A Fantasy of Far Japan; Or, Summer Dream Dialogues

by Kencho Suematsu

—'The use of firearms in Japan,' I answered, 'dates back only about three and a half centuries. A Portuguese trading-vessel which arrived in 1543 at the islands of Tanegashima, off the southern coasts of Kiusiu, is reputed to have brought a few firearms, and it is said they were the first firearms introduced into Japan, and that they served as a model to us for making others. Hence the name "Tanegashima" had come to signify sometimes "firearms" even down to our own time. A few years afterwards more Portuguese ships arrived at the province of Bungo, in Kiusiu, and brought with them more firearms. At the time a great deal of foreign trade was carried on in that province by Chinese and Portuguese trading-ships. Otomo, the prince of the province, even became a Christian convert, and it is said that he was one of the converted feudal lords who sent missions to Rome. Repute gives it that those firearms were brought by the missionaries, and the prince took his first fancy to them on account of their bringing such useful weapons. In no time the manufacture and use of firearms made their way into many parts of the country. It is said that at the war of Nagasino, which was fought in 1575 between Takeda on one side and Oda and Tokugawa on the other, there were three thousand firearms on the latter side, which seems to have been the war in which the largest number of firearms was used. Of course, the firearms of those days were all matchlocks, and, moreover, they were not considered arms of honour. Firearm companies were formed of the commonest soldiers, and generally used for skirmishes before the commencement of regular fighting. Cannon were also known soon after the introduction of ordinary firearms, but they do not seem to have been much in use. As a matter of fact, before much improvement had been made in the use of firearms, peace returned, and lasted over two hundred years, so that we had little more than matchlocks, which were chiefly used for shooting game. Since the latter part of the eighteenth century, when the Western ships began to appear on the Far Eastern seas, the "coast defence question" had aroused public attention, and the necessity for having strong firearms presented itself. Cannon began to be cast and ordinary guns also, by the different feudal lords. It was then that the bells in most of the temples in most provinces were confiscated, to be thrown into the furnace and recast as, cannon. Perhaps you know that the Japanese temple bells are many times bigger than those ordinarily used in the Western churches and temples. They have no tongues, but are sounded by a large wooden pendulum suspended close to them. The sound, therefore, is deep and sonorous, quite different from the tinkling noise of the Western bells. Those bells used to report certain hours of the day, and it was a charm, especially in country parts, in the midst of nature, to listen to their soft clang. Those chimes were favourite themes in poetry, but most localities are now deprived of that charm for the reason I have just given. As time went on, the Western guns of modern type began to make their way into the country. They were commonly known as the "bayoneted guns." They were a rude kind of gun compared with the modern ones, and, of course, not breach-loaders. In those days the making of guns was not much advanced, even in Europe itself. When the English squadron bombarded Kagoshima, the English ships fared rather badly. They had anchored too near the fortress, in defiance of our cannon, and one ship left behind her anchor in trying to escape the firing from the land. Our skill in casting guns and cannon was not much advanced then, and yet, as one may perceive, we were on the road to success. Looking back in general at the changes in the mode of fighting, the latter days of the Tokugawa régime was the great epoch. It was then that war recommenced, after more than two centuries of peace, and its mode had entirely changed from that of times gone by, and the notion of single combat was totally discarded. At present no one remembers bows and arrows, except perhaps for sporty and still less spears. Swords, indeed, we still value, but rather as a reminiscence of old times, and not as an effective weapon. We have made many new guns and cannon, improved on the Western models, and they are our weapons of to-day.'

—'And all those reforms,' said one, 'in polity, in finance, in the army and navy, were effected with the perfect concord of the whole nation, without a hitch?'

'Not exactly. On broad lines the bulk of the people was with the Government and followed its lead. But we reaped all these fruits at much expense of blood and money. You could not but expect to see among the people at large some who did not exactly approve the methods pursued by the Government. To them the policy of the Government sometimes appeared too radical and hazardous, and thus one group or another showed from time to time their dissent. In those days when people were determined to assume a dissenting attitude, it generally took the shape of physical force, in other word, "revolt." Chosiu itself had had two such revolts, but they had been easily crushed. Chosiu had had a civil strife before the restoration, and in consequence the elements of political differences within the clan had been almost thoroughly unified. Most of its able men devoted their services to the Imperial Government. The old territory of the clan was one of the prefectures which thoroughly submitted to the Imperial administration with perfect confidence, from the very moment when the feudal system was abolished, so much so, that the first governor despatched there by the Imperial Government was originally a retainer of the Shogunate and had fought against the Imperialists. The revolters had therefore not much sympathy from the people, nor had they any means, guns, or ammunition, to turn to their advantage against the Imperialists, and yet it shows that even the Chosiu men themselves were unable to get on altogether harmoniously. The saddest and the gravest case, however, was that of the Satsuma war, which took place in 1877. It was only after that war that the progressive administration of the new Government was placed on a firm and solid basis, and the surviving influence of the old feudal time disappeared altogether.'

—'Since your explanation has reached as far as that stage,' said one, 'I am anxious to know something about the real cause and circumstances which occasioned that war.'

—'It requires some explanation,' I replied. 'You already know that Satsuma was one of the few most powerful clans. Its history and organisation were different from other clans. And also, unlike Chosiu, it had not had an outbreak of civil strife within the clan before the Restoration period. Its clansmen fought many battles, but it never had any occasion to form voluntary bands as did Chosiu, and therefore it had had no opportunity of observing that the troops recruited from all classes were equal, if not superior, to the Samurai troops. The two greatest statesmen of the clan were Saigo the elder, and Okubo, but as I have indicated already, they differed in the course of their career, as well as in their natural propensity. Saigo had been a devout Imperialist from the beginning, and there were several romantic episodes about his life. Once, in despair, he, together with an Imperialist monk, jumped into the sea. He was rescued, and had to spend years on an island in banishment. Okubo always played the part of a politician. His imperialism had not become quite marked and decisive until almost within the last few years preceding the Restoration. Naturally, therefore, there were in Satsuma some men who were more partial to Saigo and others more inclined to Okubo. There was another group of men, differing from both, namely, the partisans of the real father of the Prince of Satsuma. The late Prince of Satsuma, the predecessor and uncle of the prince in question, had been an able and enlightened man, almost unparalleled by any of the contemporary feudal lords. He had had much leaning towards Western enlightenment. An incident is told of his strength of character in regard to the visit of a Dutchman whom he had invited to Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma. He went to the port and rode with him side by side back to his residence. At the time an anti-foreign spirit was still strong among the Samurai, and by his riding side by side with the Dutchman he intimated that if the Satsuma Samurai were determined to attack the foreigner, they must also at the same time attack him.'

—'But stop,' said one, 'was not the time you are speaking of before the bombardment of Kagoshima and Simonoseki? I have always understood that Satsuma and Chosiu were fierce anti-foreign clans.'

—'Yes, it was before those bombardments. The Prince of Satsuma, whom I have just spoken of, died somewhere about 1860. I do not remember the exact date. It is true those two clans were anti-foreign towards the latter days of the Tokugawa régime, but it does not follow that they had always been the same. The acceleration of the idea was much due to the circumstances of the time, which require explanation. At the time of that prince, he and his government had shown much inclination towards Western intercourse. As a matter of fact, it is even said some trade was secretly carried on between Satsuma and the Dutchmen at an island in the Southern Sea. The old bottles marked Soy, which one sometimes finds in Holland, are said to have been the bottles which contained our Shoyu and to have been imported into Holland at that time. Even Chosiu was not at first so fierce an anti-foreign clan as it became later on. The Prince of Chosiu had a few medical retainers who were well versed in the Dutch language. He used to collect information about Europe from them. They even translated for him some European extracts, and compiled them into the form of a periodical pamphlet, which may be said to have been the very beginning of the Japanese newspapers. He was one of the few feudal lords who first introduced the system of vaccination in their territory. He established a glass factory in his province. He also made experiments in the art of photography. All this took place before the bombardment of Simonoseki. It is, therefore, wrong to suppose that either Satsuma or Chosiu knew nothing of the West before they were bombarded. Besides, the fault which had originated the bombardment of Kagoshima lay in reality in the miscalculation which had been shown by an Anglo-Saxon. Nevertheless, we had to pay the indemnity all the same, in addition to having been bombarded. But to return to my subject. The Prince of Satsuma, who died somewhere about 1860, as I have just told you, had no heir of his own, and was succeeded by the young son of his brother, whom he had adopted. That brother was the famous Shimazu-Saburo, who acted as regent for the young prince. For that reason, he also exercised much influence in the clan, and at one time played the part of the real ruler of Satsuma. His character, however, differed very much from that of his deceased brother. He was also a man of ability, but rather conservative, and his sympathy was not much with the sweeping reforms of Japan on European lines. He sometimes held office in the new Imperial Government, but spent more of his time in retirement in Satsuma. Saigo the elder, also was not a man who cared to toil in ordinary administrative affairs, and after the cabinet crisis in 1873 on the Corean question, he retired to Kagoshima. From all this you can see that there remained in Satsuma strong conservative element, which could not be looked upon as a negligible quantity. As a matter of fact, Satsuma was the only locality where the Imperial Government found it not expedient to enforce rigorously all the new progressive measures, which it did in all other localities. Unlike Chosiu, the governor and his subordinates, though officially nominated by the central Government, were men belonging to the province and sharing those conservative sentiments, and therefore at heart not the faithful executors of the will of the central Government. At last the province rose in revolt against the central Government in 1877.

—'To detail the matter a little further,' I continued, 'when Saigo retired to Kagoshima in 1873, many of his admirers and followers, especially those in the army, also resigned their offices, and retired to Satsuma, whilst many others, including Saigo the younger, namely the brother of the elder Saigo, remained in the service of the Government with Okubo. Thus Satsuma men were practically divided into two parties, many near relatives and friends having taken different sides. As time went on the distance between them became greater and greater. In Satsuma the so-called private schools were organised in different parts of the province by the chief followers of Saigo the elder, though he himself mostly indulged in hunting. Those schools in reality were utilised for gathering together young men to serve latent designs of the organisers. It is a doubtful point of history how far Saigo himself was cognisant of those matters, but one thing is certain, that he did not exactly discourage them. When some time back Yamagata mooted the proposal for the universal service system, Saigo, who was then fulfilling an important position in the army, was persuaded to agree. Again, when the final abolition of the feudal system was decided upon, he joined the cabinet almost for that special purpose, and his weight went a long way in achieving that aim. It has always remained doubtful whether Shimazu Saburo was in accord with the scheme, but the matter was carried out by Okubo and Saigo in conjunction with influential statesmen of other clans. Hence we can see that Saigo was also in the main on the lines of progressive policy. It may, however, be presumed that, intelligent and well educated as he was in the Oriental sense, he had not any deep insight into the European civilisation. Besides, his personal character and proclivity were not exactly fit to appreciate radical changes, which to him must have appeared somewhat frivolous. Then, too, after his retirement to Kagoshima, many governmental measures were often misrepresented to him as the result of thoughtless actions of Okubo and others, and it was also possible that many personal scandalous misrepresentations were made about those in power. Hence it is to be presumed that Saigo also felt some desirability of modifying the trend of the national policy. When, therefore, his followers committed an act which was irreconcilable with the peaceful observation of the laws of the land and which soon assumed attitudes of revolt, Saigo became their head without any overt action and almost as a result of the natural course of events. The revolters numbered forty-five thousand. Individually, Saigo was the most popular man in the whole empire. The Imperial army at the time did not number much more than the revolters. It was a most critical time for the Government, which only succeeded in suppressing the rebels after many sanguinary battles. It is well worth remembering that in the case of the Satsuma men, many near relatives and close friends had to fight one against the other, because a large number of them was on the side of the Government as well. Casual observers of the outside world may say it was barbarous that such people should fight one against the other, but such is often the case when a nation undergoes a great change. I may reiterate that it was a very critical time for Japan, for if the rebels had been victorious, there was a grave fear that the progressive policy would have been seriously hindered and a military despotism would have reigned in the country. It was absolutely necessary to crush the rebels at the point of the bayonet, however great and popular Saigo might have been and however meritorious his antecedents. I for one have some consolation in saying that I have done some little service to my country by being the first to formulate and publish the views of the situation I have just spoken of, and to lead the public opinion in that direction, before any other dared to do so. I received several threatening letters at the time, but suffered no actual attack. Towards the latter part of that war I was on the battlefield, and was one of the few who assisted at the last hour in washing Saigo's head, which had been found and dug up. The head had been buried hastily in a small ditch by one of his captains, who, when Saigo had been fatally wounded in the last battle, cut it off at his own request, while the fray was still raging, to prevent it falling into the hands of the enemy. I remember there were present Marshal Yamagata, Marshal Oyama, and General Nozu.'

—'What had become of Shimazu Saburo at the time of the war?' asked another.

—'He was in Kagoshima,' I answered, 'but he kept aloof together with some devoted followers: the rebels also seem to have preferred to leave him alone. In the course of years he died a natural and honourable death, to the great regret of the emperor and the nation. Okubo was assassinated a few years after the war by a small group of young men who had been zealous supporters of Saigo. Taking into consideration all that I have related, you will clearly see that the present-day Japan has by no means been built upon a bed of roses.'