Satsuma

“ In this encounter between the forces of Choshiu and the Shogun the Satsuma clan stood aloof, possibly as the result of private negotiations between the clan leaders, for there were at this time several persons making their way to the front who were destined at no very remote date to play the most important parts in the affairs of the nation. On the Choshiu side were Ito and Inouye, on the Satsuma side were Saigo and Okubo, all men whose names will never fade in the history of their country’s emancipation from feudalism. ”

“ In the end every retainer, except the samurai of Satsuma, received an annual allowance of so much rice, in return for which he was bound to perform military service and appear in the field or discharge the ordinary military duties required in time of peace, accompanied by followers proportioned in number to his income. In Satsuma the feudal sub-division of the land was carried out to the fullest extent, so that the vassal of lowest rank held the sword in one hand and the hoe in the other. No taxes were paid by any feudal proprietor. ”

“ Strong men belonging to the clans which had supported the Imperial House became the strong men of the centralized government. Even to-day, when clans, as such, no longer exist, the old clan sentiment survives, with the result that men of Satsuma and Choshu origin are most influential in politics. The militaristic tendency sometimes noticed in the action of the Japanese Government is said to be largely due to this fact, for the clan of Satsuma was in the old days notorious for its warlike inclinations, and there is evidence to show that those inclinations have, to some extent survived. ”

“ Satsuma and Chosiu. That centre of gravity acted the part of a pendulum or regulator in the new government, and kept all the forces working in unison. [Pg 203] You know already that the Satcho were two powerful clans which were the chief factors in bringing about the Great Change. In addition to their natural claim to influence, they produced men of ability, far greater in number than any other clans. Naturally, therefore, Satcho men occupied more important positions than men of other clans. Next to Satcho, the clan having similar influence was Tosa. ”

“ Satsuma has, indeed, from the very beginning of the new regime been prominent in both the army and the navy, and though it must always be a matter of extreme difficulty to draw distinctions where the clansmen were without exception prompt to wield the sword on slight provocation in defence of their own or the national honour, the men of Satsuma ever bore the reputation under the old regime of being a warlike and indomitable race. ”

“ Western appliances were imported and foreign inventions largely drawn upon to increase Satsuma’s effective strength, and from being hostile to foreigners the attitude of the clansmen became almost friendly, a circumstance that was partly due, it may have been, to the consciousness of the Satsuma leaders that in spite of their antiquated weapons they had made no mean fight of it when assailed in their stronghold by the modern British ships of war. ”

“ They held their own fairly against the stronger ships of which the Tokugawa party had simultaneously possessed itself, and though the Scotland was sunk off Awa Bay as a result of the encounter the Satsuma men had no reason to be ashamed of the figure they cut in this early clash of armaments at sea. The Satsuma vessels had been under fire before, for they had taken part in the resistance offered by the Satsuma clan to Admiral Kuper at Kagoshima, when he undertook to chastise the lord of their province in 1863. ”

“ I said that of course we could not object to Satsuma employing Frenchmen, but as French views of Japanese domestic politics differed so widely from ours, and it was well understood that ours coincided to a certain extent with those of Satsuma, it was natural to ask whether this engagement implied a change of policy on the part of the Satsuma clan. ”

“ The Satsuma leaders, in fact, tended to liberalism. Chōshiu, on the contrary, was permeated by anti-foreign prejudice. Hence anything like hearty coalition between the two clans seemed impossible, and the breach grew wider after 1863; for the bombardment of Kagoshima by a British squadron in that year having finally convinced all classes in Satsuma of the hopelessness of resisting foreign intercourse, they made no secret of their progressive principles, and were consequently regarded as unpatriotic renegades by the Chōshiu samurai. ”

“ The road was full of homeward bound Satsuma men and Tokugawa people going to Sumpu. A report had got about that difficulties had arisen between Satsuma and Higo, and that the latter in conjunction with Arima and Chikuzen were going to fall upon the great clan; that in consequence of this the troops were rushing off as fast as possible to forestal the attack. Another rumour, much credited by the French Legation, was that Aidzu surrendered only on condition that the Satsuma troops should be withdrawn from the east and north of the country, and the Mikado come to Yedo. ”

“ Peace, as no people were better able than the Satsuma clansmen to perceive, was only to be attained by making the most complete preparations for war. Satsuma was foremost in advocating the adoption and assimilation of every improvement in the mechanical arts and the earnest study of every science that would be likely to promote the welfare of the nation, more especially those that might lead to military success if ever the country should be plunged into hostilities with either an Eastern or a Western Power. ”

“ At all events it seems to be fair to assume that the supremacy of the Satsuma and Choshiu clans in the councils of the state which in later years became so noticeable as to excite the jealousy of others had its origin in the willingness evinced by the daimios of those clans to listen to the recommendations of patriotic samurai who owned allegiance to them. What is true of Satsuma and Choshiu is of course equally true of the other clans prominent in the struggle for the revival of imperial rule, namely Hizen and Tosa. ”

“ The Satsuma clan offered strenuous opposition to the extension of the telegraph system of the empire into its own province, and for the time the farthest point of the line southward that the wires could be carried was Kumamoto, seventy-five miles by road short of Kagoshima. It is only now, in 1906, that a State railway is being constructed to the Satsuma stronghold, and for many years the reactionary spirit was strong enough to give pause to both these enterprises of the Department of Public Works. ”

“ Many of them were already dead. Satsuma and Chôshiû accounted for the largest number; of the Tokugawa clan there were very few. All our friends of Satsuma, Chôshiû and Tosa were among the number of those still living. While I was there Tsumagi Nakadzukasa, who had given me a dinner a couple of months earlier, came in. He had returned a few days before from Mito, where he had left Keiki, employing his leisure in the composition of Japanese poetry, and not expecting to be invited at present to take a share in the government. ”

“ THE TOMBS OF THE RÔNINS.
Among those who came to pray was a Satsuma man, who, prostrating himself before the grave of Oishi Kuranosuké, said: "When I saw you lying drunk by the roadside at Yamashina, in Kiôto, I knew not that you were plotting to avenge your lord; and, thinking you to be a faithless man, I trampled on you and spat in your face as I passed. And now I have come to ask pardon and offer atonement for the insult of last year." ”

“ POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
No phrase is commoner in the mouths of Western collectors than “Old Satsuma”; no ware is rarer in Western collections. Nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces out of every thousand that do duty as genuine examples of this prince of Satsuma. faiences are simply examples of the skill of modern forgers. In point of fact, the production of faience decorated with gold and coloured enamels may be said to have commenced at the beginning of the eighth century in Satsuma. ”

“ Hattori supposes that the councillors of Kaga, Satsuma, and Tosa are of our opinion. But we have a feud with Satsuma, who might seize such an opportunity to bring all the power of the Tokugawa down upon us. It is said, and I believe it from what I have seen at Yedo, that the samurai of the Shogun have lost their courage. But what of Mito, Aidzu, Kii, Owari, and the host of other daimiyo ready to march at the Go rojiu’s bidding. Gentlemen, an excuse for the Tokugawa to fall upon us at this time, would mean ruin for our clan. We cannot even entertain the thought. ”

“ On the side of the Sho-gun were ranged the Tokugawa barons, and the northern clans generally, while for the south and progress there stood the men of Satsuma, Nagato, Hizen, and Tosa. By Japanese Nagato is commonly known nowadays as Cho-shiu, and Satsuma is officially styled Sasshiu. Satsuma had taken the lead in many respects in introducing the arts and sciences of the Occident into Japan, for she had not only established a cotton mill at Kagoshima some years before, and owned several very useful steamers of small tonnage, but had drilled a body of troops on the western system. ”

“ The garrison was allowed to go home, and the elder Saigō also returned to his province. The moment was critical. The Government could not afford to lose the support of the two most prominent Satsuma leaders, nor, at this early stage in the work of reconstruction which lay before it, to acquiesce in the defection of so powerful an ally. In the following year (1871) , therefore, a conciliatory mission, in which Iwakura and Ōkubo were the leading figures, was sent to the offended clan to present in the Mikado’s name a sword of honour at the tomb of Shimadzu’s brother, the late daimiō of Satsuma. ”

“ I met some two-sworded men, who protested that they were determined to prevent the opening of Hiôgo to foreign trade, but they were evidently joking. A Hizen man whom I came across declared that I was an old acquaintance, though I had never set eyes on him before. Afterwards Hayashi Kenzô and I went on board a Satsuma steamer that was lying in port, and made the acquaintance of her captain, Inouyé Shinzayemon. She had brought up from Kagoshima one of the leading Satsuma men named Komatsu Tatéwaki; he had gone up to Ozaka to meet Saigô, the greatest of all the Satsuma leaders. ”

“ We may give Colonel Neale credit for knowing that there was no genuine intention on the part of Satsuma to carry out this promise, but on the other hand there was strong reason to suppose that Shimadzu Saburô himself had actually given the order to cut down the foreigners, and it could hardly be expected that the Satsuma men would ever consent to do punishment upon him. The actual doers of the deed were merely subordinate agents. We could not with justice have insisted on their lives being taken, and at the same time suffer the principal culprit to go scot-free. ”

“ When it was urged that the murderers should be brought to justice the Bakufu was fain to acknowledge that it had not the power to punish the Satsuma clan which had been guilty of the crime, and thereupon Admiral Kuper was sent to Kagoshima to bombard the Satsuma chieftain’s forts. The engagement took place on the 11th of August, a fortnight before the Elgin treaty was signed at Yedo, the breach between the Shogun and the southern clans being at that time practically complete. ”

“ The Japanese, on the contrary, made a specialty of faience, and in that particular line they reached a high standard of excellence. No faience produced either in China or any other Oriental country can dispute the palm with really representative specimens of Satsuma ware. Not without full reason have Western connoisseurs lavished panegyrics upon that exquisite production. The faience of the Kiōto artists never reached quite to the level of the Satsuma in quality of pâte and glowing mellowness of decoration ”

“ The antipathy existing between the Satsuma clan and the Tokugawa adherents showed itself in a very pronounced manner in Yedo. The Satsuma yashiki, which was occupied by troops of that clan and by ronins favorable to them was surrounded by Tokugawa troops and burnt. Collisions between the two parties were of constant occurrence, which continued until the arrival of the imperial troops restored order. In Hyōgo too, which with Ōsaka was opened to foreign trade on the first of January, 1868, there were difficulties between the foreigners and anti-foreign element in the population. ”

“ Niiro's reference to the letter of the Prince of Satsuma, which he supposed I had seen, revealed the important fact that the Satsuma clan were opposed to the opening of Hiôgo, and in fact it was the presentation of this letter or memorial to the Mikado during the visit of the foreign representatives in November 1865 which had encouraged the Mikado to make it a condition of giving his sanction to the treaties that the Tycoon should arrange for that port being given up. ”

“ At any rate the Satsuma people got into boats and went down the river, pursued by the Tokugawa men, who fired at them from the banks, and killed two of the fugitives. Sir Harry went to call on Itakura, who told us that the town of Fushimi had been set on fire by Satsuma troops, who were opposing the entry of the Uyésama's forces into Kiôto. Fighting began at four o'clock, and the result was not yet known. Another detachment marching up the Toba road, which follows the right bank of the river, fell into an ambuscade and was forced to retire. ”