On the termination of the War of the Restoration Saigo received a grant, for his eminent services to the State, in the form of an estate of the annual value of 2000 Koku, equivalent, if the present-day price of rice be taken as a guide, to £2500 per annum. He retired to his native province and settled at Takemura, a village close to Kagoshima, his life from that time forward being characterised by extreme simplicity, frugality, and the cultivation of his lands with his own hands, until duty once more called him forth from his eminently peaceful pursuits to take part in matters of administration. Although the idol of the samurai, and constantly mixed up in political affairs, as was indeed almost unavoidable in that stage of the national progress, when every prominent man was intimately concerned with one party or another, it was nevertheless contrary to Saigo’s personal tastes to figure as a Government official, and he would infinitely have preferred to roam the hills of Satsuma or Osumi, gun in hand, than to take part in State functions.
In the Government which was formed in 1872 under the presidency of Prince Sanjo, Saigo held the portfolio of Minister of War, and it was at this time that the army of Japan began to take definite shape, Saigo himself being responsible for the general plan on which the establishment of an adequate military force was based. That Japan’s ambition did not soar very high at that time may be gathered from the subjoined figures, which represent approximately the strength in peace time and in war which was then decided upon:—
| In Peace time | In War | Household | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infantry | 26,880 | 40,320 | 3,200 |
| Cavalry | 360 | 450 | 150 |
| Artillery | 2,160 | 2,700 | 300 |
| Engineers | 1,200 | 1,500 | 150 |
| Military Train | 360 | 480 | 80 |
| Marine Artillery | 720 | 900 | ... |
| 31,680 | 46,350 | 3,880 |
It was at about this period that the Korean difficulty began to make itself felt in connection with the administration of the Japanese forces, for there arose a strong party in the State which favoured immediate and resolute action with regard to what was loudly proclaimed to be a stealthy but sure advance of Russia toward the coasts of Japan, an approach that even the coolest and the wisest heads in the Empire could not reflect upon without apprehension. Okubo Toshimichi had placed it on record that “Russia, always pressing southward, is Japan’s principal danger.” The conquest of Korea, as affording a complete check to Russia’s advance, was a step that several of the Cabinet Ministers were eager to embark upon there and then. But in Okubo and Iwakura the nation had two cautious statesmen, as prudent as they were patriotic, and their influence carried the day, though Okubo was Saigo’s fellow-clansman. The annexation of Korea was postponed indefinitely, and those who were the strenuous advocates of the forward policy resigned, among them being Saigo Takamori, and Itagaki Taisuke of the province of Tosa. The standard of revolt was speedily raised in the south, not in Satsuma, for Saigo was not then prepared for such a desperate venture, but in Hizen province, to which belonged Yeto Shimpei, who had been one of Saigo’s colleagues in the Cabinet, as Minister of Justice. Yeto Shimpei and his following were soon put down, and the leader of this abortive undertaking paid the penalty with his life.
But although Saigo had not been in a position to render his former friend any active help, had he been disposed at that stage to embark in open hostilities to the existing Government, it is none the less true that he had devoted the bulk of his income of 2000 koku to the upkeep of a school at Kagoshima, named the Shimpei Shi-gakko, or New Army Private Academy, which was in reality a school for young samurai, belonging to his own clan, wherein were taught the science and theory of modern warfare, and the pupils were numbered by the thousand. Among them the idea was prevalent that the honour of their country had been sullied by the failure to exact an apology from either Korea or its suzerain China for the insults, as they were deemed to be, levelled at Japan during the preceding two or three years. The samurai of the south demanded that they should be led against the Koreans to exact reparation, and when this boon was denied them they murmured against the authorities at Tokio.
In the expectation that it would prove a safety-valve for this excessive eagerness to be revenged upon Korea, the Government of Tokio sought to find a vent for the ebullient enthusiasm of the Satsuma warriors in an expedition to Formosa, to demand redress for the ill treatment of some shipwrecked fishermen by the savages, whom China had professed herself unable to control. This resolve was not taken without having exhausted all ordinary means of obtaining satisfaction, and the supreme charge of the undertaking was given to Saigo’s brother, then Minister of the Navy in the Imperial Cabinet. Satsuma being the province nearest to Formosa, the transports set out from Kiushiu, and the bulk of the troops on which the task devolved of maintaining Japan’s prestige in the field on this occasion were men of Satsuma.
In due course the victorious army returned to Japan, on the completion of an Agreement with China whereby the Peking Government bound itself to repay to Japan the expense which it had incurred, but it was not until the British Minister, Sir Thomas Wade, had intervened to prevent a complete severance of relations between Japan and China, consequent upon the indisposition of the Tsung-Li Ya-men to fall in with Japan’s views, that a rupture was avoided. Okubo Toshimichi, Japan’s representative in the negotiations, was actually on the point of taking his departure from the Chinese capital when the Chinese besought the British Minister to rescue them from the predicament into which their procrastination had led them. China paid half a million taels toward Japan’s expenses, and the affair was at an end for the time, Satsuma receiving back the survivors of the contingent that she had sent out a few months before, with regret that fever had decimated their ranks, but with pride that her drilled troops had acquitted themselves so well in the day of trial.
The attitude of Korea continued to be in every way a source of anxiety, however, to the Imperial Cabinet, and though in 1875 an agreement was made whereby Korea was opened to foreign trade, and ratified on the 26th February, of the next year, termed the treaty of Kokwa, the war party in Japan was by no means willing to accept this as a solution of the problem. 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. It was Saigo’s wish to chastise Korea and bring her into complete subjection to Japan, but the Government of the day thought otherwise, and meanwhile the Shimpei Shi-gakko persevered with its drills, and the pupils regarded Saigo Takamori as a misjudged man whose most patriotic wishes were being ignored at Tokio.