arrived in Peking on September 10. In the midst of his negotiations with the Chinese, during which neither side showed any sign of backing down, Ōkubo determined that Japan would not start a war.

The British, of course, had a vested interest in seeing a peaceful settlement—i.e., safeguarding their considerable China trade, which amounted to some US$250 million at the time. On June 23, Parkes had written that the Chinese “have no pluck” for not demanding the immediate evacuation of the Japanese troops from Taiwan. On September 15, he wrote that he could not imagine the Chinese “sinking so low as to give in.” But the Chinese did give in, and on October 31 the two sides signed an accord, through the mediation of the British minister, Sir Thomas Wade. China agreed to indemnify the families of the murdered Ryūkyūans and to compensate the Japanese government for expenses incurred in the construction of roads and buildings for the expedition, which the Chinese would be allowed to retain after the withdrawal of the Japanese troops. China’s acceptance of Japan’s legitimacy in undertaking the Taiwan expedition implied that it recognized Japan’s sovereignty over the Ryūkyūs, which had been Tōkyō’s main objective from the start. The Meiji government’s first foreign adventure was a success, though it might have ended in disaster.

This is my last excerpt from this book, which I was motivated to read because I have been watching the NHK Taiga Drama Segodon, about Saigo Takamori.

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by Joel | 30 December 2018 · 3:56 pm

Early Meiji Relations with Korea, 1873

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 541-543:

Previously trade with Korea had been carried out through Tsushima Han. With the abolition of the han system, however, the Tsushima envoys in Korea were replaced by officials from the Foreign Ministry. The officials sent to Korea displayed an arrogance and ignorance not shown by the more familiar Tsushima samurai in the past. The Koreans naturally reacted with aversion. In May 1873 (Meiji 6), Korean officials in Pusan erected a billboard claiming that Japan had violated its three centuries-old agreement with Korea by sneaking merchants into Pusan to conduct illicit trade without permission from the Korean government. The breach of protocol, the billboard said, would not be tolerated. Included in the billboard was language to the effect that Japan had sold out to the Western barbarians by shamelessly imitating Western culture and that the perpetrators of such action were unfit to be called Japanese. Japan was offended, needless to say. The Emperor himself was extremely upset, as was his prime minister, Sanjō Sanétomi, while many in the government—including Saigō and his militarist faction—considered Korea’s attitude downright insulting.

Saigō’s alleged advocacy of a Korea invasion presents yet another enigma regarding his thinking and actions during this period, with historians divided as to whether or not he actually called for war. Most historians believe he did, many of whom argue that Saigō was motivated by the anti-Western ideology of Mito and Chōshū Loyalists of the past—i.e., that Japan must conquer Korea to fend off Western encroachment in the region. Supporting this argument is a statement, attributed to Shimazu Nariakira and quoted by Chinese historian Wang Yün-shêng in the early 1930s, laying out the reasons why Japan should occupy China. Masakazu Iwata, Ōkubo Toshimichi’s biographer, provides an English translation of this statement. After alluding to China’s internal rebellion and invasion by foreign powers since the Opium War, Nariakira is quoted as saying that Japan, in order to avoid the same fate, must “take the initiative” and “dominate” China, otherwise:

… we will be dominated. We must prepare defenses with this thought in mind. Considering the present situation, it behooves us first to raise an army, seize a part of China’s territory, and establish a base on the Asiatic mainland. We must strengthen Japan without delay and display our military power abroad. This would make it impossible for England or France to interfere in our affairs despite their strength.

Nonetheless, Nariakira asserted that his purpose was not to bring about “the liquidation of China, but rather to see China awaken and reorganize itself in order that together we might defend ourselves against England and France”—which resembles Katsu Kaishū’s vision of a Triple Alliance with China and Korea. But, Nariakira was quick to add, based on China’s self-proclaimed superiority over Japan, it was doubtful that China would agree to cooperate with Japan. “Consequently, we must first undertake defensive preparations against foreign encroachment…. The initial requirement is the acquisition of both Taiwan and Foochow [Fuzhou].” It would not be too much to presume that after the “initial requirement” was met, Korea might follow. And as we know, Saigō most certainly would have acted on Nariakira’s dictum—as soon as the opportunity availed itself. During the final years of the Bakufu and the first few years of the Meiji era, Japan was simply not prepared to expand into East Asia. But in 1873 things were quite different, and it is by no means farfetched to assume that Saigō was now ready to act.

It is also argued that Saigō called for a Korea invasion as a means of providing a livelihood and career to dispossessed former samurai throughout Japan. The argument follows that in a foreign adventure Saigō perceived a way to overcome the divisiveness within the government.

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by Joel | 8 December 2018 · 3:11 pm

Japan’s First Commoner Army Unit

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 243-245:

On 6/6, the day after the humiliation by French warships at Shimonoseki [in 1863], Takasugi was summoned to Yamaguchi Castle, his ten-year sabbatical over in just two months. He had been conspicuously absent from the fighting at Shimonoseki—during the initial attacks on the foreign ships and the retaliation by the Americans and French. One might suspect that the man who, in the previous months had burned down the British Legation in Edo and verbally challenged the shōgun on the streets of Kyōto, misread his countrymen, and did not believe that they would actually fire upon the foreign ships. But he had not misread them. Rather, as symbolized by his cropped hair, he had evolved beyond most of them, throwing off their xenophobia—and with their outdated ideas many of their outdated values—because, like his friend Sakamoto Ryōma, he had finally realized the futility of the Expel the Barbarians movement. Rather than fight the foreigners, Takasugi, with Ryōma’s help, would utilize them—that is to say, their guns and warships—to bring down the Bakufu. And so, while his countrymen fought the foreigners at Shimonoseki, Takasugi spent a quiet time at his home in Hagi.

But after the bombardment of Shimonoseki, and the occupation by French troops, Takasugi had had enough. On the same day that he reported to Yamaguchi Castle, he formed Japan’s first modern militia, the Kiheitai (“Extraordinary Corps”). The Kiheitai was extraordinary for its superior fighting ability, and as Japan’s first fighting force in which men of the merchant and peasant classes fought alongside samurai. Until then Chōshū’s military, like the militaries of all the han, consisted entirely of samurai, whose sole purpose for hundreds of years had been to protect their domains. But as the Chōshū samurai had demonstrated against the French, many of them had forgotten how to fight during the two centuries of Tokugawa peace. Takasugi solicited the service of all able-bodied men with the will to fight, regardless of caste. His objective: the creation of a “people’s army” that valued ability over lineage—resembling Katsu Kaishū’s vision of a national navy. He established the Kiheitai at Shimonoseki and equipped it with modern weaponry, including rifles and cannons. He would later lead it in a revolutionary assault on the foundations of the antiquated Tokugawa system.

A couple of months after the Kiheitai was formed, animosity broke out between the new militia and the Senpōtai (“Spearhead Corps”), a traditional samurai unit of the regular army that had fought poorly against the foreigners. Takasugi’s men, peasants included, looked down upon the Senpōtai. One of Takasugi’s officers, a samurai by the name of Miyagi Hitosuké, verbally abused men of the Senpōtai who had fled from the French. The men of the Senpōtai resented Miyagi and the Kiheitai. They were jealous of the special attention given to the Kiheitai by the daimyo’s heir. On the night of 8/16, after heavy drinking, some men of the traditional samurai corps threatened to kill Miyagi. Fearing for his life, Miyagi sought the protection of his commander. Takasugi, irascible as ever, proceeded immediately to Senpōtai headquarters at a Buddhist temple called Kyōhōji. Others from the Kiheitai followed. All but five men of the Senpōtai fled for their lives. One of the five was killed, the others wounded. The Chōshū authorities, including the daimyo’s heir, became involved. The so-called Kyōhōji Incident was finally settled when Miyagi took responsibility by committing seppuku—but as a result Takasugi was relieved of his command just three months after establishing the Kiheitai.

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by Joel | 6 December 2018 · 12:23 pm

Ending Satsuma Isolationism

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 172-173:

Like his great-grandfather, Shimazu Shigéhidé, Nariakira was a patron of foreign learning. Shigéhidé had become daimyo at age eleven, in Hōreki 5 (1755). For generations before Shigéhidé’s reign, Satsuma had isolated itself from the rest of Japan, sealing its borders and setting up checkpoints to bar entrance by outsiders (i.e., anyone not from Satsuma). Kaionji writes that Satsuma’s isolationism derived from its fear of Bakufu animosity for the Shimazu’s opposition to Iéyasu at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. But more than two centuries had passed; what’s more, Shigéhidé’s daughter was married to Shōgun Iénari. Shigéhidé concluded that isolationism was a greater threat to his domain than the Bakufu; and that as a result of their being cut off from the rest of Japan, his people had grown stubborn, narrow-minded, lacking in social graces, ignorant of the outside world, and distrustful of outsiders. In short, they had fallen behind the other powerful feudal domains.

Shigéhidé abolished the isolationist policy of his predecessors and set out to gentrify Kagoshima. He invited teachers from other parts of Japan. He built schools, including a medical school, and an astronomical observatory. He encouraged the opening of theaters, restaurants, and inns—none of which luxuries had ever before existed in Satsuma. He even allowed pleasure quarters, populated by geisha and prostitutes. A lover of the Chinese language, he edited a Chinese dictionary and conversed with his vassals in Chinese. He often traveled to Nagasaki, where he associated with Chinese traders and maintained close relations with successive chief factors of the Dutch East India Company. He was particularly close with Siebold, before the Prussian was banished from Japan.

For all of his progressiveness, Shigéhidé pursued personal extravagance to an extreme. The cost of reforming Satsuma combined with his personal extravagance depleted the treasury. He borrowed money and imposed severe taxes upon the peasants. All of this was met with disapproval by many of Shigéhidé’s samurai vassals, who prided themselves on their masculine strength and the simplicity and austerity of their lifestyles, and who despised what they viewed as the feminization of Satsuma.

I find Hillsborough’s gratuitous use of accents over e in romanized Japanese irritating. Anyone who is going to read this much detail about Japanese history is going to know that e in Japanese is never silent or reduced to schwa.

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by Joel | 6 December 2018 · 11:46 am

Satsuma at Admiral Perry’s Arrival

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 171-172:

As the twenty-eighth daimyo of Satsuma, Nariakira had been a radical reformer and one of the most progressive feudal lords of his time—even before Perry. He advocated “enrich the nation and strengthen the military” and embraced Western technology, namely warships and guns, to fortify Japan. He realized that the island country must open its ports to foreign trade to acquire that technology; and that the Bakufu and the feudal domains must pool their resources and cooperate with one another to tackle the dangerous problems of the encroaching modern age—all revolutionary ideas in pre-Perry Japan. This is not to say that he advocated abolishing the feudal system in favor of a unified Japanese nation. Such a notion would not be considered by even the most radical thinkers for some years to come. Rather, as daimyo of Satsuma, he planned to reform the Bakufu to give outside lords like himself an unprecedented voice in national affairs. Hisamitsu inherited those plans.

Nariakira began the drive for modern fortifications in his own backyard, radically modernizing Satsuma. In Kaei 5 (1852), the year after his accession, he began the construction of reverberatory and blast furnaces for the manufacture of warships, cannons, rifles, and other modern weaponry, and fortified the coastal defenses of Satsuma, planting mines in the sea approaches to his castle town of Kagoshima. In the Second Month of the following year—four months before Perry’s first arrival—Nariakira began the construction of the warship Shōhei Maru, the first modern ship produced in Japan. He arranged with the Bakufu for permission to build the triple-masted sailing vessel even before the ban on ocean-going ships was lifted—under the condition that it be used for the express purpose of defending the Ryūkyū islands in the south, nominally ruled by their own king but subjugated by Satsuma since the beginning of the seventeenth century.

During the countrywide debate on whether to accept Perry’s demands, Nariakira urged Edo to enter into protracted diplomatic negotiations with the Americans to stall them until Japan could prepare itself to repel the foreigners by military force. As a means to this end, he advised the Bakufu to abolish the ban on oceangoing vessels. When the ban was lifted, he manufactured more warships. He westernized the Satsuma military, training his troops in modern artillery methods. He modernized Satsuma, transforming it into the most militarily, economically, and industrially advanced entity in all of Japan, bar none—including the Tokugawa Bakufu.

Satsuma was no doubt spurred into action by Admiral Perry’s visit to Okinawa in 1852, a year before he first arrived in Edo.

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by Joel | 3 December 2018 · 8:21 am

Korean-Japanese POW in India

From The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II, by Ulrich Straus (U. Washington Press, 2005), p. 191:

The last Japanese POW challenge to Allied prison authorities took place in the spring of 1945 at the British-run facility at Bikaner, located on the edge of the Indian desert some two hundred forty miles west of Delhi. In this camp, originally constructed to house German prisoners of the First World War, the first prisoner was Senior Sergeant Aoki Akira, whose plane was shot down over Rangoon and crash-landed. He eventually became one of the POW section leaders. Although a Japanese citizen, as were all Koreans at the time, Aoki was a member of the royal house of Korea. Mizui Hajime, a Japanese fellow prisoner deeply imbued with the justice of Japan’s cause, paid Aoki the ultimate tribute of noting that he possessed “a high degree of military spirit as well as strong leadership qualities,” even though he spoke Japanese with a heavy accent.

In a curious historical footnote, Aoki, reverting to his family name Rhee, achieved a measure of renown in 1949 when he became the first commandant of the Republic of Korea’s nascent air force academy. In the following year, shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War, it was Colonel Rhee who took possession of a shipment of ten American P-51 Mustang fighters at Itazuke Airfield on Kyushu. After only three days of training on the new planes, Colonel Rhee, still full of the old fighting spirit, led a formation of three P-51s in a low-altitude raid on a North Korean concentration of T-34 tanks south of Seoul. Hit in the exchange of fire, Rhee crashed his plane into the enemy formation on a suicidal dive and was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigadier general.

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by Joel | 1 December 2018 · 2:50 pm

Koreans, Taiwanese, and Okinawans Among Japanese POWs

From The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II, by Ulrich Straus (U. Washington Press, 2005), pp. 196-199:

Allied forces also captured roughly ten thousand ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese working for the Japanese. Although some Koreans were integral members of the Japanese armed forces, most had either volunteered for or been drafted into labor battalions ordered into combat only when the tactical situation became desperate. Then they became little more than cannon fodder, along with the Japanese soldiers. The Koreans and Taiwanese in the labor battalions, however, did not share the Japanese preference for death over capture and surrendered to Allied forces in droves whenever it became feasible to do so. It was Allied policy to separate out captured Koreans and Taiwanese, assigning each group to its own enclosure. Cowra, in Australia, was the exception, in that it kept Japanese and the few ethnic Korean officers in the same enclosure. Koreans and Taiwanese were not imprisoned any further east than Hawaii, and many remained in the general area of their capture. Once the war ended, they were among the earliest to be repatriated.

There was never much love lost between the Japanese and Koreans, and imprisonment did nothing to change that fact. Japanese POWs felt genuinely appalled, almost betrayed, to discover that the Koreans thought of themselves as victors once the war ended and looked down on the Japanese. Some Japanese POWs, including Takahashi Shigeru, realized that Japan had discriminated against Koreans and Taiwanese and that the Koreans’ gleeful attitude when Japan lost therefore “could not be helped.” In the few instances when Japanese were erroneously placed into an enclosure with Koreans, they were beaten up in revenge for earlier treatment at the hands of their colonial masters.

Most ethnic Koreans who had served as integral members of the Japanese military chose to maintain their Japanese identity in the prison camps. They may well have feared the wrath of fellow Koreans who had been pressed into the labor battalions and believed they would be more secure in the Japanese section. One of the reports from Cowra noted that Koreans caused no trouble for the Australians, except for a small minority who were “very pro-Japanese.” This element compelled the rest to face east and bow reverentially after every roll call. When fellow Koreans disregarded this courtesy to the emperor, they were manhandled.

Taiwanese hostility toward the Japanese POWs was substantially less than that of the Koreans. American comments about Taiwanese prisoners, who never created problems, were entirely positive. When interrogated about possible American landing sites on Taiwan, they were uniformly eager to provide all the information they had.

On Okinawa the American army split up Japanese POWs in yet another way, separating not only Japanese and Koreans but Okinawans as well. Initially somewhat resistant to the idea of being distinguished from Japanese, Yamada Yuko soon became rather pleased to be called Okinawan rather than the pejorative “Jap” that was in common usages by Americans during the war. Given the Okinawans’ widespread disillusionment with the Japanese military, especially its ruthless treatment of tens of thousands of civilians needlessly exposed to the hazards of war, it is hardly surprising that Okinawans relished this separate treatment, a difference manifested in a number of ways. Noting that Americans were eager to obtain Japanese swords as souvenirs, Okinawan POWs volunteered to help them find some. On several occasions they were even allowed to leave the prison camp without guards to search for souvenirs. Such complete trust was so greatly appreciated that the Okinawans could not think of betraying it. Nevertheless, when news of Japan’s defeat filtered into the Yaka stockade, Yamada felt humiliation, and when the Koreans held their victory celebration, he thought that his own feelings were no different from the feelings of those who came from other Japanese prefectures.

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by Joel | 29 November 2018 · 10:47 am

Chinese Treatment of Japanese POWs

From The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II, by Ulrich Straus (U. Washington Press, 2005), p. xiii-xiv:

In China, Japanese forces were engaged in war against both Nationalist and Communist forces from 1937 to 1945. During that period, Japan’s military presence was by far the most powerful one in China. Up to the end of the war, Japanese forces were generally on the offensive, suffered relatively few casualties, and gave up few prisoners of war. Once the United States became involved in the war, combat in China diminished in intensity as both Nationalists and Communists husbanded their resources in anticipation of the civil war that was to follow. For the Japanese troops, the conflict in China was far less intense than combat in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and their postwar treatment at the hands of the Chinese Nationalists was, as Japanese veterans recall, “magnanimous.” Although the Japanese expected revenge, there was no mass retribution from the Chinese, who had suffered grievous military and civilian losses at the hands of the Japanese. Both the Nationalists and the Communists held war crimes trials for those suspected of specific crimes. The Japanese surrendered largely to the Nationalists, partly because the United States arranged it that way, but also because it coincided with their own preference. The Nationalists’ primary interests were (1) that they seize all weapons from the Japanese forces, which had not been defeated in China; (2) that the Japanese departure not result in a security vacuum exploitable by the Communists; and (3) that Japanese troops not be used against them by the Communists. With the tacit concurrence of the American forces just coming on the scene in modest numbers, these interests ensured that the Nationalists treated their 1.2 million Japanese POWs with kid gloves, on occasion even with considerable deference.

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by Joel | 10 November 2018 · 12:02 pm

Not exactly Emperor vs. Shogun

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 92-94:

The Imperial Loyalists hailed from samurai clans throughout the country. Most prominent among them were Mito in the east, Fukui in the west, and Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa, and Kumamoto in the outlying southwestern regions. Many of them were low-ranking samurai from the bottom rungs of their respective clans—and therein lay their superiority as leaders and as men. Generally, the lower-samurai did not have a voice in the policies of their han. They had to struggle, and often risk their lives, just to be heard. As a result, they were naturally more capable than the spoiled, privileged, and, more often than not, inept sons of the upper-samurai—a fact of which Katsu Kaishū was acutely aware. During times of tranquility and peace, the lower-samurai had been willing to accept their humble positions; but after Perry they demanded attention. Some left their han without permission to band together with Loyalists from feudal domains throughout Japan. In thus abandoning their han they became rōnin. (The term rōnin was used interchangeably with the less derogatory rōshi. The rō of both terms means “wave”—the gist being “wandering aimlessly.” The nin of rōnin simply means “person,” while the shi of rōshi means “samurai.”)

In former times, rōnin were merely lordless samurai—men of the warrior class who had become separated from feudal lord and clan. But after Perry, the term rōnin took on a much different connotation. Most of the latter-day rōnin were renegade samurai, political outlaws, who had intentionally quit the service of their lord and clan. Far greater in number than their predecessors, these men did not necessarily derive from the samurai caste. Some hailed from peasant households, and some from merchant families. And some samurai who technically became rōnin did not really abandon their daimyo; rather they quit their lord’s service in order to protect him from being associated with their own seditious activities. Imperial Loyalism encompassed a wide sphere extending beyond the anti-Bakufu and anti-foreign parties, and even the samurai class itself. Morals in Japanese society were based, in part, on the relationship between the sovereign and his subjects. The Emperor was sovereign. His ancestors had ruled in ancient times, long before the advent of the shōguns or, for that matter, any of the feudal lords. The people were the Emperor’s subjects—and counted among the Imperial subjects was the shōgun himself, who had merely been commissioned by the Emperor to rule.

The coming revolution, then, would not simply be a struggle between Imperial Loyalists on one side and the Bakufu and its supporters on the other. As already noted, most of the people who supported the Bakufu also revered the Emperor, and among those who swore absolute loyalty to the Emperor were some of the most devout Bakufu supporters. This dichotomy existed among individuals and groups alike.

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by Joel | 9 November 2018 · 10:36 am

Founders of the Nagasaki Naval Academy

From Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough (Tuttle, 2014), Kindle pp. 68-69:

“Defend the country” would soon become a byword among samurai throughout Japan—for it was around this time that Perry arrived. While the Bakufu ranks were filled with men of mediocre ability who had inherited their positions—a fundamental flaw of Tokugawa feudalism which Katsu Kaishū openly resented—such was not the case for the entire Edo elite. And fortunately for Kaishū, and indeed the future of the country, the extraordinary talents of the still relatively obscure scholar of Dutch studies caught the attention of Ōkubo Tadahiro (better known by his later name, Ōkubo Ichiō), one of the most progressive Bakufu officials in those most critical of times.

Ōkubo was born in Bunka 14 (1817), six years before Kaishū. While both men were vassals of the shōgun, their social standings, and the opportunities presented them in early life, were worlds apart. Kaishū came into this world with “no expectations in life”; Ōkubo was the eldest son of an old illustrious samurai family whose service to the House of Tokugawa was older than the Bakufu itself. From childhood he “applied himself diligently to literature and martial arts,” Kaishū later wrote of Ōkubo. At age fourteen he served at Edo Castle as a page to Shōgun Iénari, the same year that he was conferred with the honorary title Shima-no-Kami. A staunch advocate of Open the Country, he was brought into the higher echelons of the Bakufu hierarchy in Ansei 1 (1854), soon after Perry’s second visit. In the Fifth Month of that year Senior Councilor Abé Masahiro appointed him to the post of metsuké in charge of coastal defense. During the final years of Tokugawa rule, Ōkubo would serve in a number of other high posts, including chief of the Institute for the Study of Barbarian Books, Nagasaki magistrate, Kyōto magistrate, ōmetsuké, commissioner of foreign affairs, attendant (and advisor) to Shōgun Iémochi, chief of the Kōbusho military academy, and commissioner of finance.

Ōkubo was a connoisseur of fine tea, tobacco, swords, horses, calligraphy, and Japanese literature. He was a Japanese classicist and poet, whose collection of waka (31-syllable odes) and other writings would be published posthumously by Katsu Kaishū. Ōkubo clashed with the “numerous insignificants [around him],” Kaishū wrote. A physically small man, he possessed some of the most venerated qualities among samurai. Kaishū praised him for his frugality and high moral character, though he was sometimes “too stern for his own good.” When asked in the 1890s to name the most insightful scholar during the final years of the Bakufu, Kaishū designated Ōkubo with that distinction. Even if Ōkubo tended to be “too honest,” he was “sincere and a deep thinker.” That the highborn Ōkubo was quick to acknowledge the extraordinary abilities of the son of Katsu Kokichi is testimony that Kaishū’s evaluation of his patron was as sound as their lifelong friendship, which would prove indispensable in maintaining order in Edo when the Bakufu collapsed thirteen years later.