Loochoo will be remembered as the place which Perry made his base of operations before negotiating the Treaty of 1853. The principality—for in those days there was a prince to whom his own subjects, the Chinese, and even the Japanese, gave the title of King—consisted of the large island of Okinawa and nine outlying groups which are situated some two hundred miles south of Japan, according to the latter’s geographical limits at that time. By a curious “Box and Cox” sort of arrangement, which lent itself to the relations then existing between Loochoo and her more powerful neighbours, and seems to have had the tacit sanction of each suzerain, the principality regarded itself as a dependency of both China and Japan, paying tribute to each as its “parents,” in the phraseology of the day. The payment of tribute to China dated from the fourteenth century; that to Japan from the beginning of the seventeenth, when the islands were conquered by the Satsuma clan. In the winter of 1872–3 some Loochooans who were shipwrecked on the coast of Formosa (then a part of China) had met with ill-treatment at the hands of savages in that island. When news of the outrage reached Japan, which was not for some months, the Japanese Government made representations at Peking. As the Chinese authorities refused to accept responsibility for the acts of the savages, an expedition was fitted out in Japan in May, 1894, with the object of exacting reparation from the offending tribe. General Saigō Tsugumichi, the younger brother of the ex-Councillor of State, from whom he was distinguished by his progressive views, was placed in command of the Japanese forces, which consisted of some three thousand men. China retaliated by sending troops of her own to Formosa, and for a time there was every prospect of a collision. The difficulty was eventually settled through the intervention of the British Minister at Peking. The Chinese Government agreed to pay an indemnity, and the expedition returned to Japan after an absence of six months.

The dispute with China over Loochoo was thus settled for the time being, but a few years later, in 1879, when Japan formally annexed the islands and the King was removed to Tōkiō, the Chinese Government impugned her action on the ground that Loochoo was a tributary state owing allegiance to China. The incident became the subject of lengthy discussion between Peking and Tōkiō, in the course of which the advice of General Grant, ex-President of the United States, who was then visiting Japan, is said to have been sought by Japanese Ministers; but in the end the matter was allowed to drop without any definite understanding being arrived at.

The difficulty with Korea, which had been the ostensible cause of the first rupture in the new Government, was also settled by a show of force without recourse to actual hostilities. In the summer of 1875 a Japanese surveying vessel was fired at whilst surveying the river leading to the Korean capital. General (later Count) Kuroda and Mr. (afterwards Marquis) Inouyé, who was a native of Chōshiū, were sent with ships of war to demand satisfaction. The Korean Government offered apologies, and the envoys concluded a Treaty which opened two Korean ports to Japanese trade.

An incident in Japan’s foreign relations occurring about this time, which calls for passing notice, is the arrangement made with Russia in regard to Saghalien. In the Treaty of 1858 between Russia and Japan the island was declared to be a joint possession of the two Powers. The Tokugawa Government subsequently proposed the 50th parallel of north latitude as the boundary between the two countries, but no final decision was arrived at. After the Restoration the Japanese Government reopened negotiations on the subject through the medium of the United States, proposing the same boundary. The Russian Government, however, would not accept this solution of the difficulty. Eventually the two Powers concluded an agreement at the Russian capital by which Russia gave the Kurile islands, to which her claim was doubtful, to Japan in exchange for Saghalien.

Neither the Formosan expedition, nor the resolute measures taken in regard to Korea, had any salutary effect upon the general discontent amongst the shizoku, the pacific settlement of both matters having frustrated any hopes which might have been formed of military employment in a foreign campaign. The settlement of the Korean question was denounced as a weak surrender, and the Ministry were condemned for making a Treaty on a footing of equality with a country which acknowledged the suzerainty of China, thus compromising the dignity of Japan. Nor, in spite of the appointment of prominent Satsuma men to the chief command of each expedition, and the inclusion of the Satsuma noble Shimadzu in the Government in the high position of Sadaijin, or second Minister of State, was there any improvement in the attitude of the clan.

In the course of 1876 there were two other risings, both promptly suppressed, in Chōshiū and Higo, and by this time the state of affairs in Satsuma caused great anxiety to the Government. The tone of semi-independence assumed, as has already been pointed out, by that clan during the Tokugawa rule was maintained after the Restoration. In other provinces the work of administrative unification had progressed quickly and smoothly, local officials being now frequently chosen from other parts of the country. But in Satsuma there was a refusal to accept any official who was not a native of the province. Some comfort there might be for the Government in the fact that the clan had abstained from making common cause with the rebellious clansmen in other provinces, and that the relations between the two chief leaders, Shimadzu and the elder Saigō, continued to be strained. But these considerations were outweighed by others.

Of all the measures introduced, or contemplated, by the new Government, those to which the strongest objection was felt by the shizoku everywhere were the establishment of conscription, the compulsory commutation of pensions, and the prohibition of the practice of wearing swords. The last of these measures came into force in January, 1877. That conscription should be viewed with disfavour by the former military class was only natural, if only for the reason that its adoption by opening a military career to all classes of the nation offended ancient prejudices, besides being a death-blow to any hope entertained by reactionary clansmen of reviving feudalism. The commutation of pensions had, as we have seen, been arranged in 1871, when feudalism was abolished. But the system then introduced was voluntary. Now it was made compulsory. Occurring when it did, it provoked resentment. The wearing of swords had also at the same date been made optional. The prohibition now enforced mattered little to the shizoku of the towns, many of whom had welcomed the opportunity of relinquishing a custom not without inconvenience to town-dwellers, and offering no longer any advantage. But to those in the provinces, with whose traditions and habits the wearing of swords was intimately associated, the change was most distasteful. It was, moreover, precisely in Satsuma and one or two neighbouring clans that the option of not wearing swords had been availed of least. To the Satsuma malcontents, whose military preparations included sword exercise, it might well appear that the prohibition was aimed specially at them.

CHAPTER XII
Local Risings—Satsuma Rebellion—Two-Clan Government.

When mentioning in a previous chapter the occurrence of dissensions in the Ministry soon after the Restoration, attention was drawn to a point of some importance—the division of feeling which existed in several of the clans. This was most conspicuous in Satsuma, Chōshiū and Mito. Even before the Restoration the contentions of rival parties had led in Chōshiū to grave disorders, which had weakened that clan in its conflict with the Tokugawa Government; while in Mito the struggle of opposing factions, supporting, respectively, the Shōgunate, and the Court party represented by the old Prince of Mito, had resulted in prolonged and fierce fighting. Though in Satsuma the rivalry of individual leaders had stopped short of open hostilities, the division of feeling was not less marked. There, as has been pointed out, the situation was complicated by the existence of no less than three parties—two conservative groups led, respectively, by the old noble Shimadzu, the father of the young ex-daimiō, and by the elder Saigō, the latter being at once the most influential and most numerous; and a third—the party of reform—which looked for guidance, amongst other prominent men, to Ōkubo, Kuroda, Matsugata, Kawamura and the younger Saigō. After the Restoration the condition of things became less unsettled in Mito, and to some extent also in Chōshiū. But in Satsuma the division of feeling remained unaltered, a circumstance which, added to separatist tendencies that stood in the way of combined action, was, in the sequel, of much benefit to the Government.

We have touched on the general and special causes which brought about, first a rupture in the Ministry, then the earlier risings in Hizen, Chōshiū and Higo, and lastly the Satsuma rebellion. One other reason, not yet mentioned, was personal and clan jealousies and ambitions. What the disaffected clans and individuals wanted was a larger share of power. All, perhaps, over-estimated their share in the accomplishment of the Restoration. They had, they considered, paid the piper, and they wished to call the tune.