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Under a special clause it was agreed that 100,000 taels should be paid to the families of the murdered men, and that in respect of the roads and buildings the sum paid should be 400,000 taels. Japan was to withdraw all her troops, and China was to pay the half-million taels agreed upon by the 20th December following, in that thirteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tung-Chi.

Japan thus early in her era of Meiji, or Enlightened Rule, vindicated her right to be regarded as a champion of the rights of our common humanity, a position which she has successfully maintained on every occasion since that time.

Okubo never received the title of Viscount, but the rank was posthumously conferred for the benefit of his family. His assassination was attributed to ill feeling engendered among certain adherents of the Satsuma clan by his attitude with regard to the rebellion of 1877, as some thought he ought to have supported his clan in the war. He was a loyal and devoted servant of his Emperor, and placed his duty to his sovereign above all considerations of clan or party connections.

COUNT GOTO SHOJIRO

The late Count Goto, who died in 1892, was a trusty retainer of the Prince of Tosa, one of the four provinces into which the island of Shikoku, as its name implies, was of old divided. The chief town of Tosa is Kochi, a well-known port on the east coast, facing the Pacific. The Tosa clan was one of the first to make use of foreign-built vessels, the prince owning more than one steamer officered by Europeans in the "early seventies" when the coasting trade was in its infancy. Goto Shojiro was born in the year 1832, and in his young days was a close student of Dutch books, but the advent of the American "black ships" at Uraga in 1853 led him to turn his attention to marine affairs, and he applied himself vigorously to the acquisition of a competent knowledge of modern inventive progress, becoming convinced thereby of the necessity for a radical change in his own country's methods if she would hold her own among the nations. It was for his acquaintance with engineering matters that he was chosen to act as Vice-Minister of Public Works when the administration was first set up in the new capital, but he had taken a prominent part in the abolition of the Shogunate from the days when the Shogun Tokugawa Keiki dwelt at the Nijo Castle in Kioto, in 1866, often going thither in company with Komatsu Tatewaki of the Satsuma clan, to discuss politics with his Highness on the Shogun's special invitation. Goto at all times steadfastly urged the advisability of the formation of an Imperial Government upon the Shogun, and it speaks volumes for the broad-minded unselfishness of the Prince Tokugawa Keiki that he was prepared to listen to suggestions which necessarily involved his own renunciation of the exalted position that he then held, and even, as the sequel showed, to act upon them, though in doing so he deprived himself of rank and power at one stroke. That Goto Shojiro made good use of the opportunities thus presented to him of laying before his Highness the fruit of his own researches into the then dimly comprehended sources of Occidental strength and prosperity is evident, and for that service to his country, if for no other, he deserves to be remembered, but he laid his nation under obligations to him in a variety of ways, and was active in the popular interest to the end of his days, which were all too short for it to reap the full benefit of his matured experience and practical, common-sense application of the knowledge that a busy career had enabled him to amass.

The Shogun received the prince of Tosa's letter in a most friendly spirit, and promised to consider the matter, continuing to call Goto into consultation at the Nijo castle as before. To what degree his Highness was influenced by the letter it would of course be impossible to judge, but it is certain that at the close of the autumn of that year he had formed the resolution to abdicate definitely his position, though he did not actually quit Kioto until January 1868.

When the new Government was set up at Kioto in 1868 Goto became a Ko-Mon, or adviser to the So-sai, like his friends Kido and Komatsu, and in this position was able to exert considerable influence, as the So-sai, to whom the three ardent reformers acted in the capacity of private counsellors, possessed the confidence of the sovereign, and procured or refused the imperial assent to the proposals of the other heads of departments in the Ministry as then constituted. Subsequently, when the administration was remodelled on a foreign plan, and Prince Sanjo became Prime Minister, Goto still occupied his position of responsibility, more especially connected with the Foreign branch, and he was so engaged when, in March 1868, the various representatives of foreign powers went by appointment to Kioto to pay their respects to the present Emperor, who had a few weeks previously taken in hand the reins of government on the resignation of the Shogun. The British and Dutch ministers left Kob?, then a newly opened port for foreign trade, on the 18th March, accompanied by Ito Shunsuke , who was the Governor of Kob?, and Sir Harry Parkes was to have been received with the other envoys on the 23rd of the month, but for a dastardly attack made upon him and his escort when passing along the streets of the then Japanese capital. The British Minister had been lodged during his short stay in Kioto at a temple in a northern suburb, and he left it at the appointed hour to go to the Dairi where the interview with the Emperor was to take place. Sir Harry's mounted escort was leading the way, the inspector riding in front with Mr Nakai Kozo, likewise a Government official, and a Satsuma samurai, when suddenly, at a street corner, a band of Japanese swordsmen sprang out from their hiding-place and began slashing right and left. Sir Harry was riding immediately in rear of his mounted guards, with Goto Shojiro at his side. The attack was so sudden that the escort had no time to use their lances, and the thoroughfare, moreover, was very narrow. The present British Minister in China, Sir Ernest Satow, rode on Sir Harry Parkes' right, and behind marched a detachment of the Ninth Regiment from the British camp at Yokohama. The desperate character of the attack will be understood by the fact that the British representative was by no means inadequately protected, to judge from previous experience, and though murderous assaults on foreigners were unhappily not infrequent at this period,--the result of political ferment rather than of personal animosity to the strangers,--there was no particular reason to expect any attack on this occasion.

Nakai Kozo at once leaped from his horse and engaged one of the assailants, but having the bad luck to stumble when parrying a stroke of his antagonist he received a severe cut on the head. After their first onslaught some of the swordsmen took to their heels, but two of the number remained cutting at the escort all down the line, and so quick had been their movements that Sir Harry and Goto only heard the scuffle as their horses turned the corner. Goto, instantly dismounting, rushed to the front, and was able to rescue Nakai, but his assailant straightway made for Sir Harry Parkes, whose Japanese groom received the blow, and at the same time Mr Satow's horse was badly cut. The would-be assassin fell momentarily forward by the impetuosity of his own attack, and Goto at that instant delivered a stroke which severed the ruffian's head from his shoulders before he could recover his equilibrium. The other man ran off to a back yard where he was captured, after receiving many wounds. The activity displayed by the assailants is best to be realised from the mischief they wrought in a few minutes. Out of eleven men forming Sir Harry's own escort nine were severely wounded, as was also one man of the Ninth Regiment, and a groom and four horses were more or less badly cut with the terrible two-handed swords that the assailants wielded with such deadly precision.

On the third day of the third moon,--at that time the old-fashioned mode of reckoning derived from China centuries before was in vogue,--the British minister again set out for the Dairi, and this time the journey was accomplished without mishap, his reception by the Emperor being of the most cordial kind. His Majesty expressed personally his horror of the proceedings which had debarred him from previously receiving the representative of Queen Victoria, and Sir Harry had every reason to be gratified by the evident concern manifested by the sovereign. The day was according to the old calendar a most auspicious one, being the Girls' Festival or Sekku and the 26th of April by Western reckoning. The Gregorian calendar was adopted in Japan in 1872.

Queen Victoria sent richly mounted swords to Goto and Nakai, bearing the inscription in each case--"From Victoria, Queen of England, in remembrance of the 23rd of March 1868." As no more appropriate gift to a samurai of Japan than a fine sword could have been imagined, the recipients of these tokens of their prowess were individually delighted, and Count Goto of to-day, who is the son of Goto Shojiro, prizes the weapon in recollection of the skilful swordsmanship which enabled his father to save the British Minister's life. That the combat was of the most determined character, in which assailants and defenders put forth all their strength and skill may be judged from the account given afterwards of the affair by Mr Nakai Kozo, who was for many years on the staff of the Foreign Office and a most witty and charming companion. "I was only able to see out of one eye, owing to the blood flowing from my wound in the head, but I kept on hacking away at the fellow in front of me, and at last saw that I had cut his head off, which I showed to Sir Harry to let him know that at least one of his assailants was duly accounted for."

Like Kido, Inouye, and Itagaki, and other "Makers of Japan," Count Goto was active in the field during the war of the Restoration, which lasted throughout 1868, with more or less intensity, and into the spring of 1869, and made his mark in numberless hotly-contested engagements. Saigo Takamori, as Chief of General Staff to the Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, reached the suburbs of Tokio in April of the year 1868, and the battle of Uyeno was practically the last of the war, but fighting went on in the north for many months after.

Count Goto Shojiro did vast service to the country in the Ministry headed by Prince Sanjo, and it was in 1874, while occupying a high post in the administration that he associated himself with Count Itagaki and Count Soyeshima in memorialising the Government to make arrangements at the earliest possible moment for the summoning of a National Assembly, in order that the promise made by his Majesty at the beginning of his reign to the effect that he would eventually rule the empire in conformity with the popular wishes might be realised. But the time was hardly ripe for experiments in Constitutional Government, and the memorial was shelved. Goto and his fellow-memorialists resigned office, but though they were less prominent than some of their compatriots thenceforward in the actual occupation of seats in the Cabinet they were by no means lost to sight in respect of contemporary politics. Count Goto, moreover, was identified with industrial undertakings to a noteworthy extent, and figured conspicuously in a large number of philanthropical enterprises in connection with which he was ever ready to lend a helping hand.

He was entrusted with the portfolio of Minister of Communications in the First Cabinet formed after the establishment of Constitutional Government in 1890, with Marquis Yamagata as Minister-President. The appointment may be said to have been a recognition of the part taken by him sixteen years before when he joined in the memorial urging the speedy formation of a National Diet. This was his last office, for two years later he died, at the age of sixty, not "full of years," but "full of honour" won in the service of his country, and respected for his nobleness of character by his fellow-countrymen and by those foreign residents, and they were many, who had under most varied conditions experienced his unfailing courtesy and genuine good will.

MARSHAL SAIGO TAKAMORI

In the sense that Japanese history begins with the landing of Jimmu Tenno in Kiushiu, and that many of the greatest events narrated in the annals of the Empire took place in that island of, as its name implies, nine provinces, there should be much to interest the student in connection with this portion of the Ten-shi's dominions. The nine baronies of the feudal regime were ranged around the coast, their rearmost boundaries meeting on mountain ridges in the interior. The passes in these ridges were in many cases the scenes of desperate battles during the Satsuma War of 1877, as will presently be shown, there having originally been one long dividing line extending almost north and south from Shimonoseki straits to Kagoshima bay, with branch lines like the veins of a leaf splitting one half of the island into five and the other into four portions. Satsuma and Osumi were the two most southerly provinces, with Hiuga adjoining Osumi, and it is in connection with this region in particular that some of the more stirring passages of ancient and modern Japanese history have to be recorded. Marshal Saigo Takamori, who had perhaps more than anyone else to do with the formation of the nucleus of Japan's great army, was born and died in Satsuma, and he spent most of his life in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle town of Kagoshima. From the extremity of Kiushiu the isles of Loo-Choo , stretch in a south-westward direction, linking up Formosa, and to the north-west the islands of Iki and Tsushima form stepping-stones, as it were, to Korea. Excepting in Miyasaki prefecture, where the coast is less broken, facing the Pacific, the shores of Kiushiu are deeply indented with inlets and bays, lofty mountains forming the background, and there is an abundance of good harbours, rendering its populous towns and numerous villages comparatively easy of access. The chain of islets to the south sheltered vessels and aided migration from Malaysia, while Tsushima and Iki,--places made famous by the decisive battle of the Sea of Japan in 1905 which was fought in their vicinity,--doubtless prompted the exploration of the Hizen and Chikuzen coasts by adventurous voyagers from the mainland of Asia. The Nine Provinces are rich in traditions of the imperial ancestors, the reputed landing-place of Jimmu Tenno being Shibushi bay, a few miles south-east of Kagoshima. There is a very ancient Shinto shrine in a cave close by, and on Takachiho-min?, otherwise Higashi Kiri-shima-yama, the easternmost of twin peaks in the ridge which forms the boundary line of Osumi and Hiuga provinces, thirteen miles from the Satsuma stronghold, stood the palace which the founder of the imperial dynasty is believed to have inhabited prior to setting out for the Inland Sea.

Rein tells us that in 1875 he saw on a blunt cone of piled-up stones on the summit of the volcanic peak of Kiri-shima-yama, 5500 feet above sea-level, the famous sword which tradition says Ninigi-no-mikoto, grandson of the Sun-goddess, used. It is clumsy, and obviously of great antiquity. The material is bronze containing a large proportion of copper, the blade is not quite flat, the shaft cylindrical, with several blunt projections, and it originally was sharpened on one side towards the top. The length of this remarkable weapon was fifty inches over all, the blade measuring forty inches from point to hilt. The width of the blade was nearly three inches, and the handle extremely thick. It is evident that the weight of such a sword must have been considerable, and without entering into the question of its origin it may at least be said that the fact of its being preserved so carefully at that spot from what can hardly have been other than a very remote period of Japanese history alone would suffice to account for the store set upon this truly extraordinary relic. Jimmu Tenno is supposed to have spent some years in subjugating the tribes which he found in possession of Southern Japan, but he eventually reached Naniwa and established his capital in Yamato. Naniwa and Takachiho are names which have for the Japanese people historical significance sufficient to have induced the naval authorities to bestow them on two warships built for Japan on the Tyne.

Saigo Kichinosuke, as he was named until he was of full age, was born in Satsuma province in the year 1822. His father was a Samurai, of foot-soldier rank. It is clear, however, that the father possessed an accurate idea of the value of education and training, if only from the prominence which both his sons achieved in the service of their country. Kichinosuke was the elder of the two, his younger brother achieving the rank of Marquis, and figuring in the national annals with a lustre but little inferior to that of the popular hero himself. While yet young Kichinosuke was given the post of gardener to the prince of Satsuma. In days of old this was often a position of trust, for the individual occupying it necessarily came into close contact with his lord when it happened, as it did in nine cases out of ten, that the chieftain of a clan had a taste for horticulture. Trustworthy Samurai of rank were sometimes given the office of gardener for the sake of the opportunities thus afforded for direct communication, between the baron and his faithful retainers, free from the risk of surveillance by emissaries of the Shogun's Government who under the old regime were to be found in every mansion. That Saigo held this post is a proof of his lord's confidence in him. When twenty years old Kichinosuke went to Mito and there became a pupil of Fujita Toko--whose history is elsewhere in this volume briefly recorded--and under that profound scholar's guidance studied Chinese literature so assiduously that Fujita always spoke of Saigo with pride as one of his best pupils. It was from Fujita that Saigo imbibed his rooted hostility to the Shogunate, Fujita being the confidential friend of the old prince of Mito, whose opposition to the Bakufu is always believed to have culminated in the assassination by his followers of the Regent, Ii Kamon-no-kami, at the Sakurada Gate of Yedo Castle, in March 1860. On separating after the lapse of some years from Fujita Toko, Saigo went to Kioto and there became the intimate friend of Gessho, the high priest of the famous Buddhist temple of Kiyomidzu, and during the eventful five years from 1854 to 1859 Saigo was resident either in Kioto or Osaka. It was when the Regent or "Gotairo" Ii-kamon-no-kami came into power in 1859 at Yedo, during the minority of the Shogun Iyemochi, that Saigo, dissatisfied with the course things were taking, and possessing definite views of his own, formed a party opposed to the Bakufu. In the same year, 1859, when he was about to return to Satsuma, his friend Gessho was selected by the Imperial Court to be the bearer of a despatch to the prince of Mito. Gessho, however, pleaded that the honour of being the imperial messenger should be bestowed on Saigo, as being far better qualified for the office, and his prayer was granted. Saigo could not succeed, however, in delivering the secret despatch, owing to the rigorous watch kept by the Mito prince's retainers over his person,--it is easy to picture the position, knowing as we now do, how exceedingly strict was it needful to be in those stormy days of frequent assassination and widespread feuds,--and in the end the imperial courier had to return to Kioto with his task unfulfilled. Saigo and others opposed to the Bakufu became marked men, but the dread of Satsuma's vengeance protected them from actual arrest. Gessho also was suspected, and for his safety Saigo resolved to take the priest with him to the south. The priest rode in a palanquin, and Saigo, assisted by a fellow-clansman named Umeda, acted as escort. They were not attacked, though they fully apprehended that they would be, and reached Kagoshima in safety. Saigo acquainted his clansmen with what he had done, but the explanation was coldly received. At this time his opposition to the Bakufu was not shared by the officers of the Satsuma province. Gessho's hiding-place was soon discovered, and he was in danger, and Saigo went at midnight to the place where he had secreted his friend to warn him. Together they resolved to drown themselves in the bay of Kagoshima, for Saigo, perceiving that the priest's death was inevitable, deemed it a point of honour to die with him, in despair at the absence of a true chivalric spirit in the clan. They actually threw themselves into the sea, but the act had been observed, and some boatmen recovered the bodies from the waves in time to resuscitate Saigo, though Gessho had expired. The provincial officers were wrathful at the stigma cast on the clan's hospitality by Gessho's death, and also at Saigo's uncompromising hostility to the Shogunate, and they banished him to the island of Oshima, some distance from the Satsuma coast. Here he changed his name to Oshima Sanyemon, the reference in the second word being to the circumstance that this was his third visit to the islet, his previous banishments having been the fruits of similar opposition to the Bakufu, and the result moreover of his being appreciably in advance of the times. It was not long before the entire clan was united with Saigo in his unswerving hostility to the Yedo Government, but meanwhile he suffered for his temerity. On Oshima he studied incessantly, when one not of his indomitable spirit might have broken down under a sense of disappointment and the conviction of wrongs sustained without hope of remedy. His feudal chieftain pardoned him after the expiration of four years, and Saigo returned to Satsuma and became one of the clan officials. When the Shogunate entered into the treaties with foreign powers Saigo opposed it with all the resolution of his unbending character, and during the conflicts which ensued at Kioto he sheltered many who were pursued by the Yedo Government's officers and helped them to escape. He it was who strongly favoured a reconciliation between his clan and Choshiu and advocated their coalition in opposition to the Bakufu.

Owing to his banishment Saigo was not present in Satsuma during the earlier part of the period of intense military activity which was noticeable in his native province, but he may be said to have been with his fellow-clansmen in spirit, and he was, in all probability, in close touch with them by the agency of mutual friends, despite his enforced absence. There were ways and means even in those days of maintaining communication when necessary.

At this period the policy of the Satsuma clan as a whole was distinctly reactionary, and ample indication of the bent of its chieftain's inclinations is to be traced in a memorial which he about this time addressed to the Emperor, setting forth his reasons for believing that the administration at the capital was conducting the national affairs without due respect for the traditions of the Empire.

Shimadzu Saburo, author of this uncompromisingly anti-foreign proposal, subsequently held office in the Government which was formed immediately on the restoration of imperial rule in 1868. He had been a great student in early life, and was the father of the real daimio of the Satsuma province. He was also, by the system of adoption which prevailed, uncle to the same person, who had been adopted by the previous daimio, Shimadzu Saburo's brother. Virtually, though not nominally head of the clan, the uncle wielded immense influence in Kagoshima, and vehemently opposed the Yedo Government, though he was not antagonistic to foreigners or their inventions in the abstract, and had purchased steamers from them and set up a cotton mill in Satsuma itself. His province had indeed benefited hugely by its proximity to Nagasaki, which had for centuries been the only port open to trade of any kind with the Occident, and he had expressed his willingness to throw open the whole of the Satsuma province to Western trade, but the Yedo government had set its face against the proposal, some years before the Restoration of the Imperial power.

In the memorable battle at Fushimi, seven miles from Kioto on the Osaka road, Saigo was leader of the imperial troops opposed to those of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and exhibited on that occasion marked military genius as well as great personal bravery. His coolness under fire was ever a subject of intense admiration to his comrades, and it was conspicuous in this fiercest of engagements, lasting for three days, at the very outset of the Meiji era.

The Aidzu men had retired northward after the defeat of the Shogun's army at Fushimi, but at Yedo the forces of the Shogunate still held their ground, and the Emperor's uncle, Arisugawa-no-miya, was sent, bearing the imperial brocade banner, to suppress them. With him went Saigo Takamori, as his Sambo, or military adviser, a post that would in these days be described as that of Chief of Staff. There was some severe fighting at different points on the road to Yedo, but early in 1868 Saigo Takamori, at the head of the imperial forces reached the southern suburb of the capital at Shinagawa, and the occupation of Yedo by them took place on the 26th of April of that year. The Tokugawa men shut themselves up in the castle and were not subdued until a desperate fight had occurred at Uyeno, in grounds then belonging to the temples, but at the present day forming a beautiful public park. This battle was fought on 4th of July 1868, his Imperial Highness Higashi Fushimi, to whom some reference has already been made as having at a later date visited London, having on that day borne the imperial brocade banner to victory. Though this engagement was in July the Shogun had ceased his connection with the rebellion--for such it had now become, being a revolt against the administration which had received the Emperor's authority to act,--and after making his submission had been directed to retire for the time being to his original home at Mito, on the east coast. At a later period he finally went into complete seclusion at Shidzuoka, in the province of Suruga.

The dignified manifesto to his adherents which the Shogun issued at the time of his retirement made evident his conviction that unity was absolutely essential to the success of the national policy and that it was the duty of all true patriots to sink their differences and join in unselfish endeavours to promote the influence and supreme authority of the Imperial Court.

While Saigo was at Shinagawa, in the yashiki of the Satsuma clan, which the recent combat and subsequent fire had left in a deplorably ruinous condition, an old friend came to him in the person of Katsu, the lord of Awa,--a province facing Yokohama across the Bay of Tokio,--who pleaded that the capital should be spared the horrors of an assault, and representing the willingness of the Shogun's supporters to submit. Saigo consented to place matters before his chief, the Prince Arisugawa, and terms of peace were arranged on the lines that Katsu had suggested, namely that the city should be spared in consideration of the vessels belonging to the Shogunate being surrendered, and the castle of Yedo handed over to the imperialists. With men of the type of the Shogun's supporters, however, it was one thing to make peace on their behalf and quite another to induce them to abide by the bargain when it involved complete submission in token of defeat. A number of them determined to hold out in Uyeno, and the fleet made good its retreat from Yedo bay and was next heard of at Hakodate, where it held out for some considerable time. Another section of the Shogun's supporters under Otori Keisuke, went northward, and were followed by the imperialists under Saigo, a severe engagement ensuing at Utsunomiya, some sixty miles north of the capital. It is related of Katsu that he persuaded his friend Saigo to accompany him to the top of Atago-yama, a conspicuous hill near Shiba, within the city limits, and from that elevation showed him a great part of Yedo lying helpless, as it were, at his feet. "If we fight, these innocent people will be great sufferers," said Katsu, and the appeal to Saigo's humanity was not in vain. Katsu, as the lord of Awa, was on the side of Saigo's opponents, in virtue of his holding under the Bakufu, and though the Shogun's Government had been rather severe with him for some of his pro-foreign ideas, imbibed when he navigated the first Japanese vessel of war across the Pacific to San Francisco, some few years previously, he was bound in honour to espouse the Shogun's side in the struggle then taking place.

In the Government which was formed in 1872 under the presidency of Prince Sanjo, Saigo held the portfolio of Minister of War, and it was at this time that the army of Japan began to take definite shape, Saigo himself being responsible for the general plan on which the establishment of an adequate military force was based. That Japan's ambition did not soar very high at that time may be gathered from the subjoined figures, which represent approximately the strength in peace time and in war which was then decided upon:--

It was at about this period that the Korean difficulty began to make itself felt in connection with the administration of the Japanese forces, for there arose a strong party in the State which favoured immediate and resolute action with regard to what was loudly proclaimed to be a stealthy but sure advance of Russia toward the coasts of Japan, an approach that even the coolest and the wisest heads in the Empire could not reflect upon without apprehension. Okubo Toshimichi had placed it on record that "Russia, always pressing southward, is Japan's principal danger." The conquest of Korea, as affording a complete check to Russia's advance, was a step that several of the Cabinet Ministers were eager to embark upon there and then. But in Okubo and Iwakura the nation had two cautious statesmen, as prudent as they were patriotic, and their influence carried the day, though Okubo was Saigo's fellow-clansman. The annexation of Korea was postponed indefinitely, and those who were the strenuous advocates of the forward policy resigned, among them being Saigo Takamori, and Itagaki Taisuke of the province of Tosa. The standard of revolt was speedily raised in the south, not in Satsuma, for Saigo was not then prepared for such a desperate venture, but in Hizen province, to which belonged Yeto Shimpei, who had been one of Saigo's colleagues in the Cabinet, as Minister of Justice. Yeto Shimpei and his following were soon put down, and the leader of this abortive undertaking paid the penalty with his life.

In the expectation that it would prove a safety-valve for this excessive eagerness to be revenged upon Korea, the Government of Tokio sought to find a vent for the ebullient enthusiasm of the Satsuma warriors in an expedition to Formosa, to demand redress for the ill treatment of some shipwrecked fishermen by the savages, whom China had professed herself unable to control. This resolve was not taken without having exhausted all ordinary means of obtaining satisfaction, and the supreme charge of the undertaking was given to Saigo's brother, then Minister of the Navy in the Imperial Cabinet. Satsuma being the province nearest to Formosa, the transports set out from Kiushiu, and the bulk of the troops on which the task devolved of maintaining Japan's prestige in the field on this occasion were men of Satsuma.

In due course the victorious army returned to Japan, on the completion of an Agreement with China whereby the Peking Government bound itself to repay to Japan the expense which it had incurred, but it was not until the British Minister, Sir Thomas Wade, had intervened to prevent a complete severance of relations between Japan and China, consequent upon the indisposition of the Tsung-Li Ya-men to fall in with Japan's views, that a rupture was avoided. Okubo Toshimichi, Japan's representative in the negotiations, was actually on the point of taking his departure from the Chinese capital when the Chinese besought the British Minister to rescue them from the predicament into which their procrastination had led them. China paid half a million taels toward Japan's expenses, and the affair was at an end for the time, Satsuma receiving back the survivors of the contingent that she had sent out a few months before, with regret that fever had decimated their ranks, but with pride that her drilled troops had acquitted themselves so well in the day of trial.

The attitude of Korea continued to be in every way a source of anxiety, however, to the Imperial Cabinet, and though in 1875 an agreement was made whereby Korea was opened to foreign trade, and ratified on the 26th February, of the next year, termed the treaty of Kokwa, the war party in Japan was by no means willing to accept this as a solution of the problem. The Satsuma clan offered strenuous opposition to the extension of the telegraph system of the empire into its own province, and for the time the farthest point of the line southward that the wires could be carried was Kumamoto, seventy-five miles by road short of Kagoshima. It is only now, in 1906, that a State railway is being constructed to the Satsuma stronghold, and for many years the reactionary spirit was strong enough to give pause to both these enterprises of the Department of Public Works. It was Saigo's wish to chastise Korea and bring her into complete subjection to Japan, but the Government of the day thought otherwise, and meanwhile the Shimpei Shi-gakko persevered with its drills, and the pupils regarded Saigo Takamori as a misjudged man whose most patriotic wishes were being ignored at Tokio.

At last, one day in February 1877, a messenger arrived by boat at Kumamoto and handed in a despatch for transmission by telegraph to Tokio apprising the Government of the departure three days before of 12,000 men, fully armed, on a march to Kioto,--as the leaders put it,--to lay their grievances before the Emperor, who happened to be making a brief stay at his old capital. The despatch speedily reached the Government at Tokio, and action was taken on the instant. The sovereign's uncle was invested with full powers to punish the rebels, as Saigo Takamori and his companions in this desperate adventure were pronounced to be, and troops were hurried away to Kiushiu as fast as steam could convey them. Prince Arisugawa reached Hakata, which became the base of operations, early in March, and meanwhile the garrison of Kumamoto, which town was on the line of the Satsuma men's march, placed the castle in a state of defence. Saigo was in command of the rebels, with Kirino, and Shinowara, who were both officers of high rank, as his lieutenants, and the Kumamoto castle was held by a Satsuma man, General Tani, whom nothing would induce to betray his trust. Apart from all question of its prospects of success had it got as far as the main island of Hondo, the chances of the expedition ever completing its projected march to Kioto were destroyed at the outset by its leader devoting his energies to the reduction of the Kumamoto fortress before proceeding beyond that point. Whether he had a sufficient following to admit of his leaving a large proportion of his force in possession of Kumamoto, numerous enough to keep General Tani within the castle walls, while himself pushing on northward, is at least doubtful, but at all events he did not attempt to do so, and the garrison offered so stout a resistance that weeks were lost in a vain effort to capture the place, all the time that the imperial forces were gathering and marching against him from Shimonoseki and Hakata, whither they had been brought by transport. The relief of Kumamoto was effected on the 14th of April 1877. Some very severe conflicts took place in the vicinity, notably at Minami-no-seki a pass in the range of hills some miles to the north of the castle, Takase, and Uyeki. A large percentage of the troops employed on the Government side were men from Aidzu and other northern districts wherein the cause of the Shogun had found its strongest support in the war of the Restoration, and in their encounters with the Satsuma men, ten years before, had been worsted. Under the improved military system which Saigo Takamori had had so great a share in establishing these northern men had developed into fine soldiers, but their efficiency was sorely tested by the fierce onslaughts of the Satsuma swordsmen, whose habit it was to fling away the rifles they bore and rush to close quarters on every occasion. Eventually the Tokio police, who are all of samurai birth, were drafted into Kiushiu to take part in the contest with the swordsmen of the south, and there was from that time onward a vast amount of hand-to-hand fighting in the fashion of a bygone era.

However misguided may have been his actions in the opinion of some of his compatriots, Saigo was the idol of the samurai, and almost equally so of the nation at large. It was many years before millions of his countrymen were willing to credit the reports of his death. When at last they were compelled to admit it they insisted that he had taken up his abode in the planet Mars. A man of striking personality,--he stood over six feet high,--he was distinguished by the extreme simplicity of his tastes, his utter repugnance to display of any sort, his bravery and contempt of danger, his complete modesty and unselfishness, evinced in a thousand ways. His innate kindliness and generosity of heart, concealed beneath a certain taciturnity which is not infrequent among Satsuma people in general, gained for him the utmost respect and esteem and won the affections of soldiers of all ranks to a man. When the struggle was at its height in the summer of 1877 a prominent journal thus eulogised him:--

"Though Saigo Takamori is the public enemy of the State,--although his crime, according to the laws of Meiji, is absolutely unpardonable,--he is still a great man. Was it not he who overturned the despotic Bakufu, and restored the ancient imperial authority? Did he not do this with infinite exertion and the most profound indifference to the perils which beset his person?" It is safe to say that up to the time of the revolt of the clan in 1877 he was the most popular of the nation's heroes.

The Emperor gave one more proof of his extreme magnanimity of mind when he pardoned Saigo's transgression and ordered a statue to be erected to his memory in Uyeno Park in Tokio. Some years afterwards his Majesty conferred the title of Marquis on Takamori's eldest son, in recognition of the invaluable support that the father had rendered to the State, in the days prior to Satsuma's outbreak. Every line of the record of his error has been expunged by his sovereign's command, and naught remains but the memory of splendid services given to his country with whole-souled devotion and self-sacrifice. He died as became a true and loyal samurai of his race,--died as he had hoped to die,

"... And not disgrace-- Its ancient chivalry."

FIELD-MARSHAL MARQUIS YAMAGATA

Owning allegiance originally to the great Choshiu party, Yamagata Aritomo was from the outset of his career distinguished by his strenuous advocacy of the principle of army reform which even at that early period of the history of modern Japan had come to be recognised by her most ardent patriots as a sheer necessity. The idea of establishing the paramount influence of his native country in the affairs of the Far East by endowing it with a numerous and powerful army seems to have taken possession of his active mind from an early age, and he strove unceasingly to spread the desire of attaining martial supremacy for the clan among his fellow-samurai, who were in the habit, like himself, of devoting much of their leisure to the study of translations of military works from the Dutch. In Yamagata's young days practically the only accessible writings on fortification and the art of war were in this form, but they were devoured by the Choshiu cadets, who speedily turned to account the knowledge they thereby acquired. The military forces of the Daimio of Choshiu were drilled more or less on the Occidental system after the year 1864, and as a result, on the outbreak of hostilities between the followers of the Shogun and the great southern clans towards the close of the Emperor Komei's reign the northern men found themselves confronted by troops which had a semblance of skill with the bayonet, and could shoot with some approach to accuracy. The rifles with which the men were armed were of a pattern obsolete in Europe, it is true, but they made the best use they could of these weapons, and the effect on the Aidzu men and other adherents of the Shogun, whose training with modern arms had been of shorter duration and less thorough, was from the first unmistakable. The superiority of Western drill and implements of warfare having been demonstrated in actual combat on the battlefield, it became the Choshiu leader's ambition to establish a national army, fit to defend the Imperial possessions and to enable Japan some day to take her fitting place among the great powers of the world. To Yamagata, in the opinion of his countrymen, more than to any other person, belongs the credit of having established his country's military effectiveness and laid the foundations of her martial success in later years.

Yamagata was very active in the War of the Restoration, leading the Choshiu forces with distinction in the campaign under Marshal Saigo against the Shogunate forces at Fushimi and elsewhere, and when the new Administration was formed in 1868 he was appointed Under Secretary of the War Department at Tokio. There he at once set to work to reorganise the new Imperial army, partly made up as it was of the forces which the feudal barons had themselves maintained and handed over to the Imperial Government after the cessation of hostilities in Oshiu, North Japan. For the ability he displayed in the campaign in that region he received signal marks of the Emperor's approval, and a few months later he was despatched on a journey to Europe, in order that he might study more closely the art of war as there practised. He was a little over a year absent from Japan, but during the interval he had been present at most of the important engagements of the Franco-German War, and returned to his own country in the spring of 1871.

It is interesting at this stage to recall the actual constitution of the first army on the European model which Japan possessed. It was planned by the Government of the Shogun in 1861 , and as a first attempt was undoubtedly the nucleus of the tremendous force that the country is now able to place in the field. The intention was that it should comprise:--

But though planned this army was never completely organised, because it was only the hatamoto or other retainers of the Shogun himself who could be called on to contribute, other retainers being already in the service of their respective feudal lords. The Hatamoto and others directly controlled by the Shogun had to provide according to their incomes as under:--

Those having incomes of 500 koku were required to supply one soldier. Those in receipt of 1000 koku three soldiers. Incomes of 3000 koku or more were assessed at ten men.

Those whose incomes were under 500 koku paid a tax in rice or its equivalent.

The men to be supplied had to be between the ages of 15 and 45, and served for five years, with liberty to renew their engagement if they so chose.

Each regiment of heavy infantry--6 in all--was composed of 2 battalions, each of which contained 10 sections of 40 men. Then the guard for the Shogun's castle gates was made up of 40 men at each--520 in all. Thus the total of the heavy infantry force was 5320 men.

The light infantry was to protect artillery and convoys, and consisted of 4 battalions, each with 8 sections of 32 men in each. The bodyguard or rifle brigade,--the first to carry modern rifles--numbered 890 men. The heavy cavalry had swords and carbines, and numbered 888 men. The light cavalry carried lances, and were only 192 in number.

The artillery had 6-pounder guns, and 12-in. howitzers,--8 guns to a battery, the men numbering in all 384.

The heavy field artillery men had 12-pounder guns and 15-in. howitzers, and there was half a battery at each gate,--6 1/2 batteries altogether. In the coast defences, including the forts at Shinagawa, Yedo, there were some 2000 artillerymen.

In the staff of the army were 1406 men, many being junior officers, chosen for training for military duties under the eyes of staff officers.

The total effective force of the Shogunate was thus supposed to be about 13,500 men. In reality it did not muster more than 7700 men and 64 officers when the "standing army" was called on to support the waning fortunes of the Shogunate in 1867.

At the time that this nucleus of the modern Japanese army was formed the intrusion, as it was deemed, of foreigners was bitterly resented by the party of exclusion, which had its centre in the Court of Kioto; the Shogun, on the other hand, day by day became more convinced of the futility of such efforts as Japan could make in opposition to the fulfilment of the treaties. There remained to be considered the probable attitude of the great feudatories, who were almost independent of the Shogun though nominally his subordinates, and by whom it was to be anticipated, in not a few instances, that the occasion would be seized for divesting themselves of a yoke which had begun to be burdensome. This factor in the problem was at all events one which no one could with safety ignore. Affairs were further complicated by the circumstance that in 1860, when the discussion was at its height, the two strong chieftains of the south, Mori of Choshiu and Shimadzu of Satsuma, were at variance, and as a result when Mori advocated the out-and-out adoption of a policy of expulsion his powerful opponent in the extreme south of Kiushiu preferred to see an understanding arrived at between the Imperial party and the adherents of the Bakufu, which was responsible for the signature of the treaties with foreign powers. At this time the Shogun Iyemochi was but a youth and politically he was unable to render more than the minimum of service to his party, but it was hoped that a fusion of interests might be brought about by a marriage between his Highness and a sister of the reigning Emperor, which took place in the autumn of 1860. But the scheme conspicuously failed to bring the rival factions into line, and instead of presenting a united front against the "barbarians" the clan enmities and jealousies continued to thrive and in the views entertained on the subject of the admission of strangers there remained as complete a divergence as ever. And not only was there this conflict of opinion prevailing between two well-defined parties in the State but the Shogun's side grew to be a house divided against itself, for dissensions arose within the Mito clan, thereunto the strongest pillar of the Tokugawa regime, and one of the branches of that family in which the office of Shogun was hereditary. One half of the Mito clan were for the expulsion of foreigners, the other half favoured the strict fulfilment of the Shogun's bargains. Feeling on these matters at one time ran so high at Mito that the samurai of the clan fought desperately among themselves, and it is possible to trace the decline of the Shogunate's power to this lamentable internecine strife which sapped the strength of the Tokugawa house and paved the way to its final fall. Another peril to the Shogunate was created by the antagonism of the Lord Mori of Choshiu. His uncompromising hostility to the treaties led him into a direct quarrel with the Bakufu, and he was directed to return to his own province from Kioto. His abrupt dismissal from Court was calculated to arouse the keenest antagonism to the Shogunate on the part of his followers, who carried the news to Hagi, his castle town in the west of Choshiu, and there was from that time war between the clan and the adherents of the Tokugawa house. Thus arose the anomaly that while the Choshiu clan had at that time in its ranks those very men by whose endeavours Japan was ultimately to be induced to abandon a policy of seclusion and to enter the comity of nations, their influence was insufficient to prevent, until a considerably later period, the adoption of an attitude by their feudal chief which was distinctly reactionary. And the reformers, finding themselves in a minority, were compelled to wait their time. The Choshiu men gathered in their strength and marched upon Kioto, resolved to wipe out the disgrace which they conceived attached to them through the unavenged insult to their lord, and as at that date the Choshiu troops were by far the better armed, victory would have rested with them in the battle which ensued within sound, and, indeed, within rifle shot, of the Imperial residence, but for the inadequacy of their numbers. Yamagata, Takasato, and many others who were presently to achieve distinction in their country's cause, were engaged in this contest, and were ranged under the Jo-I banner, though their presence there as supporters of the principle of expulsion was due to their loyalty to their feudal lord, and in defence of his rights as opposed to the Shogun, rather than to any unwillingness that the country should be opened to international trade and the introduction of Western arts and sciences.

In writing of the pre-Restoration days himself, in 1887, Count Yamagata, as he was then, described the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate as that when, all foreign intercourse being limited to China and Holland, people in Japan knew little of the civilisation of other nations. "Peace," he said, "universally reigned. The swords were kept in their sheaths, and the arrows lay untouched in their quivers. Luxury and effeminacy followed in the wake of peace. The sudden appearance of the problem of foreign intercourse in the sixth year of Ka-yei resulted in the universal cry for exclusion. The power of the Shogunate was gradually undermined by this event. It is not to be wondered at that this cry was raised on every side, for people were kept in ignorance of things outside of their own country. Their condition was that of the proverbial frog in the well.

I no naka no kawadzu Dai Kai wo shiradzu.

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