Although the Shogun had embarked on the Kaiyo Maru on the 27th January at Tempo-san, she did not immediately sail for the gulf of Tokio, but took part in the memorable sea-fight which occurred near Kobé shortly afterwards. Late on the 27th the dwellers in the newly opened foreign settlement saw from the esplanade that the Kaiyo Maru, together with the Ban-riyo Maru (which was in reality the Emperor yacht that Queen Victoria had presented to the Shogun), and Fusiyama, a steamer that the Shogunate had bought, arrived from Osaka, at a time when there were three vessels of the prince of Satsuma’s little fleet in Kobé harbour. When their adversaries steamed in the Satsuma ships were preparing to leave, but they waited until dawn, and then got under weigh. The Kaiyo immediately sent two shots after them, and one of the Satsuma vessels, originally named the Kiang-su, turned and slowly steamed round the harbour, as a challenge, and then followed her consorts the Scotland and the Lotus. The three Shogunate vessels instantly accepted the gage of battle, and all six ships disappeared below the horizon to the southward. The fight took place in Awa bay, which faces Kobé, on the Shikoku coast, about forty miles from that now well-known and flourishing port. The Scotland was sunk, and another of the Satsuma ships took fire. No precise knowledge is obtainable as to what damages the remaining vessels received but the Kaiyo Maru, Emperor yacht, and Fusiyama were able to reach Shinagawa, close to Tokio, on the 4th of the ensuing month, exactly a week after they left Kobé. Immediately on his arrival there the Shogun landed and went to his castle, now the imperial residence.
Yedo, now Tokio, was at that time still the headquarters of the Shogunate, and while stirring events had taken place in the vicinity of the Ten-shi’s capital of Kioto, scarcely less exciting incidents had had to be recorded in respect of the Shogun’s centre of authority in the north. The duty of keeping the peace in Yedo had been assigned to the dai-mio Sakai Sayemon-no-jo, a magnate whose income was that of 150,000 koku.[1] To assist in the work he had engaged a number of ro-nin, or masterless samurai, whom he dubbed the Shin-Cho-gumi, lit.: newly raised company, and installed as a species of police. Finding that the dwellers in the Satsuma Yashiki at Mita, adjoining Shiba, where now stands the Shiba palace, were somewhat addicted to burglary, he determined to put a stop to such irregularities, and demanded of the clansmen then resident in the yashiki that the culprits should be surrendered to justice. In the temper of the samurai of all classes in those days of storm and stress a peremptory demand of this nature was tantamount to a challenge to a trial of strength, and a desperate combat ensued at Mita, in which fifty of the Satsuma men were killed outright. Some contrived to make good their escape to a Satsuma vessel that was at the moment in the harbour of Shinagawa (one of the three that afterwards fought at Awa Bay) and she quickly got up steam and weighed anchor. Four Shogunate ships lying off Shinagawa fired on her as she passed them, and two—the Eagle and the Dumbarton—were able to take up the chase. The Eagle and the Satsuma vessel had a long running fight, following an encounter in Mississippi Bay, near Yokohama, which the residents of that port were privileged to witness on the Sunday afternoon, and in the end the Satsuma champion sped away to the southward and the Eagle returned to her anchorage at Shinagawa. In the Mita fight between the Shin-Cho-gumi and other Shogunate men and the retainers of Satsuma the yashiki was practically burned to the ground and the bodies of the fallen were cremated within its walls. It goes without saying that the deadly animosity which existed between the Satsuma and Tokugawa followers was in no sense diminished by these active hostilities.
[1] In those days the standing of a feudal lord among his fellows was in strict accord with his income, and some dai-mios enjoyed enormous revenues as expressed in koku—1 koku = 5 bushels of rice.
In resigning into the hands of the Emperor a power that had for two and a half centuries been wielded by the Tokugawa family the Shogun Keiki issued the manifesto which is here reproduced according to a translation made at the time, though the dignity and force of the original composition are necessarily somewhat impaired.
Manifesto
“A retrospect of the various changes through which the Empire has passed shows us that after the deadness of the monarchical authority, the power passed into the hands of the Minister of State,—and that by the wars of 1156 to 1159 the governmental power came into the hands of the military class. My ancestor Iyeyasu received greater marks of confidence than any before him, and his descendants have succeeded him for more than two hundred years.
Though I perform the same duties, the objects of the Government and of the penal laws have been missed, and it is with feelings of the greatest humiliation that I find myself obliged to acknowledge my own want of virtue as the cause of the present state of things.
Moreover, our intercourse with foreign countries becomes daily more extensive, and consequently our national policy cannot be pursued unless directed by the whole power of the State.
If therefore the old regime be changed and the Governmental authority be restored to the Imperial Court,—if the counsels of the whole Empire be collected and the wise decisions received,—and if we unite with all our heart and all our strength to protect and maintain the Empire, it will be able to range itself with the nations of the Earth. This comprises our whole duty to our country.
However, if you [the Daimios] have any particular ideas on the subject, you may state them without reserve.”