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Saigō Takamori in the Emergence of Meiji Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Charles L. Yates
Charles L. Yates
Affiliation:
Earlhem College
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Extract

According to the view current among most Japanese today, the samurai lost their last hope of surviving as a distinct social or political group when Saigō Takamori died in the autumn of 1877. In fact, the fate of the samurai class had been sealed as early as 1866, when Satsuma and Chōshū joined forces to destroy the only institutional order in which the samurai had any functional meaning. Their disappearance from the Japanese stage was brought about by forces that Saigō helped to set in motion, but over which neither he nor any other individual could possibly have exerted much control. In the end he had no significant effect on the fate of the samurai.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 449 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Morris, Ivan, ‘The Apotheosis of Saigō the Great,’ in The Nobility of Failure (London, 1975).Google Scholar Also Saneatsu, Cf. Mushanokōji, Great Saigō, translated and adapted by Moriaki, Sakamoto (Tokyo, 1942).Google Scholar

2 Kiyoshi, Inoue, Saigō Takamori, 2 vols (Tokyo, 1970).Google Scholar Inoue's phrase in Japanese is ‘mujun ni michita eiyū,’ ibid., vol. 1, p. i.

3 Hiroshi, Cf. Kawahara, Saigō densetsu: Tōyōteki jinkaku no saihakken (Tokyo, 1971).Google Scholar

4 Shigeru, Cf. Ueda, Saigō Takamori no higeki (Tokyo, 1989),Google Scholar and Saigō Takamori no shisō (Tokyo, 1990).Google Scholar

5 Japan's historical novelists generally have made better sense of Saigō than have most of its historians. Cf., for example, Ryōtarō, Shiba, Tobu ga gotoku, 10 vols (Tokyo, 1980);Google ScholarChōgorō, Kaionji, Saigō Takamori, 14 vols (Tokyo, 1980);Google Scholar or Fusao, Hayashi, Saigō Takamori, 11 vols (Tokyo, 1986).Google Scholar

6 Takamori zenshū henshū iinkai, Cf. Saigō, Saigō Takamori zenshū, 6 vols (Tokyo, 1980), vol. 6, pp. 449–534.Google Scholar

7 Conroy, Cf. Hilary, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910 (Philadelphia, 1960), for the standard view of the seikanron episode of 1873.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the Satsuma rebellion, Mounsey, Cf. Augustus, The Salsuma Rebellion (London, 1879),Google Scholar and Buck, James, ‘The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877,’ Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 28, number 4.Google Scholar

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10 An excellent modern study of Satsuma's reforms is Torao, Haraguchi, Bakumatsu no Satsuma (Tokyo, 1966.Google Scholar

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12 Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 1, pp. 131–472, and vol. 2, pp. 23–534, passim.Google Scholar

13 Saigō, who supposedly had led the pack in pursuit of military action in Korea, condemned the Kang Hwa settlement in the most unsparing of terms, repudiating not only Japan's behavior in that instance, but also the propriety of gunboat diplomacy for the country in any situation. Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 3, pp. 479–81.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Mounsey's Satsuma Rebellion, as well as Tetsunosuke, Kodera (ed.), Seinan no eki Satsugun kōkyōshō (Tokyo, 1945),Google Scholar and hensanjo, Kagoshima ken ishin shiryō (ed.), Seinan sensō, 3 vols (Kagoshima, 1978–1980).Google Scholar

15 These letters, eight of them in all, are in Saigō Takamori Zenshū, vol. 3, pp. 371–95.Google Scholar Three of them have been translated in Tsunoda, Ryusaku, Bary, Wm. De, and Keene, Donald (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. 2 (New York, 1958), pp. 148–50.Google Scholar

16 Cf. ‘Restoration and Rebellion in Satsuma,’ pp. 244–63, for a narrative of Saigō's part in the first Chōshū campaign.Google Scholar Also Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 1, pp. 405–10, 411–17, and 427–31.Google Scholar

17 ‘Restoration and Rebellion,’ pp. 175–7.Google Scholar In Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 1, p. 192, Saigō explains that it was necessary to join these young terrorists on their ‘field of death’ in order to convince them of his sincerity.Google Scholar

18 Cf. ‘Restoration and Rebellion,’ pp. 320–2.Google Scholar

19 In the late summer of 1873, Saigō stated that, while he certainly did not covet long life for its own sake, he was likewise in no hurry to rush to his death, particularly since the emperor had taken a personal interest in his health. Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 3, pp. 390–1.Google Scholar

20 Like most of his other ideas, this one apparently did not originate with Saigō, but with his daimyō, Shimazu Nariakira. Shirō, Cf. Ichiki, Shimazu Nariakira genkōroku (Tokyo, 1944), pp. 147–50,Google Scholar and Tokugorō, Nakamura, Shimazu Nariakira kō (Tokyo, 1933), pp. 245–8 and 252–3.Google Scholar

21 Among the most cogent and persuasive of arguments to this effect is Taijō, Tamamuro, Saigō Takamori (Tokyo, 1960).Google Scholar

22 Again, the most interesting argument is Taijō, Tamamuro, Seinan sensō (Tokyo, 1958).Google Scholar

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24 Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 1, pp. 202–3, and ff., esp. vol. 2., pp. 380–2, and vol. 3, pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 3, p. 27, where he is reported to have been spending all of his time relaxing at a hot spring and roaming in the hills with his hunting dogs.Google Scholar

26 Besides obesity caused by filariasis, Saigō also seems to have suffered from a heart ailment of some kind, as well as complex gastro-intestinal problems. Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 3, pp. 40–4, 91–2, 100, 116–17, 119–20, and 363–8.Google Scholar Saigō's autopsy report, including reference to the dropsy caused by filarias is in Tamamuro, Saigō Takamori, p. 194.Google Scholar

27 In 1875, Saigō was so busy with a land reclamation scheme that he declined an invitation to accompany Ōyama Iwao to Europe to observe the Franco-Prussian situation. Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 3, pp. 470–1.Google Scholar Also Cf. ibid., pp. 473–7.

28 Cf. the works by Inoue and Tamamuro cited above.

29 Cf. ‘Restoration and Rebellion,’ pp. 137–9.Google Scholar

30 These three qualities are enduring elements of the Saigō myth, but I have found confirmation for none of them. Like his legendary sexual prowess, which is traceable to the enlarged scrotum caused by his filariasis, they are fanciful elaborations of verifiable but unremarkable truths.

31 Cf. ‘Restoration and Rebellion,’ pp. 118–23, 187–97, and 358–77 for some discussion of Saigō's thought and values. The earliest evidence of his prudery is in a letter from 1854.Google ScholarCf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 1, pp. 31–3.Google Scholar

32 For some appraisals of Saigō by his contemporaries, Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 6, pp. 11–270.Google Scholar

33 Tetsuzō, Cf. Kitagawa, Satsuma no gōjū kyōiku (Kagoshima), 1972.Google Scholar

34 Saigō's own sense of a world lost comes ou a remark he made in 1871, where he expressed the wish that he had died in 1868. Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 3, p. 144.Google Scholar

35 Kirk, Russell, The Conservative Mind, 7th edn (Chicago, 1986), p. iii.Google Scholar

36 Masao, Maruyama, ‘De aru koto to suru koto,’ in Nihon no shisō (Tokyo, 1961).Google Scholar

37 Cf. ‘Restoration and Rebellion,’ pp. 131–3.Google Scholar

38 Cf. ‘Restoration and Rebellion,’ pp. 139–46, for more detail on this episode.Google Scholar

39 Cf. Saigō Takamori zenshū, vol. 1, pp. 131–3 and 135–40.Google Scholar Also, Inoue, , op. cit. note 4, vol. 1, pp. 72–8.Google Scholar