Part 13

Of the character of Sakuma Shozan it is impossible to write in terms of too high praise. By his countrymen he is universally esteemed a martyr to the sacred cause of enlightened progress. He was unselfish in the extreme, ever willing to aid others with his learning, a man of lofty ideals, of unrivalled ability to forecast the future and prepare himself, as he strove to prepare others, for its inevitable changes and transformations. His was patriotism of the purest type, for he had everything to lose and absolutely naught to gain by seeking to popularise in Japan the institutions of the West. He was in advance of his age, and shared the fate of many a reformer in other lands. He realised, at a time when it was fatal to entertain views so heretical, that the days of Japan’s complete liberty to choose a course for herself had passed, and that she would be driven to consort with the other nations of the earth if she would avoid the fate which was seen to have overtaken some other Asiatic peoples and potentates. He suffered for his boldness in criticising the then existing order of things, and a perusal of his later poems will serve to indicate the extent to which he was willing that the nation should go forward in its adoption of Western ideas and appliances, for they are eminently inspiring and resolute in tone, encouraging in every line the pursuit of knowledge with the single purpose of providing for the national defence and the retention of the independence of the land for which he prophesied the most brilliant future. Sakuma was the great forerunner of that distinguished band of patriots who, in some cases at the sacrifice of their lives, and always by the whole-souled devotion of their best energies, helped to make Modern Japan.

V

YOSHIDA TORAJIRO (OTHERWISE SHO-IN)

During the reign of the Emperor Nin-ko, in the first year of the Tempo era, which corresponded to A.D. 1830, there was born in Cho-shiu province, south-west Niphon, Yoshida Torajiro, the son of _samurai_ parents, who were retainers of the dai-mio Mori, the lord of the fief. Yoshida’s birthplace was the little village of Matsushita (Under the pines), close to the town of Hagi, on the west coast of Niphon, facing the peninsula of Korea. From his earliest years Yoshida was an ardent student of Chinese literature, and exhibited an extreme cleverness as a child that won for him uncommon fame in the district. So proficient had he become in this department of study that at the age of eleven he was called on to lecture on a topic of military history in the presence of his feudal chieftain, the dai-mio Mori Kei-shin, and his erudition was the source of the utmost astonishment to his hearers. When he was nineteen he set out on a tour through the island of Kiu-shiu, his main object being to make the acquaintance of those prominent men in the south of Japan who just then had raised the cry of “loyalty to the Emperor, expulsion of all foreigners.” This sentiment, it will be observed, did not have its origin in the later fifties, as might have been supposed from the frequency with which it was then heard, after Perry’s visits had led to the conclusion of treaties of peace and amity, but was prevalent as far back as the year 1849, when the only aliens in the country were a few Dutchmen at Nagasaki. The feeling at that time was perhaps only local, for it was to the vicinity of that port that Yoshida wended his way in the evident belief that he would there meet with those who most strongly entertained this opinion of the proper course to be taken with the intruders. No doubt his youthful impressions had been stimulated by the reading of the _Nihon Gaishi_, a work on Japanese history, written by Rai Sanyo, that at that period was intensely popular. His father’s influence, moreover, was all in the same direction, and the circumstances all point to Yoshida’s having imbibed principles that were distinctly adverse to the retention of foreigners in the country under any conditions whatever. Precisely what effect his travels in Kiushiu had on his mind can never be known, but it may be assumed with tolerable safety that he journeyed to Nagasaki and there saw the Dutchmen dwelling in their own fashion in the quaint little settlement of Deshima, where they were all but prisoners, though allowed to carry on their trade.

In the meantime the Emperor Ko-mei, father of the reigning monarch, had succeeded Ninko on the throne, and the era bore the title of Ka-ei. It lasted until 1854, and it was when it was in its fourth year that Yoshida went to Yedo and there met, as described in a previous chapter, with Sakuma Shozan, whose pupil he became. At this time Sakuma was forty years old, and Yoshida was twenty-two. From their first meeting Yoshida recognised in the elder man a greatness of intellect and grandeur of aim that fascinated him, and led him there and then to appreciate the opportunity afforded him of becoming Sakuma’s disciple. More especially was he convinced of the soundness of Sakuma’s views on the importance of coast defence, and at his suggestion undertook a journey into the provinces of Sagami and Awa, with the express object of searching out the most suitable positions, from a strategical point of view, for the defence of Yedo Bay. It will be perceived, as constituting a matter of no trifling interest, that the defence of the coast was under anxious consideration two years at least prior to the arrival off Uraga of Commodore Perry and his squadron of “black ships,” so that it cannot be said that these measures were proposed as a direct consequence of the American expedition’s advent in Japanese waters. After visiting Awa and Sagami Yoshida went north to the Tsugaru Straits and Hakodate, having the same purpose ever before him, the strengthening of his country’s defences against the intrusion of foreign powers.

In 1853, the year of Perry’s arrival, Yoshida was again in Yedo, but in September of that year he went once more to Nagasaki. His secret purpose was then to embark for Europe in a Russian cruiser, but by the time he reached the port named the vessel had sailed, so that his hopes were entirely frustrated. Sakuma had recommended him to make his way to Europe, if possible, because, as he said, if Yoshida desired to form an adequate idea of the most efficient means of providing for the security of the Japanese coasts it was first requisite that he should fully comprehend the conditions under which the protection of their own coasts was successfully undertaken by foreign nations. It was on this advice that he sought by every means at his command to obtain a passage to some foreign land, and in the following year, when the American warships again visited Uraga, Yoshida made his next attempt, in company with a faithful servant who very possibly hoped also to get away to a land where there would be no restrictions on their movements, and entire liberty of thought could be secured. It is a matter for regret that his ambitions in this regard were once more frustrated, for in Yoshida there can be no doubt that Japan had a truly patriotic son, one who, had the opportunity been afforded him, would have achieved distinct success in the direction which he had marked out for himself, the preservation of Japan for the Japanese. In Yoshida’s case, as in all others with which I am acquainted, the innate patriotism that he had inherited had been aroused and stimulated by the experiences that the neighbouring Chinese Empire had undergone. In common with other people in the Far East, he had heard of the occupation of Canton, and of Chusan, of the expedition up the Yang-tsu-kiang, and of the forcible opening to foreign commerce of the ports of Ningpo, Amoy, and Shanghai. Such doings were of dire portent for the dwellers in Dai Niphon, for if the Chinese, who for so many centuries had in the arts and sciences led Japan, found themselves reduced to the necessity of conforming to the will of the Western invaders, by reason of a laxity in preparation for national defence, how much more incumbent must it be upon the Japanese, with only their islands to call their own, and no hinterland to retire into, strenuously to make ready for eventualities. Yoshida’s request for a passage to the United States was refused,—Commodore Perry mentions him as Isagi Kooda,—and he was imprisoned for having attempted to quit Japan at a time when emigration was forbidden.

In the following year Yoshida was confined to his own house at Matsushima, in the province of Cho-shiu, but a year later, in the third of the An-sei era, the discipline was so far relaxed as to admit of his taking pupils for the study of military books. It was probably at this period that he wrote to a Court noble, by name Ohara Shigetami, who held very similar views on the subject of the foreigners’ invasion, begging him to visit Cho-shiu for the purpose of starting an agitation there in favour of the “expulsion of barbarians and the restoration of the Ten-shi to supreme control,” that twofold object on which a majority of the patriots of the age laid stress in the belief that its attainment was wholly indispensable to the welfare of the nation. In truth Yoshida’s teaching of military subjects was little more than a cover for the inoculation of his pupils with the principles of a most resolute antagonism to the Bakufu—_i.e._ the system of government by the Tokugawa line of Sho-guns, a plan of vicarious rule in which he could discern nothing for his country but disaster. A school was at this time opened in the village of Matsushima by two uncles of Yoshida Sho-in, named Kubo and Tamaki, and after a while Yoshida succeeded them in the management thereof; it deserves more than a passing reference, for it was destined to be the cradle, as it were, of the revolution of 1868, by which the present Emperor was led to abandon the life of utter seclusion that it had for centuries been customary for the occupants of the Japanese throne to lead, and to take upon himself the actual rule of his dominions. Among those who attended this school were not a few to whom fell the lot of fighting, a short time afterwards, at Fushimi, in the tremendous contest for supremacy which took place between the adherents of the Sho-gun and those who sided with Choshiu and Satsuma.

Yoshida conducted the village school for two years and a half, from July 1856 to December 1858, but in the latter month he was arrested, and thrown into gaol for having, it was alleged, incited his pupils to plot against the Tokugawa dynasty, and planned the assassination, his enemies asserted, of the Minister Manabe Norikatsu, a member of the Government. It is certain, whatever degree of guilt may have attached to him in other respects, that he consistently challenged the wisdom of the Tokugawa’s foreign policy, and advocated most zealously the abolition of that form of administration, becoming in consequence the object of a most determined persecution by the Yedo Government.

After an incarceration lasting five months in his native province he was transferred to the Temmacho Prison in Yedo, and its doors closed over him in July 1859. On the 27th of October following he was decapitated in obedience to the orders of the Bakufu, and thus at the early age of twenty-nine ended the career of one of Japan’s most earnest patriots. While his aim was the retention of Japan for the Japanese, and his determined antagonism to the Shogunate arose from its willingness to enter into treaties for the opening of the Empire to foreign trade, the object sought by his followers was the destruction of the Tokugawa dynasty itself, and their opposition to foreign intercourse proceeded not from antipathy to the Occidentals so much as from a paramount desire to put an end to the dual form of administration. The cry of “Expulsion of the Alien” was raised by Yoshida’s disciples in the expectation that acts inimical to the strangers would embroil the Bakufu with those Western Powers, the subjects of which were by degrees attaining a foothold in the country, and that government by the Shogunate would then become an impossibility.

VI

MARQUIS ITO

A Statesman of transcendent ability, the Marquis Ito Hirobumi of necessity has his detractors. By the vast majority of the nation, however, his political views are deemed wholly acceptable, and in regard to the value of his services to his country there are not in Japan two opinions. He was born in September 1841, at Kumagé, in the province of Cho-shiu, otherwise Nagato, in south-west Japan. By birth a samurai, he spent his boyhood in studies suitable to his station in life, and became proficient in the military exercises which were prescribed for the retainers of the feudal barons, but from the time of Commodore Perry’s arrival in 1853 his aspirations became directed into a new channel, and his reading especially took a turn in the direction of the adaptation of foreign methods to the needs of Japan. In this he was associated with many of his fellow-clansmen whose names have become in later years household words in the country of their birth, and are almost equally well known to the people of other lands. Yamagata, Kido, Takasugi, Yamao, Inouye Kaoru, with many others who have since risen to fame, were fellow-students of the political and military systems of the Occidental nations, striving desperately to acquire information that should guide them in their project of raising their country to the level of the leading powers of the world.

[Illustration: MARQUIS ITO]

The little knot of reformers was headed by Takasugi, a man of samurai rank who was considerably the senior of his colleagues in age, and one of the earliest acts of the party, on ascertaining the attitude of the lord of the province towards the Bakufu, was to put itself in a posture of something like rebellion against his authority. The reformers sought to organise a substantial resistance in Cho-shiu to the policy of the Shogun, who had, it was urged, betrayed the best interests of his country by entering into treaties with foreigners. Ostensibly, if not actually, the leaders of this anti-Bakufu league were hostile to innovations from the Occident, but they were willing to avail themselves of Western arts and sciences to the end that their own position might be strengthened to oppose the Shogun’s administration, and accordingly we find the new military system gaining ground notwithstanding the avowed antagonism of the reformers to the invasion of their country by the originators of that system.

At Hagi, a town beautifully situated on the west coast of Nagato, and the castle town of the lord of that province, the reformers gradually matured their plans and drilled a small army of their fellow-samurai in the martial exercises of the West as set forth in books of which they had become possessed at Nagasaki and elsewhere, mainly in the Dutch tongue. It is recorded of Ito Shunsuke that he earnestly strove to make himself acquainted with Occidental progress, and became by degrees a competent English scholar, thus equipping himself for the course of Western travel which he was able to undertake in the year 1863, when he left his country for the first time on the long voyage to Europe in a sailing vessel belonging to Jardine Matheson & Company of Shanghai, for whom Glover & Company, British merchants of Nagasaki,—a port which had been opened to foreign trade four years previously,—were agents.

Ito Shunsuke, as he was then named, was one of many young men of Samurai rank who, with the view of acquiring information which they felt might the better enable them to do good service to their country, were willing to undergo all kinds of privations and run all risks in order that they might add to their store of knowledge. Glover & Company, as agents for the owners, Jardine Matheson & Company, facilitated the escape of the young men, who were concealed in a garden at Yokohama, their queues having previously been cut off and their hair trimmed in foreign fashion, until the sailing ship was prepared to weigh anchor, when they were stealthily put on board by their English friends. It is due to the Marquis Ito to say that he has never failed to acknowledge in most graceful terms his indebtedness at the outset of his career to the aid he thus received from those who were not of his own land.

On his return to Japan twelve months later he found that his feudal chief, the dai-mio of Cho-shiu, had become involved in a dispute with the Bakufu, or Government of the Sho-gun, concerning right-of-way through the Shimonoseki Straits, which separate the Cho-shiu territory from the adjoining island of Kiu-shiu. The lord of the province was averse to the free entry of foreign vessels into the Inland Sea from the west, and had signified his disapproval by firing on ships that attempted the passage of the straits, from batteries which he had placed on the hills above. The Bakufu had failed to convince the Cho-shiu chieftain that the channel ought to be open to all comers, and despairing of its own ability to put a stop to the systematic interference with foreign shipping, had authorised the admirals of the Western Powers to take such measures as they thought fit. Ito Shunsuke, with his knowledge of the naval and military strength of the Occident amplified by personal inspection at the European capitals, saw that his lord was inviting disaster by his arbitrary treatment of the strangers, and sought to dissuade him from continuing the attacks on passing shipping, but the feudal baron was resolved to persist in his endeavour to check the influx of foreign ideas, and Ito had to return to the ship in which he had taken passage, with this express object in view, from Yokohama, with his mission unfulfilled. The foreign men-of-war had been at the time assembled in Yedo Bay preparatory to setting out for the Inland Sea, on their way to the Shimonoseki Straits to engage the Choshiu batteries, and the two young men of that province, for in this matter Ito was associated with his fellow-clansman Inouye, deemed it expedient to endeavour to convince their lord that however skilful might be the Choshiu gunners, it would be impossible for them to hold their own against the formidable armaments of the Western warships. In this long and self-imposed, and, as it turned out to be, useless journey to the capital of his native province from the coast, Ito was accompanied by this friend and fellow-student Inouye, who had likewise been to Europe with him,—no other than the present Count Inouye Kaoru, who is elsewhere referred to in this book.

To appreciate the nature of the services thus early rendered to his clan and to the nation at large, it must be remembered that the laws under which emigration to countries abroad was prohibited, and which had been framed in the days of Iyeyasu, were still in force. Special permission was needed for any Japanese to quit his native shores, and in case of surreptitious departure without the formality having been observed it was somewhat risky to return. Ito and Inouye had contrived to reach Europe without complying with the regulations, and were liable to certain penalties in consequence, so that in undertaking to visit Choshiu with the object of making representations to their chieftain Mori they had to brave his anger for their disobedience to the regulations in the first place, apart from the character of their mission, which was, to say the least of it, one not calculated to appease the wrath of a noble who held strong views on the subject of dealings with foreigners in general. The journey from the little coast town in the Inland Sea where the envoys, garbed as doctors of medicine, were put ashore by a boat from the British warship _Barrosa_ in which they had come south from Yokohama was not more than sixteen Japanese leagues (forty English miles) in length, but the track lay across mountains, and the only means of conveyance were _kago_ of the type used in the hills, mere baskets slung from poles borne on the shoulders of two men, who walked at about four miles an hour. The mission, as already said, was a complete failure, for the lord of Cho-shiu refused to pay any attention to the letters from Foreign Ambassadors, or to listen to the faintest suggestion that his batteries were not a match for anything that the foreign ships might carry, and he was resolved that the gates of Bakan,—otherwise Akamagaseki, the Red Horse Barrier,—should not be thrown open without a struggle. The _Barrosa_ returned to Yokohama, and shortly afterwards the combined fleet, comprising British, French, Dutch, and American vessels, accordingly steamed south to the Straits, and the memorable battle of Shimonoseki, of 1864, was fought, with the result that the Cho-shiu guns were speedily silenced. On a low hill at the back of the town, overlooking the swift-flowing waters of the straits, is a tiny graveyard where repose the Cho-shiu men who fell in that final effort to close the door to Western trade. On the opposite shore are two or three neglected graves which local tradition declares to be the burial places of the French soldiers who were victims to the Cho-shiu artillerymen. The gunners were aided by archers, one of the foreigners killed having been transfixed by an arrow. Some day it may be feasible, perhaps, to have the spot suitably marked where rest those who did their duty as gallantly as did their foes whose memories are honoured with well-kept tombs on the other side of the narrow channel in which the fierce combat occurred. It was long believed that the foreigners who fell were buried at sea, but still living witnesses of the battle aver that three bodies were brought ashore on the Moji side and interred in the field which abuts on the beach, and where mounds of earth are distinctly traceable, or at all events were visible when the writer was engaged in work there some years ago. In his task he had the assistance of several Cho-shiu men who had taken part in the operations against us, and who bore the scars of injuries received while serving their own guns. There was not the slightest sign at any time manifested of resentment,—though the fight had taken place too recently to be other than fresh in the memory. It was felt that the best use had been made of the weapons that the province then possessed, and that no disgrace attached to defeat under such conditions,—moreover, had not the British bluejackets landed immediately the firing ceased, and striven might and main to extinguish the flames which had been ravaging the town as a consequence of the fight in its immediate neighbourhood? The inhabitants of Shimonoseki will never forget that the victors proved themselves to be generous foes, and nothing but good will has been exhibited towards strangers in the now flourishing port ever since.

Ito Shunsuke was much occupied for the ensuing two years in Kioto, where his knowledge of Europe became of immense value to his party, and in preparations for the struggle with the Bakufu which it was plain could not be long delayed.