Chapter XXII: Baron Eichi Shibusawa 315 (5)

There is a little story still current in Japan relative to the time of Saigo’s departure from Mito, after a stay of some years’ duration there under Fujita’s tuition. The master had bidden a number of his friends to a supper in Saigo’s honour, and in accord with ancient custom Fujita offered his _sakazuki_ (wine-cup) to his pupil in token of friendship, but Saigo, to Fujita’s surprise, at first begged to be excused. When rallied on his excessive caution Saigo explained that he went in fear lest under the influence of wine he might be guilty of acting imprudently, but Fujita would not accept the plea. “A man who aims at distinction as a samurai must never refuse his master’s invitation to take wine with him,” declared Fujita,—meaning, apparently, that a soldier must place himself unreservedly in the hands of his chief,—and Saigo thereupon took the risk, as he deemed it, on that occasion, and drank several cupfuls of _Sake_. Fujita was pleased with his pupil’s spirit, and often said of him afterwards that whatever Saigo might undertake he would assuredly succeed in, as he could accommodate himself to circumstances.

Fujita had many other students of classical literature staying with him at Mito at various times, it being a period when not only was there the highest appreciation of Chinese literary composition, but things Chinese in general had a vogue in Japan which approximated to that which in later years was developed in respect of things European. There was, moreover, a growing disposition among the samurai to apply themselves to the study of such arts and sciences as were revealed to them through translations of foreign works introduced by the Dutch at Nagasaki. To thinking men of the type of those who went to Fujita for instruction the Dutch books formed the only media whereby the desired information concerning the Western world could be obtained, and considering the difficulties under which those who sought knowledge in those days must have laboured the perseverance shown in its pursuit reflects vast credit on professors and pupils alike. Long prior to Commodore Perry’s first visit in 1853 the Japanese people were cognisant to some extent of the existence of railways, and steam engines,—even of the electric telegraph, it is said, which was at that time quite new to Europe and America,—and blast furnaces, mills, and workshops of different kinds had been set up on plans obtained from Nagasaki, with no inconsiderable share of success. Other industrial inventions had been introduced, which, if they did not precisely originate in the Occident, had at least been brought to some degree of perfection there, such as the art of printing from movable types, which is said to have belonged in the first place to Korea, and so with human effort in other directions it was at last discovered that all unknown to the Western world the leaven had been working in the various strata of society in Japan with results as astounding to the onlooker as they were beneficial in their effects on the nation. The disposition towards independence of political thought that arose from the perusal of foreign writings which found their way to the country in its period of seclusion was productive, when once the upheaval commenced, of a mental activity that manifested itself in a thousand ways in the last half-century, and there is little likelihood, despite her eagerness for progress, that Japan will ever forget those who aided in the past to bring about her emancipation from a feudal system which sapped her energies and blighted her prospects of advancement. Fujita Toko lives in the hearts of his countrymen.

IV

SAKUMA SHURI (OTHERWISE SHOZAN)

In the eighth year of the Bun-kwa era, corresponding to A.D. 1811, during the reign of the Emperor Kokaku, was born in the little town of Matsu-shiro (Pine citadel) in Shinano province, a man who was destined to leave his mark on the annals of his country for all time. Little has ever been heard of him, so far, outside his own land, but in Japan he is regarded as one of the forerunners of a new regime,—a patriot to whom the Japanese people of the present day are indebted in no small degree for the privileges which they now enjoy. His family name was Sakuma, and his common or as we might say, his baptismal name was Shuri, but to the student of history he is best known, perhaps, by his _nom de plume_ of Shozan. His poetical works fill many volumes, and I venture to quote one of the numerous “thirty-one syllabled” poems which he penned, as an example of his endeavours to stimulate his fellow-countrymen to throw off the yoke of feudalism:—

Kokoro-mi ni izaya sakeban Yama-biko no
Kotaye tataseba koye wa oshimaji.

(When once to our loud shouts Echo vouchsafes an answer
The vocal effort made to gain her favour counts for naught.)

It is recorded of him that even as a child he evinced an unusual gravity of demeanour, so much so that his behaviour was that of an adult rather than a boy of seven, and the neighbours were apt to shake their heads in doubt as to what manner of man he would grow up to be. He cared nothing for the ordinary sports of Japanese children of his years, who, as we have often been assured, dwell in a perfect paradise as far as their play is concerned, but was at all times distinguished by a taciturnity wholly unbefitting one so young. His cleverness was the subject of general remark, and he was a source of intense pride and satisfaction to his parents. In Japan, as in the West, children who betray extraordinary ability are objects of the most marked admiration.

As far as can be ascertained, Shuri continued to reside in his native town until he was twenty-nine years old, when he set out for Yedo, as the capital of the Shogun,—now Tokio—was then called, to seek his fortune. There he studied diligently, under such celebrated professors as Hayashi Jussai and Sato Issai, the then much-prized Chinese literature, and enjoyed the close friendship of those profound scholars Yanagawa Seigan, Watanabe Kazan, and Tsuboi Shindo. All these men won for themselves enduring fame as exponents of the writings of the Chinese sages, and under their guidance Sakuma became deeply versed in the teachings of Mencius and Confucius, and many of the lesser lights of Chinese philosophy. Japan’s rigid seclusion from the outer world, which had at that time already lasted over two centuries, had had the result, for one thing, of elevating Chinese learning to a position, in the eyes of the average Japanese, scarcely less exalted than that of Greek or Latin in England in the Middle Ages, although in Japan some knowledge of Chinese was found among all classes. But Sakuma’s studies were by no means confined to Chinese literature. He set himself to glean all that he could from the works of the Hollanders, then almost the only Occidental writings available to the Japanese in their search for information, and having acquired a fair knowledge of the Dutch language, he embarked resolutely on an investigation of the arts and sciences of the West, including the manufacture of firearms, the construction of vessels of war, of fortifications, and the casting of heavy guns. The immediate effect of his researches was to imbue his mind with a conviction of the paramount necessity of strengthening the national defences, and providing against the contingency of an attack by some hostile Western power. His studies in musketry led him to invent a new weapon, in the shape of a musket capable of far greater rapidity of fire than that which at the time was in use, the pattern of which had been brought from Europe. Sakuma was groping in the dark, by comparison with those of his fellow-countrymen who, at a later date, followed in his footsteps along the path which led to substantial reforms, but he was on the right track, as his unerring judgment assured him, though it was not his fate to live until the dawn of the Meiji era, still less to be able to form a true conception of the success that would attend his country’s efforts and the phenomenal progress that would be achieved under the beneficent auspices of the Emperor Mutsuhito’s reign. In 1842, which was the thirteenth year of the Tempo period, while the Emperor Ninko was on the throne, the feudal chieftain of Shinano, Sakuma’s native province, was given high office under the Tokugawa Government—that is to say, under the administration at Yedo of the Shogun, or as he was better known to Europeans, the “Tycoon.” The Shinano _dai-mio_, as the feudal chiefs in those days were styled, raised Sakuma to the rank of private adviser to the State on matters concerning coast defence. In the execution of his duties in this capacity Sakuma prepared a memorandum on the nature of the measures to be adopted for adequate protection, and the document is not without historical value, when considered in the light of the more recent events of Japanese history. The report, it will be remembered was made in the year 1842. Roughly speaking, Sakuma’s ideas of national defence were,—

(_a_) To fortify all points of strategical importance on the
coast territories.

(_b_) To prohibit the export of copper to Holland, and to
undertake the manufacture of a large number of cannon. (The
impression conveyed is that many thousands of such guns were to
be cast, and that the material was to be bronze.)

(_c_) To build powerful men-of-war, on the Western model.

(_d_) To promote the trade with foreign countries, by every
means at command, external commerce being essential to the
national development, and at the same time to put a check on
the self-seeking ambitions of the Dutch merchants at Nagasaki,
and induce them to abandon their evil ways.

(_e_) To strengthen the navy. (Considering that Japan was
not supposed to have had a navy until quite recent years,
this provision would at first sight appear to be somewhat
superfluous, but the reference is, of course, to the very few
sailing vessels fit to carry guns which had been built in the
days of the Tokugawa regime, on lines that had been handed down
to the native shipbuilders from the time of Will Adams, the
sailor and shipwright of London, who, after his vessel’s wreck
on the Japanese coast, at the dawn of the seventeenth century,
entered the employ of the then Shogun, and for the remainder of
his life devoted himself to the service of his adopted country.)

(_f_) To establish schools and in every way spread a knowledge
of the benefits of a liberal education.

(_g_) To familiarise people with the principles of sound
government, by the introduction of beneficent regulations, and
to lead them to appreciate its advantages by the establishment
of organised rule on enlightened methods.

(_h_) To employ only the more intelligent persons in offices of
higher rank.

It will readily be comprehended that these recommendations, had they been adopted, would at the outset have involved such sweeping reforms in the methods of administration as would have procured for Sakuma in any case a whole host of enemies, for there were vested interests to be considered in those times as in every age, and it is not at all surprising to learn that his proposals were not received with any degree of favour: admirable as they were in conception, they struck at the very root of the system on which the Tokugawa rule was based, after the closing of the country to foreign intercourse in 1638, which was that of complete seclusion from the rest of the world, and the memorandum was, as might be said, pigeon-holed for future reference.

To fully appreciate the risk that Sakuma ran in putting forward proposals so entirely subversive of the existing order of things, it must be brought to mind for an instant that early in the seventeenth century of the Christian era, at a time when the over-sea trade of Japan had attained to some importance, the Tokugawa Government sternly suppressed all trade with foreign nations on account of the attempts of the Jesuit missionaries, it was said, to obtain for their order that political influence in Japan that they had succeeded in securing at the time in China. The construction of large vessels was prohibited under very severe penalties, and a maritime trade that bade fair to prove eminently advantageous to Japan was strangled at the outset. As far as can be gleaned from the records of that period, Japan had in 1620 about 200 ocean-going ships, fit to brave the storms that were usually to be encountered in the course of a voyage to India, Mexico, or the islands of the South Seas, where the Japanese flag was in those days by no means rarely to be seen. The order that thenceforward Japanese ships were to have but one mast struck at the root of naval expansion, and Japan was still suffering the consequences of this drastic regulation when Sakuma penned his remarkable essay on needed measures of defence.

When his feudal chief, at a later date, returned to his own province Sakuma went back also, being no longer in the employ of the Shogun, though of course the clan administration was still conducted in full accord with the prevailing system, under which the Shogun, as the Emperor’s deputy, managed the nation’s secular affairs and controlled its foreign policy. It was not long, however, before Sakuma was again in Yedo, this time occupying himself in teaching Dutch, of which he had acquired a competent knowledge, to a group of pupils whose ideas tended to coincide with his own. It was at this period that he wished to publish a Dutch-Japanese dictionary, but the Shogun’s officials, so strict were still the laws on this point, could not grant the desired permission. And in the fifth year of the Ka-yei era, corresponding to 1852, the year before Commodore Perry made his appearance off the shores of Idzu province, Sakuma sought to issue a handbook on gunnery, but this right was likewise denied him. The work was entirely from his own pen, and it is to be regretted that it has not, so far as is known, been translated.

The next year eight American warships arrived at the little bay of Uraga, close to the entrance of the gulf of Yedo, and it was freely stated that they had brought a message to the effect that unless the Japanese were prepared to open their ports to trade with all nations these “black ships” would find their way to Yedo itself and bombard the castle of the Shogun. The prospect filled the minds of the people of the locality with horror. Japan had no naval or military strength to oppose to these invaders. It was mournfully recognised that the coast forts then in existence had no armaments that would enable them for an instant to cope with the powerful guns on board the American ships. Japan had in secluding herself failed to keep pace with the march of progress, and was wholly at the mercy of the powers of the Occident. China had had, as in Japan they well knew, to endure in 1841 the intrusion of foreign troops, and the forcible entry of Western vessels into the waters of the Yang-tse-kiang, and now Japan, though she had secluded herself for centuries from the unwelcome attentions of foreign nations, was destined to undergo, as it seemed, the forcible encroachment on her dominions of Western barbarians with whom she had no sort of sympathy, and whose acquaintance she had absolutely no desire whatever to make.

Sakuma was stirred to action. Mounting his horse, he set off alone to Uraga, riding at full speed, resolved to see for himself, as a first step, what manner of men these visitors were, and to gather, if he could, from their attitude to the local inhabitants, what were the real intentions of the intruders. He saw sufficient, as he judged, to form an opinion, and speedily returned to Yedo in order that he might make a report to his feudal chief, who was then staying in the capital. Soon afterwards Sakuma was appointed a member of the general staff, and given the command of the military forces. While enjoying the opportunities which his position afforded him, he frequently at this period advocated the adoption of a new and more complete system of training, as being requisite if Japan desired not merely to protect herself from the aggression of those foreign powers which had already worked their will upon China, but to be in a position some day to choose her own friends should a recourse to Occidental methods suggest itself as politically advantageous to his countrymen. But his aspirations met with no favourable response at headquarters. His ideas were pronounced to be crude and altogether needlessly alarmist in their tendency. He was compelled, therefore, to bury his hopes for the time being, trusting that in the chapter of accidents something might arise to add force to his own respectful but solemn warnings of the danger of delay.

The following year, being the first of An-Sei era,—at this time it was the custom in Japan to change the name of the era to commemorate some auspicious or notable event, irrespective of the sovereign’s reign, but now the eras are co-extensive with the monarch’s tenure of the throne—the American cruisers reappeared at Uraga, having as arranged on their previous visit, returned to receive an answer to President Fillmore’s despatch, in which he had saluted the ruler of Japan with obvious good will and had expressed with a heartiness that could not be misinterpreted America’s wish to be on cordial terms with the subjects of the Ten-shi. On this occasion the squadron of Commodore Perry permitted itself the freedom of entering the Bay of Yedo, an act that came perilously near wrecking the negotiations altogether. As it was, the Tokugawa Government directed two prominent _dai-mios_, the feudal barons of Kokura and Matsushiro respectively, to prepare for the defence of the approaches to the Sho-gun’s chief city. Kokura is a castle town in the straits of Shimonoseki, afterwards so famous for a fierce fight between the combined foreign squadrons and the forts of the _dai-mio_ of Choshiu province, facing the Buzen province to which Kokura belongs, and Matsushiro is in the Shinano province, and was the place of Sakuma’s birth, and the seat of that feudal chief to whom he owed allegiance. It is situated west-north-west of the Japanese metropolis, towards the west coast, close to that mighty river the Shinano, which there pours its waters into the Sea of Japan. By his chieftain Sakuma was immediately directed to attend and advise the military council, and from that time forth he so ardently devoted himself to the elaboration of a scheme of defence as to allow himself no proper time, it is said, for rest, night or day, until he had completed his task. A week after the advent for a second time of the American warships in Uraga Bay Sakuma took up his position in the vicinity of what is now Yokohama in command of his small force, all being resolved to prevent, as far as their limited powers would permit them to do, the landing of what were then regarded as hostile visitors.

The Tokugawa government had it in mind at that time to open the port of Shimoda to foreign trade in response to the American proposal, the situation of this place, near the extremity of the peninsula of Idzu, and bathed by the waves of the Pacific, being such as to afford reasonable security from too close intimacy with the strangers. But Sakuma was averse to this, on the ground that Shimoda was strategically far too valuable to be relinquished for the purposes of trade, and the free entry and egress of aliens and their ships, and he suggested instead the opening of a trading centre at some spot within the bay of Yedo, not wholly, it may be surmised, without an eye to the practicability of closing the entrance to the bay, should such a course become necessary, by fortifications at Kannon-saki. Ultimately Kanagawa was selected as the port to be opened, the actual site for the foreign settlement being laid out at the village of Yokohama, the “beach over the way,” as its name implies, from the town of Kanagawa. Parenthetically it may be mentioned that as long as the Treaties with foreign powers remained in force Kanagawa was the official designation of the port commonly known as Yokohama. The result of Sakuma’s remonstrances was that the opening of Shimoda was postponed _sine die_, and Kanagawa was finally chosen to be the first of the ports at which foreign trade and intercourse should be allowed.

In 1851, three years before the treaty of peace and amity with the United States of America was concluded, Sakuma had received into his entire friendship one who was like himself to occupy a niche in the annals of his country. This was Yoshida Torajiro, better known now by his literary name of Sho-in. Yoshida, as Sakuma’s pupil, had become imbued with his mentor’s ideas on the subject of national defence, and acting on Sakuma’s suggestion, which was that every man ought to examine for himself how other countries provided for their own security from attack, Yoshida endeavoured to procure a passage in an American warship, though it was at that time against the law for a Japanese to quit his native land, and in this endeavour he was supported by the conviction that Sakuma approved of his plan, but unfortunately the attempt was foredoomed to failure, as Commodore Perry would not countenance a breach of Japanese law. Sakuma perceived that Yoshida contemplated running the risk of detection, with the object of seeing for himself the condition of people under an enlightened government, and gaining experience which should fit him to continue the good work which the elder man had begun, and the pupil received at the hands of his master a treasured letter stimulating him to yet greater efforts in his search for knowledge, and designed to comfort him amid the inevitable trials and difficulties of the career that he had mapped out for himself. That composition was to be historic, for it decided the fate of Sakuma too, but it shows the clearsightedness of its writer, and it was subsequently an incentive to many to prove constant amid the storm and stress of a period of transition and revolution. An attempt is here made to translate Sakuma’s stirring exhortation into English, but the result is by no means satisfactory, for it is very difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce faithfully the force of the original.

Rendered into English it might perhaps be read as:—

“He has journeyed a thousand leagues, and though he has not
yet disclosed to me the trend of his thoughts, I perceive
that he is meditating some exploit out of the ordinary. As
I watch him move away from my cottage gate I see in fancy a
solitary stork outstretched on the wing in the autumn sky. The
ocean lies beneath, and the five continents seem to be the
bird’s close neighbours. So in a tour of the globe one takes
in the situation at a glance, and the benefit exceeds that
of a hundred lectures. An intelligent person would not fail
to profit hugely by the opportunities presented of acquiring
expansive views of men and things. Unless a man achieves
something wonderful in life he cannot hope to bear a high
reputation after his death.”

The letter brought trouble to Sakuma’s door because it happened to fall into the hands of his political foes, who promptly denounced him to the Government as having instigated a Japanese subject to transgress the laws, and his arrest and imprisonment speedily followed. He was permitted to return to his native province, but was there confined to his own house, on pain of immediate punishment if he ventured to quit it. For nine years he endured this captivity, and then was set free, receiving thereupon invitations from the feudal lords of both Nagato and Tosa to settle in their territories and act in each case as adviser upon matters of coast defence. Nagato is the Japanese title of the province otherwise known as Cho-shiu, and Tosa is one of the four baronies of the Shikoku (_lit._: four states) island, the third largest of the group forming the Japanese empire. Sakuma’s fame as an ardent reformer had already spread to the south, in which the two chieftains named held sway, and they thus early evinced their antagonism to the Tokugawa regime, and their recognition of the purity and self-sacrificing character of those ambitions for which Sakuma had already suffered imprisonment. Both _dai-mios_, in inviting Sakuma to make his home within their borders had it in mind, beyond doubt, to protect him from the dangers that were fast accumulating above his head, and had he been willing to become the protege of either he would have been comparatively safe, for they were all-powerful within their own fiefs, and might have secured for him perfect freedom for the elaboration of his plans of reform. But for reasons with which the present age has little concern, and were they even fully comprehended might scarcely, perhaps, be appreciated, Sakuma respectfully declined the flattering offers thus made to him and clung to his home in Yedo to the last.

Japan was now on the verge of experiencing a crisis in her affairs which threatened to end in one of those sanguinary internecine struggles for supremacy between rival factions to which in her long and exceedingly diversified history, not only under the Tokugawa dynasty but for centuries antecedent thereto, she had been no stranger.

In the third year of the Bunkio era, which was that corresponding to A.D. 1863, Sakuma was invited to visit Kioto, then the centre of learning, as indeed it had ever been, and the city in which dwelt the absolute monarch of Japan, the Ten-shi himself, but again he rejected all overtures to change permanently his place of abode. The following year the title of the era was altered to Genji, so often from one cause and another was it desirable at that period to change these era names. Once more Sakuma was urged to go south, and this time he consented to make the journey to the ancient capital, arriving there in the spring of 1864. It was at that epoch that the latent animosity to foreigners, begotten of racial prejudice and ill report combined, reached its height, and attacks on strangers were not at all infrequent, both in the capital and the provinces. “Loyalty to our Emperor, and expulsion of foreigners” was the cry that animated the masses of the people, who were totally incapable, no doubt, of judging for themselves, and were urged to deeds of violence by the specious arguments of skilled agitators, unable to form any conception of the ignominy that a policy of deliberate persecution was certain to entail for their country. Kioto became infested with men of the “ro-nin” class, outlaws by choice, having obtained from their feudal lords permission to detach themselves from their masters’ service and to become free-lances prepared to undertake deeds of violence for which the barons to whom they ordinarily owed allegiance should not be held responsible to the State. It mattered little whether the “ro-nin” had been dismissed from his lord’s employ for some personal shortcoming or had sought temporary or permanent leave of absence. His lord was no longer liable for what might occur. And it was not in Kioto alone that these men had assembled, for Yedo was almost equally in favour with them as a convenient lurking-place, and the persons and property of foreigners were often assailed, to the extent that life became most insecure. Within a brief space of time a whole series of assassinations took place, including the killing of Mr Richardson on the Tokaido seven miles from Yokohama the slaughter of Dankichi, an interpreter to the American Embassy, of Mr Heusken, attached to the British Embassy in a similar capacity, and of several others. The chapter is so painful a one in Japanese history, and Japan so long ago repented in sackcloth and ashes for the crimes of which her people were then guilty, that it is needless to offer, and would perhaps be ungenerous in an English-reading public to demand, a detailed account to-day of these deplorable occurrences. Suffice it to say that Sakuma himself, for the ostensible reason that he firmly adhered to his opinion,—despite the opposition of a numerous and powerful body of his fellow-countrymen who advocated the abrogation of the treaties and the return to a policy of complete isolation,—that the other ports designated as the emporiums of general foreign trade should be forthwith opened, as well as Yokohama, incurred the censure of the anti-foreign clique and was stabbed to death by “ro-nins” on the 11th of July 1864, he being then in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

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.

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.