“After all, of what consequence is the flesh?”

Taking advantage of a measure enacted early under Daikomitsu’s incumbency, authorising the daimyos and princes of the blood to remove their families and lawful kin from the capital, Shibusawa asked his sister Yasuko to come to him, and though still mourning the loss of her husband she accepted the invitation and proved to be a great consolation to her brother, they becoming fast and true friends and she a liberal adviser. In her he found a companionship that helped him through the many events leading up to his call to the front, though in no measure did it deter him from shaping a course toward his high ideal.

The mikado had taken it upon himself to send an embassy to Europe and America to examine and report conditions, while the shogun had in person conferred with his highness at Kyoto. The latter event resolved itself into a proposal by the mikado that the shogun accompany him on a pilgrimage to the temple Hachiman at Yamashiro, that he might deliver his own sword to the mighty war god Ojin, thus inducing his celestial mightiness to drive out the “barbarian foreigners”; at which the shogun somewhat reluctantly expressed his indisposition to join in such a hazardous undertaking, thereupon retiring to his own stronghold; never again proposing or sanctioning a conference with his “heavenly brother-in-power.”

Shortly after this, possibly for the purpose of encouraging a breach between the two courts, several of the southern daimyos, together with Saigo, Iwakura, and some other kuge attempted to carry off to the southward the person of the mikado, and were prevented in their daring scheme only by the timely interference of Shibusawa. He had been urged into taking the step by Takara through the auspices of Kido, and for the heroism displayed gained high esteem at Kyoto; the schemers themselves coming gradually to respect him and Saigo to believe in him. Henceforth Shibusawa attended their councils and his voice rose to be felt, while Takara began to worship him, and used all her energies and influence to further his friendship with the mikado and raise his standing in the south.

Soon after, the Shimonoseki affair once more roused the country; and the report of the foreign embassy maddened them. They had returned and said in substance:

“We are the barbarians!”

In consequence of this, as the mikado remarked, “foolish report,” the embassy were forthwith reprimanded and deprived of office; the mikado declaring:

“Diabolical spirits rule in this land of the gods, intending to do away with customs dear to us. They must forthwith be driven out.”

Nor was he alone in his belief, for before the close of the season his rabid adherents rallied and defeated a detachment of the shogun’s army sent against them; encouraging the mikado to issue the famous edict against the Christians, whereby more than three thousand converts fell victims to its bane and were distributed among the daimyos as slaves at common labour. Nor were they protected by the shogun nor greatly mourned by their friends; the dislike of the foreigners had become so rooted that even the shogunate seemed a crumbling structure ready to fall at the first organised assault. The revolt spread; but, at the call of a new leader, who raised the banner of right shorn of weakness and purged of the last taint of bigotry and dark mysticism.

Shibusawa proved the man of the hour, and he brought honesty and intelligence to the rally of courage and patriotism. He arose in his power, put a check upon blind impulse, and set in motion the forces that were to start the wheels of progress, to open the way to a place in the sisterhood of nations. Addressing a letter to the mikado he said: