A Few Words On Bushido

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Romlus Hillsborough

Bushido, “way of the warrior,” was fundamental to samurai society. It was an unwritten code which incorporated the eight virtues of Confucianism: benevolence, justice, loyalty, filial piety, decorum, wisdom, trust, and respect for elders. Its most cherished values were courage and loyalty to one’s feudal lord. Chapter 8 of Samurai Revolution is titled “A Brief Discussion on Bushido.” I included it because a fundamental understanding of bushido is essential, I think, to understanding Japanese history.

Bushido Kyokai (武士道協会), a Tokyo-based NPO, describes bushido as “the spiritual foundation of the development of modern Japan.” The organization, which exalts life and world peace, states that its purpose is to “revive bushido in the hearts of modern Japanese people and people from around the world who live in Japan.” (http://www.bushido.or.jp/index.html) Kudos to Bushido Kyokai!

Yet there is another side of bushido which should be considered. In the spring of 1862, Shimazu Hisamitsu, the father of the Satsuma daimyo, sent a squad of nine expert swordsmen to the Teradaya inn near Kyoto to dissuade fellow Satsuma samurai from taking part in a planned uprising against the Tokugawa Shogunate in Kyoto. If they could not dissuade them, they were ordered to kill them. In other words, Hisamitsu ordered his men to kill some of their closest friends. The nine swordsmen readily acquiesced, a fact which is “almost incomprehensible to people today,” comments Kaionji Chogoro in his acclaimed biography of Saigo Takamori. Kaionji, himself a native of Satsuma, explains that the nine stoically accepted their orders based on “the aesthetics of the samurai of Satsuma,” who “held meanness, irresolution, and cowardice as the greatest immorality, and bravery and strength as the ultimate virtues. In a word, bushidō is the beauty of stoicism itself, but in a way it is also inhuman, brutal and almost immoral.” I wrote about the “Teradaya Incident” in Chapter 7 of Samurai Revolution.

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An Emperor’s Funeral Procession and the Assassination Site at Sakurada Gate

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Romlus Hillsborough

This year marks the 27^th year of the era called Heisei in Japanese chronology. Throughout Japanese history new era names have been promulgated to mark an extraordinary occasion or event, such as the enthronement of an emperor. The present emperor, Akihito, ascended the throne in January 1989, upon the death of his father, Hirohito, posthumously called Showa, the name of the era in which he reigned.

Emperor Showa reigned for over 62 years, the longest in an imperial line spanning 125 generations. At his death at 87, he was the longest-living emperor in Japanese history. His funeral ceremonies, including a somber procession which I witnessed among hundreds of thousands of his bereaved subjects gathered in the streets outside the compound of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, were grand affairs befitting a man who during his lifetime had been worshipped as a god.

The Imperial Palace occupies the grounds of the former castle of fifteen generations of shoguns, including Tokugawa Iéyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Bakufu, the military regime which ruled Japan for two and a half centuries. The castle was surrendered by the vanquished Bakufu to the new imperial government in the spring of 1868, as a result of peace talks between Katsu Kaishu and Saigo Takamori, leaders of the respective sides. After that the illustrious Emperor Meiji, Showa’s grandfather, occupied the inner-palaces of the castle, including the Main Citadel, which had been the residence of the shoguns, and the West Citadel, previously occupied by the families of the shoguns’ sons. These and most of the original castle structures have been lost to fire, including the gate called Sakurada-mon, renowned as the site of the assassination in 1860 of the shogun’s regent, Ii Naosuké, the most powerful man in Japan.

Sakurada Gate was rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Showa’s father. I have visited the site many times. Standing before the gate, I have tried to conjure up in my mind’s eye the scene on that unseasonably snowy morning in late spring over a century and a half ago, when the regent was cut down by a band of eighteen samurai representing Imperial Loyalism. They killed him for his alleged irreverence to the emperor and treachery in having concluded foreign trade treaties without the emperor’s blessing, and his subsequent harsh treatment of feudal lords, nobles of the Imperial Court, and fellow Imperial Loyalists.

Since the palace is located at the city center, one might best visit Sakurada-mon during the still of an early spring morning – and imagine a soft snow falling:

A sudden pistol shot; bloodcurdling screams of the regent’s bodyguards and assailants; the clanging and banging of the tempered steel of their swords; the dull, thick sound of steel cutting through human flesh, then a beheading, men fleeing with the head, others dying – at the onset of an age of terror and the beginning of the end of the Tokugawa Bakufu.

Standing amid a sea of humanity to catch a glimpse of the emperor’s funeral procession, I found myself wondering if the spirits of Ii Naosuké and the others who had died on that day were not among us, to witness that epochal event on that cold winter morning nearly 129 years after the infamous Incident Outside Sakurada Gate.

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Ii Naosuke’s assassination is the subject of Part I Samurai Assassins.

Writing Vs. Book Promotion

Posted on July 25, 2015 by Romlus Hillsborough

Over the past few months I’ve done something that I have not done in many years: I’ve put aside my writing to promote it. From a reader’s perspective, it might sound blasphemous; from the writer’s perspective it’s an imperative – which I ignored for around ten years while writing Samurai Revolution and my next book, Samurai Assassins, completed earlier this year but not yet published.

And so, while planning strategy for the Sakamoto Ryoma Film Project which I recently announced through an Open Letter to “all Ryoma fans,” I’ve presented Samurai Revolution at two venues in Washington state this week: Kinokuniya Bookstore in Seattle and A Book For All Seasons in Leavenworth; and I have another presentation scheduled at Kinokuniya in San Francisco on August 1.

Through these events I’ve rediscovered the pleasure of talking about this history and my books with interested people. Two such people are kendo instructor Aniceto Seto and his student Lynn Miyauchi, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the Seattle event. Both of them brought copies of my past books for me to sign, including hard cover copies of Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, though it’s been out of print for over ten years. It is through people like Mr. Seto and Ms. Miyauchi that I am reminded of another imperative: that I really must get back to my writing as soon as possible.

Signing copies for Aniceto Seto and Lynn Miyauchi

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Takasugi Shinsaku’s House

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Romlus Hillsborough

Takasugi Shinsaku, the military leader of Choshu’s revolutionary forces in the war against the Bakufu in 1866, resented the coerced foreign trade treaties unilaterally concluded by the Bakufu in the summer of 1858. A favorite student of Yoshida Shoin, Takasugi had been a staunch advocate of “expel the barbarians” until he realized that it would be impossible to do so without first overthrowing the Bakufu, which he blamed for letting the foreigners in. The realization came during a trip to Shanghai in 1862, briefly recounted in my essay posted on this website and in more detail in Samurai Revolution.

Given Takasugi’s natural resentment of the foreign intruders, I was at once amused and moved by a comment from an old woman in his hometown of Hagi. It was during one of my trips to that historic city in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in August of either 1986 or 1987 (I can’t remember which). At that time I visited the historic houses of both Takasugi and Katsura Kogoro, the political leader of the Choshu revolutionaries. The old woman was selling copies of Takasugi’s biography (by Furukawa Kaoru, published in 1971) in front of his house. She must have been in her eighties – which means Takasugi would have been of her grandfather’s generation. It is entirely possible that her family lived in Hagi for many generations; if so, it is likely that she grew up hearing stories of Takasugi. When I bought a copy of the book, she smiled and told me that Shinsaku would be tickled pink to know that an American was buying his biography!

Takasugi Shinsaku

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Samurai Revolution is the only biography of Katsu Kaishu in English.

Katsu Kaishu’s “praiseworthy anecdote” during the ceremony of the surrender of Edo Castle

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Romlus Hillsborough

While preparing my presentations of Samurai Revolution at Kinokuniya Bookstore in Seattle (July 18), the public library in Leavenworth, Washington (July 24), and Kinokuniya Bookstore in San Francisco (August 1), I remembered one of my favorite comments from Katsu Kaishu in his old age. The setting was the formal surrender of Edo Castle to the new Imperial government in the Fourth Month of Keio 4 (1868), four months after the abolition of the Tokugawa Bakufu by the new Imperial government – i.e., The Restoration of Imperial Rule of Old. The ceremony took place in the interior of the citadel, attended by samurai of various feudal domains including Satsuma and Choshu. As I wrote in Samurai Revolution (excluding footnotes):

Kaishū did not attend the ceremony in which the castle was officially surrendered. Rather, he went to navy headquarters on the bay, where he had some of his men climb to the rooftop to watch and listen for gunshots coming from the direction of the castle. If anything happened, he wrote, he was prepared to report to the Imperial Army and accept the responsibility by taking his own life. “Fortunately, nothing happened”—the ceremony was concluded without incident.

But there was a “praiseworthy anecdote” which Kaishū heard from [his friend] Ōkubo Ichiō. Saigō, it seems, remained typically placid throughout the ceremony:

“…[w]hat was truly amazing was that when the formalities began for surrendering the castle, Saigō dozed off. Then when the ceremony was finished and the other representatives were leaving, he just sat there calmly. Ichiō, who was near him, couldn’t stand it. “Saigō-san, Saigō-san,” he said, waking him up, “the ceremony is over and everyone’s leaving.” At which Saigō, a bit startled, rubbed his sleepy face then calmly left. Ichiō was struck with admiration. What an audacious fellow! Exhausted after dozens of days, he took the opportunity to doze off while the castle was being surrendered—truly unbelievable!”

“And so,” Kaishū concluded the above account, told in January 1896, “that’s why he’s at the top of the list of the great men of the Restoration.” (p. 500)

[The photo of Katsu Kaishu was taken in the garden at his Hikawa estate during the final years of his life.]

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Samurai Revolution is the only biography of Katsu Kaishu in English.