A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (46 page)

History suggests that his proposal was simply being deferred rather than rejected outright, but Saig
took it badly, and even suffered a breakdown. He returned to Kagoshima, the main city of the former Satsuma domain, along with a number of supporters. Soon he became a focal point for dis-enchanted former samurai and anti-government feeling in general.

Over the next few years tensions mounted in Kagoshima. The government suspected an uprising in the making, and in January 1877 sent a naval unit to the city to remove munitions. It was attacked, and from then on fighting escalated. In late February Saig
’s force of some 40,000 men engaged pro-government forces at Kumamoto to the north. The ensuing battle lasted six weeks, but in the end victory went to the government’s new conscript army. Saig
and some 400 troops – one hundredth of his original force – slowly fought their way back to Kagoshima, where he committed suicide on 24 September after a valiant last charge.

Disaffection and acts of violence among former samurai did continue for a few years more. One such act was the assassination of Okubo in May the following year, by former Satsuma samurai who considered him a traitor. However, the Satsuma Rebellion was really the final action in which ‘old-school samurai’ participated on any significant scale. It was almost as if Saig
and those who died with him knew full well from the outset that the day of the samurai was over, and they preferred to end with it.
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4.2   The Westernisation of Society

With the exception of the now dead Saig
, the new government saw westernisation as a key element in modernisation. Westernisation would make Japan stronger, better able to compete with the western powers, and perhaps even match them or surpass them. One of the many slogans of the age was to be ‘
oitsuke, oikose
’ – ‘catch up, overtake’. A westernised Japan would be taken more seriously by the west, and Japan very much wanted to be taken seriously. It did not like the humiliation of the ‘unequal treaties’ signed during the death throes of the sh
gunate, and was very keen to have them revised. It wanted Japan to be treated as an equal – or ideally as a superior.

Western institutions and practices were to be introduced not only in areas such as politics, the military, industry, and the economy, but into society in general. The westernisation of society was sometimes more indiscriminate than the government would have liked, but it was an important backdrop to political and economic reforms.

Western-inspired changes in everyday life were numerous and often bewildering. From 1 January 1873 the western solar (Gregorian) calendar was adopted in place of the old lunar one, meaning that dates now ‘advanced’ by between three and six weeks.
¹⁵
Telegraphs started operating in 1869, and a postal service in 1871. Modern-style newspapers proliferated from the early 1870s, and – a testimony to the high degree of literacy in the nation – over a hundred of them were in circulation by 1875.
¹⁶
Western dress became fashionable among progressives, and in 1872 became compulsory for government officials (including on ceremonial occasions) and civil servants such as postmen.
¹⁷
Western-style haircuts also became increasingly fashionable, and a popular symbol of modernity.
¹⁸
Beef-eating too was popular among progressives – the supposedly ‘traditional’ Japanese dish of
sukiyaki
developing from this – and specialist restaurants sprang up to cater to them and to the increasing number of foreigners.

Though it was only used by a select few, one of the best-known material symbols of westernisation was the Rokumeikan (‘Deer Cry Pavilion’).
This government-built hall near the Imperial Palace was designed by the leading British architect Joseph Conder and completed in 1883. It was the venue for balls and other social occasions involving western dignitaries, and was used in particular by Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru. The cabinet of the day was nicknamed ‘the dancing cabinet’, and the term ‘dance fever’ (
but
netsu
) was coined by the Japanese public many decades before its English-language equivalent.

The greatest of all physical symbols of modernisation was perhaps the railway.
¹⁹
Japan’s first railway was opened in May 1872, between the foreign settlement of Yokohama and Shinagawa, and the track was extended to T
ky
’s Shinbashi in September that year. Within 15 years 1,000 miles of track had been laid, and by the end of the century 5,000.

The effect of the railway on the movement of both people and goods – and on the economy as a result – was enormous. In the Tokugawa period a journey between Edo and Ky
to, which was almost always undertaken on foot, took on average two weeks. Even the luxury of hiring ‘professional walkers’ in the form of sedan bearers could save only a day or so. However, after the railroad link was completed in the late 1880s it took less than one day. Moreover, the rail fare was less than a third of the cost of the trip by sedan chair.
²⁰