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KATSU KAISHU: The Man Who Saved Early Modern Japan
(Cont'd)
In 1866 the shogun's forces suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the revolutionary Choshu Army. Kaishu
was subsequently reinstated to his former post by Tokugawa Yoshinobu, Head of the House of Tokugawa, who in the following
December would become the fifteenth and last Tokugawa Shogun. Lord Yoshinobu did not like Kaishu, just as Kaishu did not
like Lord Yoshinobu. Kaishu was a maverick within the government, who had broken age-old tradition and even law by
imparting his expertise to enemies of the shogunate; who openly criticized his less talented colleagues at Edo for their
inability, if not blind refusal, to realize that the years, and perhaps even days, of Tokugawa rule were numbered; who in
the Grand Hall at Edo Castle had braved punishment and even death by advising then-Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi to abdicate; and
who was now recalled to service because Yoshinobu and his aides knew that Kaishu was the only man in all of Edo who wielded
both the respect and trust of the revolutionaries.
In August 1866, Navy Commissioner Katsu Kaishu was dispatched to Miyajima Island of the Shrine in the domain of
Hiroshima to meet representatives of Choshu. Before departing he told Lord Yoshinobu, "I'll have things settled with the
Choshu men within one month. If I'm not back by then, you can assume that they've cut off my head." Kaishu was aware of the
grave danger to his life as an emissary of the Tokugawa, but nevertheless traveled alone, without a single bodyguard.
Shortly after successfully negotiating a peace with Choshu, the outsider resigned his post, due to irreconcilable
differences with the powers that were, and returned to his home in Edo.
In October 1867, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu announced his abdication and the restoration of power to the emperor. But
diehard oppositionists within the Tokugawa camp were determined to fight the forces of the new imperial government. The
leaders of the new imperial government were equally determined to annihilate the remnants of the Tokugawa, to ensure that
it would never rise again. Civil war broke out near Kyoto in January 1868. Although the imperial forces, led by Saigo
Kichinosuke of Satsuma, were greatly outnumbered, they routed the army of the former shogun in just three days. The new
government's leaders now demanded that Yoshinobu commit ritual suicide, and set March 15 as the date fifty thousand
imperial troops would lay siege to Edo Castle, and, in so doing, subject the entire city to the flames of war.
The services of Katsu Kaishu were once again indispensable to the Tokugawa. Kaishu desperately wanted to avoid a civil war,
which he feared would incite foreign agression. But he was nevertheless bound by his duty as a direct retainer of the
Tokugawa to serve in the best interest of his liege lord, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. In March 1868, with a formidable fleet of
twelve warships at his disposal, this son of a petty samurai was the most powerful man in Edo. And as head of the Tokugawa
army, he was determined to burn Edo Castle rather than relinquish it in battle, and to wage a bloody civil war against
Saigo's forces.
When Kaishu was informed of the imperial government's plans for imminent attack, he immediately sent a letter to Saigo. In
this letter Kaishu wrote that the retainers of the Tokugawa were an inseparable part of the new Japanese nation. Instead of
fighting with one another, those of the new government and the old must cooperate in order to deal with the very real
threat of the foreign powers, whose legations in Japan anxiously watched the great revolution which had consumed the
Japanese nation for these past fifteen years.
Saigo replied with a set of conditions, including the peaceful surrender of Edo Castle, which must be met if the House of
Tokugawa was to be allowed to survive, Yoshinobu's life spared, and war avoided. At an historic meeting with Saigo on March
14, one day before the planned attack, Kaishu accepted Saigo's conditions, and went down in history as the man who not only
saved the lives and property of Edo's one million inhabitants, but also the entire Japanese nation.
Copyright © 2002 Romulus Hillsborough
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2002 issue of Tokyo Journal.
About the Author
Romulus Hillsborough is the author of RYOMA - Life of a Renaissance Samurai (Ridgeback Press, 1999) and Samurai Sketches:
From the Bloody Final Years of the Shogun (Ridgeback Press, 2001). RYOMA is the only biographical novel of Sakamoto Ryoma
in the English language. Samurai Sketches is a collection of historical sketches, never before presented in English,
depicting men and events during the revolutionary years of mid-19th century Japan. Reviews and more information about these
books are available at http://www.ridgebackpress.com
Photograph Credits
Photograph of Katsu Kaishu courtesy of Takaaki Ishiguro.
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