Samurai Revolution is a comprehensive history of the Meiji Restoration from the perspective of one of its most important men, Katsu Kaishū, “the shogun’s last samurai.” The only full-length biography of Kaishū in English, it is also, to the best of my knowledge, the only English-language study of the personalities of the other key figures in the “samurai revolution at the dawn of modern Japan.”

————————-

Timeless words of wisdom from “the shōgun’s last samurai”

“It’s impossible to gauge worldly affairs in advance. You can put up a net and wait for a bird, but what will you do if the bird flies over it? You can make a square box and try to put everything in the world inside of it. But some things are round and others triangular. If you took something that was round or triangular and tried to fit it inside the box, you’d certainly have a hard time of it.”

(Katsu Kaishū on the importance of flexibility in conducting affairs of state, from Samurai Revolution, Chapter 9)

————————-

In October 1873, less than six years after the Meiji Restoration, Saigō Takamori, the most powerful driving force behind the “samurai revolution” that toppled the Tokugawa Bakufu to bring about the Restoration, quit the Meiji government, in whose creation he had played the central role. The following excerpt from Samurai Revolution (without footnotes) describes that moment in history:

————————-

Ōkubo [Toshimichi] was the most powerful man in the absolute government. As such he was a dictator—and the dictator was not about to lose the political battle against Saigō. The cabinet convened twice, on October 14 and 15, to decide whether or not to send Saigō to Korea. Ōkubo, having arranged for himself to be appointed to the cabinet two days prior, joined Iwakura [Tomomi] in leading the opposition of just four, including Ōkuma [Shigénobu] and Ōki [Takatō], but supported by Prime Minister Sanjō [Sanétomi]. Backing Saigō were four other councilors: Itagaki [Taisuké], Gotō [Shōjirō], Soéjima [Tanéomi], and Etō [Shinpei]. (Kido [Takayoshi] was absent, claiming illness.) On the fifteenth, Sanjō announced his support in favor of Saigō, but that night again changed his mind. Then on October 19, Sanjō suffered a nervous breakdown. On the next day, by Imperial order Iwakura temporarily replaced Sanjō as prime minister. On October 23 Iwakura pressed the Emperor to oppose a Korea invasion on the grounds that Japan was not yet strong enough to fight a foreign war so soon after the Restoration. The Emperor concurred.

On the same day, just two days before Katsu Kaishū’s dual appointments in the government, Saigō Takamori submitted his resignation from the offices of state councilor, commander of the Imperial Household Guard, and army general. On the next day Soéjima, Etō, Itagaki, and Gotō resigned from the cabinet. Also resigning with Saigō were some three hundred officers in the Imperial Household Guard and the army, all from [Saigō’s native] Satsuma. More than forty officers from Tosa resigned as well. Among the resigning Satsuma officers were Kirino Akihata and Shinohara Kunimoto, both major generals. On October 25 the Emperor summoned Shinohara and twelve other officers of the Imperial Household Guard to the palace to command them to continue serving. The officers ignored the Imperial order. Clearly they were with Saigō. On October 28, Saigō returned to Kagoshima accompanied by Kirino.

[Saigō biographer] Inoue Kiyoshi incisively sums up the outcome of Ōkubo’s political battle against Saigō with the statement: “Ōkubo completely achieved his objective” and buried the call for a Korea invasion, which was nothing less than the political death of Saigō. But Saigō still commanded the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of former samurai throughout Japan who were ready to follow him—even into death.

The assassination of Ii Naosuké, regent to the boy-shogun Tokugawa Iémochi, in the spring of 1860, launched the “samurai revolution” that would bring about the Meiji Restoration nearly eight years later. Ii’s assassination is the subject of Part I of my three-part Samurai Assassins, which I wrote as a companion volume to Samurai Revolution. The assassination was the work of a band of eighteen samurai, including Arimura Jizaemon of Satsuma. Arimura is depicted on the cover of Samurai Assassins.

[This image of Arimura Jizaemon beheading Ii Naosuké is part of a series entitled Kinseigiyuden (“Biographies of Loyal and Courageous Men”) by Ichieisai Yoshitsuya (1822 – 1866), originally published in a magazine called “Nishikié.”]

[In 1868], Katsu Kaishū, who had risen through the ranks by force of character and a keen and creative mind, was in command of the Tokugawa military. He had at his disposal a fleet of ships and thousands of troops raring to attack the enemy. But just who was this multifaceted, enigmatic man upon whom the deposed shōgun rested his life and the fate of his family and indeed the entire country? Unlike [Shōgun Tokugawa] Yoshinobu’s other advisors, he hailed neither from a noble house of feudal lords charged for generations with the Bakufu’s [shōgun’s government’s] highest offices, nor from the privileged families of Tokugawa samurai whose sons traditionally filled the most important magistracies and commissionerships. Born to the humblest of samurai families in service of the shōgun, he was at once the consummate samurai and streetwise denizen of downtown Edo; an expert swordsman who refused to draw his sword even in self-defense; a statesman who commanded the respect of allies and foes alike; an inviolable outsider within the shōgun’s regime; an iconoclast, historian, prolific writer, and creator of the Japanese navy. And though his loyalty to the Tokugawa was unsurpassed, he was nevertheless a friend and ally of men who had overthrown the government. [from Samurai Revolution]