Ever since watching the movie The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, Jeb Smith has admired and been fascinated by feudal Japan and the samurai. The movie, based on various historical figures and events from 19th-century Japan, portrays the contrast between traditionalism and modernity.
Here Jeb looks at the samurai in the context of the book The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori by Mark Ravina.
Posthumous portrait of Saigō Takamori by Tokonami Masayoshi. `Source: Public domain, Collection of Kagoshima City Museum of Art, available here.
The samurai contrast between traditionalism and modernity shows, on one hand, how you had the traditional warrior samurai, living agrarian, rural, lifestyles centered on close-knit, decentralized and self-governing, deeply religious farming communities. They were content to live as their ancestors had, guarding, protecting, and living out their traditions, and were resistant to money, progress, political power, and innovation. Instead, honor, faith, family, and freedom were what mattered most. On the other hand, you had certain Japanese who were influenced by Western capitalism and colonization. They sought to modernize Japan, leaving behind its traditions for the benefits of money and political power. We observe politicians and bureaucrats influencing the Japanese Emperor to adopt modernity and centralized power, and create a singular nation out of the various distinct regions that existed under feudal Japan. This involved engaging in trade agreements with the West and pursuing technological advancements, all aimed at generating wealth and gaining power and leading to centralized rule, a modern military and economy, and European lifestyles, including Western dress. The contrast is clearly seen in how they waged war, the traditional Samurai side using bows and swords, and modern imperial forces cannons and rifles.
In the movie, the character Lord Moritsugu Katsumoto is based on the life of Saigo Takamori, who led the “Satsuma Rebellion” against the modernizing Japanese government in 1877 in an attempt to defend traditional Japanese samurai values.
From Movie to Book – Saigo’s Heritage and Tradition
In his acclaimed work, The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, Mark Ravina, a scholar of Japanese history, provides an in-depth examination of Saigo’s life.
He was huge compared to most of his peers, nearly six feet tall with a muscular build. He was described as intimidating with a deadly stare, yet also sensitive, showing emotion and crying in public at plays. He was brave, willing, even desiring to die for a cause, yet gentle, soft, and sought peace. To the samurai, bravery was connected to morality. Courage means believing in something outside of oneself, such as conviction, principle, loyalty, and good character, which can be trusted. Selfish individuals who prioritize their own interests over others’ lives cannot be trusted.
Saigo possessed natural qualities that men admired, as they respected his dedication, loyalty, honor, and the way he handled adversity. He also treated others with respect and honor. He taught his students that we have to stop fearing death, which is inevitable, to truly “live in harmony with heaven.” He was very “black and white” principled and focused on the few things he thought were important.
Born in 1827, Saigo grew up poor in the Satsuma region, known for its agricultural, rural, and remote lifestyle, in the far southwest corner of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Largely isolated, its people spoke a regional dialect incomprehensible to other sections of Japan. Saigo and the residents of the region were considered “backward,” old-fashioned, and traditional.
In Satsuma, the local samurai were descendants of various regional samurai rulers dating back centuries. Centuries before, the samurai were somewhat feudal vassals of the Shogun, who parceled out the lands and territories to the samurai to rule as military rulers who in turn passed them on to their descendants. As in feudal Europe, they essentially became local lords or monarchs and ruled their domains as autonomous areas. In the 1850s, “Japan” was not yet a centralized nation, but a variety of local realms with no professional army. Japan, as a singular nation, existed only in thought, not in practice: however, fealty (at least symbolically) was given to the capital.
Traditional loyalty dates back to medieval Japan, where vassals were remarkably loyal to their personal Lord, even sometimes committing suicide if their Lord passed, rather than serve another. Saigo was loyal to, and believed in, a divine order rather than individuals, even his Lord, whom he fiercely loved and served in every way he could. However, divine law was higher than man’s, and all, whether peasant, vassal or lord, shogun or emperor, were to be loyal above all to the gods, and to the high law from heaven that governed all people; in the Western context, “natural law.” Further, Ravina wrote, “Saigo’s opposition to a central bureaucracy was rooted in a Confucian understanding of power: governments should rule, he thought, through broad precepts and moral examples rather than extensive regulation.” He believed the cultivation of people who are moral, “loyalty, filial piety, humanity, and love,” would not need governmental laws and dictates; the focus should be on moral people rather than top-down coercion.
The local samurai were generally considered equal, with a few powerful overlords of large tracts of land, and the capital did not receive blind obedience, as we are accustomed to in our centralized democratic governments today. Instead, they maintained fealty out of choice, provided that the Shogun or central power was honest.
Multiple rural aristocratic castles dotted the landscape. One castle for each region was the general though not invariable rule. While the samurai ruled from the castles and centers of towns, most villagers outside the samurai’s control lived as autonomous peasants in small local villages. Traditional Japanese society, in which Saigo grew up, was an extremely hierarchical society where you could kill a lower-class individual who insulted you; in fact, you were required to do so by law. Samurai made a distinction between killing for honor and murder, the latter being outlawed and degrading.
Saigo hailed from a clan of fierce warriors dating back to the 11th century, who demonstrated legendary military prowess, especially during the 11th to 13th centuries, once helping fight off Mongol invasions, for which his ancestors won renown. Regarding his more immediate lineage, Ravina wrote, “His father, Kichibei, was formally a full samurai (shi or jokashi), and the family should, in theory, have lived off of his stipend. But in practice the Saigo family lived more like goshi: self-sufficient rural warriors.”[1]
Learning the way of the sword was not the only thing samurai held as valuable. Honor, courage, honesty, and the avoidance of foul language were priorities instilled among the aristocratic samurai class. A focus on the past, on ancestors and tradition was central to the samurai culture and worldview. Saigo’s traditionalism was, of course, heavily influenced by his aristocratic samurai education, which shunned Western ideas, technological advancements, and modernism as a whole, condemning “novelties” and focusing on ancient texts. While many would later use gunpowder, initially the samurai despised muskets as dishonorable killing weapons, plus now even peasants could kill samurai who had trained their whole life by the way of the sword. Firearms degraded warfare and opened it to the lower classes. Saigo was raised as an aristocratic gentleman. He was well versed in philosophy, especially the ancient Chinese philosophers, and held a great interest in Japanese history.
Saigo upheld the traditional view of the Emperor who, in his mind, represented Japanese history, people, and traditional culture. The emperor was not a monarch but more like a medieval feudal king; his power was in religious symbolism, and he was to “reign rather than rule.” The samurai, the warrior class, were to be the true rulers at the local levels as feudal lords, not the Emperor, nor the Shogun, the supreme (in theory though not always practice) military ruler who also was involved in politics from the capital. Saigo argued it was unnatural to have multiple leaders, both a Shogun and an Emperor, preferring to downgrade the Shogun to a simple local Samurai lord. According to Saigo and others like him, the dynasty of emperors had existed since the dawn of time. The current Emperor, a lineal descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, holds divine authority over all, including his servants the samurai and the Shogun.
Saigo resisted outside Western influences because they exerted pressure on the Emperor, and came from mere men, who were not the true authority; thus, resisting them upheld the divine. He also sought to maintain the policy of isolationism, refusing foreign trade and contacts, to preserve Japan's religious purity, as Western powers sought to allow evangelists and missionaries into Japan. Whatever the potential financial blessings might be, the religious aspects were too vital to Saigo to sell out. This also played a role in why he did not fear the technologically advanced Western navies and armies; instead, he believed that tactics and morality would determine the outcome of a war, as he refused to trade with the West.
As a samurai, Saigo was non-materialistic, showing no interest in expensive clothing or new fashions. Ravina wrote,“Saigo’s preference for simple, traditional pleasures distinguished him from his colleagues in the Meiji government who used their new wealth and influence to entertain in Western style, hosting, for example, European-style costume balls. For Saigo, such lavish novelties were emblems of a revolution gone bad.” Thus, the main Western priority, and what drove the push for modernity, technological advancements, and centralized power —that is, money, trade and financial interests —was readily resisted by the aristocratic, non-materialistic, localized hierarchical moral and traditional samurai such as Saigo.
He was often disgusted with politics, seeking relief in rural farming, hunting, gardening, learning, fishing, and hiking, as politics made him “foul tempered.” But the tyranny of rulers and the suffering of the people along with the necessity of self-preservation drove him into politics just the same. He was a “tireless crusader against an oppressive government.” Also, his extreme loyalty to his lord kept him active in politics.
His first experience outside of his education quickly revealed to him the oppressive taxation of his region and its adverse effects on farmers and peasants. The taxes, he believed, kept the area poor and prevented development. Many left the area to avoid them, moving to other regions with less oppressive taxation policies. Similar to feudal Europe, the aristocratic and warrior classes were supported by peasants through taxation. However, the Satsuma region was samurai-heavy, lacking sufficient peasants as support. When living in hiding in the remote Amami Islands, he wrote, “It is painful to see the extent of tyranny here.” He felt for the islanders’ suffering under heavy local tax policies. Many inhabitants were enslaved on large sugar plantations in order to profit the local government, which instituted a monopoly on the product, even killing anyone who attempted to sell it unauthorized.
“Progress”
Western nations had long sought to influence Japanese politics and economics, and they pressured Japan to engage in trade and open itself up to modernity. Japan had a long history of isolation from these powers, partly to keep Christianityout and maintain its religious purity. However, a faction within Japan grew increasingly concerned about the technological advancements of Western nations. After the British defeated China in the First Opium War in the middle of the 19th century, they argued that Japan needed to modernize and advance its own capabilities to protect itself from foreign nations that might seek to dominate it (Saigo eventually, and reluctantly, in part in service of his lord, accepted this position and helped implement it.) However, it was the Americans that finally “opened up” Japan from its traditional isolationist stance. They did so through purposely intimidating them with their technologically elite navy. However, Saigo helped institute a modern centralized Japanese imperial government under the Emperor, seeing it as the lesser of two evils.
Perhaps due to his unawareness of what would occur in a centralized system that he had previously helped introduce, Saigo appears to have undergone a significant shift in his opinions about the imperial government after leaving the capital and returning to full-time country life, where he became happy, healthy, and a renowned local figure. At this time, he was described by an Austrian diplomat as “having the manners of a country gentleman.” National politics made him stressed, angry, and unhealthy; he found the minute details of administration and governance annoying and difficult to endure, periodically retreating to the woods to “forsake the world.” He endorsed and promoted self-sufficiency and, in support of the old feudal ways of Japan, Saigo warned of the:
“dangers of introducing market principles into landownership. In hard times, he observed, the poor would be forced to sell their lands to the rich, which would exacerbate their poverty… [he desired instead] to ensure that all farmers had adequate plots and then maintain the principle of common land. This was the only way to avoid the unseemly spectacle of people ‘fighting over land, blinded by the prospect of immediate gain’… [he was] unwilling to let commerce corrupt the Satsuma countryside, and… ready to subvert the will of the central government to protect the virtue of his domain.”
So, when the new centralized modern government instituted things like a nationwide property tax and invaded private property, he was outraged. Ravina wrote, “At the heart of the conflict were two different political agendas, the desire to build a powerful centralized state, and the desire to maintain Satsuma as a distinct polity.” The central power, as all do, quickly became intolerant of diversity and decentralization, snuffing out and eradicating its competitors. It began to enforce, through law, the removal of class distinctions, hierarchy, feudalism, and the power of local samurai, as well as any other form of social stratification. Over time, the central government abolished the local rulers, eradicated hereditary inheritance rights, replaced the daimyo and samurai domains, appointed politicians from the capital, and “implemented national standards in taxation, civil administration, law, and education.”
In opposition to the traditional feudal and regional samurai forces, the newly minted central Japanese government was constructing a modern national force, and utilizing national taxation, national conscription, and government power to foster and bring to bear the full might of industry, including railways, steamships, telegraphs, and, for the first time in Japanese history, land mines, rockets, and more. With big government and big money colluding with big business, comes big war.
Japan was modernizing, especially its military, which had become a national force rather than a regional feudal one. Now upheld by a national tax and conscription, and supplied and organized by modern communications, for the first time in history the common man replaced the aristocratic feudal samurai warrior. The samurai heritage and culture, along with their function and purpose, were being abolished and replaced, Mark Ravina wrote “The modern Japanese army had explicitly rejected feudal concerns and symbols. The new Japanese army was based on modern nationalism, not regional feudal lords. The 1872 edict that created the conscript army described the Samurai tradition as a terrible inequity. Conscription was described as a great egalitarian project... to ‘grant equal rights to all.’” The modern national movement was one towards equality, away from the hierarchy of the samurai.
When the new national Japanese forces forced a favorable economic treaty for themselves at the expense of Korea, through military force and threat, Saigo was outraged, saying that just war is based on “Heaven’s principles” and is fought only for a just cause, not for money. That this new national government would place money before honor was “beneath contempt”; money was nothing to fight a war over, even if it could be easily won. The New National Japan wished to create an Empire, but this particular samurai wanted nothing to do with it, viewing Western nations as less civilized because, even though technologically advanced, they colonized weaker nations for economic and political gain. “He thought war for economic advantage was reprehensible and barbaric.”
However, Saigo’s own region of Satsuma had been left largely unchanged, and local samurai still ruled in this remote, rural area untouched by Japan’s modernization. When the government cracked down on traditional resistance to national conformity, including outlawing swords, the samurai’s favored weapons, allowing only government officials to carry them, it was too much for the reactionary segments of Japan’s samurai culture; rebellions sprang up in various areas. It was attacking their identity, removing them as a people and bringing them all down to a common denominator, easily manipulated and controlled.
We observe a similar historical scenario around this time in America's lead-up to the Civil War, where the North pushes forward towards capitalism, centralized power, economic growth, and overall thrusting into modern society and ideas. At the same time, the South stood as defiantly as the samurai, set on maintaining traditions, local control, and close-knit religious communities. Famed Confederate General Robert E. Lee warned that if the Republicans' transformation of the decentralized Union into a singular centralized nation were to occur, “the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.” Proving the truth of this, the American capitalist, interventionist, militaristic, Republican-controlled “One nation” was not content with becoming authoritarian in the United States, or even wiping out the South. Instead, they then removed or exterminated the Native Americans in their quest for western expansion and then went abroad, for financial reasons and “democracy,” influencing countries as distant as Japan, desiring to recreate it in their own capitalist Western image.
Resisting Modernity – The Satsuma Rebellion
The Satsuma rebellion was the bloodiest combat Japan had seen in 300 years and wa