A Coolie
The Man Who Saved Early Modern Japan
by Romulus Hillsborough
Katsu Kaishu ‹consummate samurai, streetwise denizen of Downtown
Edo, founder of the
Japanese navy, statesman par excellence and always the outsider, historian
and prolific
writer, faithful retainer of the Tokugawa Shogun and mentor of men
who would overthrow
him was among the most remarkable of the numerous heroes of
the Meiji Restoration.
Kaishu¹s protégé was Sakamoto Ryoma, a key
player in the overthrow of the Tokugawa
Shogunate. Surely Ryoma would agree that he owes his historical greatness
to Kaishu,
whom Ryoma considered ³the greatest man in Japan.² Ryoma
was an outlaw and leader of
a band of young rebels. Kaishu was the commissioner of the shogun¹s
navy, who took the
young rebels under his wing at his private naval academy in Kobe,
teaching them the naval
sciences and maritime skills required to build a modern navy. Kaishu
also imparted to
Ryoma his extensive knowledge of the Western world, including American
democracy, the
Bill of Rights, and the workings of the joint stock corporation.
Kaishu was one of the most enlightened men of his time,
not only in Japan but in the
world. The American educator E. Warren Clark, a great admirer of Kaishu
who knew him
personally, called Kaishu ³the Bismark of Japan,² for his
role in unifying the Japanese
nation in the dangerous aftermath of the fall of the Tokugawa. Like
Ryoma, Kaishu was an
adept swordsman who never drew his blade on an adversary, despite
numerous attempts
on his life. Indeed the two men lived in dangerous times. ³I¹ve
been shot at by an enemy
about twenty times in all,² Kaishu once said. ³I have one
scar on my leg, one on my head,
and two on my side.² Kaishu¹s defiance of death sprung from
his reverence for life. ³I
despise killing, and have never killed a man. I used to keep [my sword]
tied so tightly to the
scabbard, that I couldn¹t draw the blade even if I wanted to.²
Katsu Kaishu, who would become the most powerful man
in the Tokugawa Shogunate,
was born in Edo in January 1823, the only son of an impoverished petty
samurai. The
Tokugawa had ruled Japan peacefully for over two centuries. To ensure
their supremacy
over some 260 feudal domains, the Tokugawa had strictly enforced a
policy of national
isolation since 1635. But the end of the halcyon era was fast approaching,
as the social,
political and economic structures of the outside world were undergoing
major changes.
The nineteenth century heralded the age of European and North American
capitalism, and
with it rapid developments in science, industry and technology. The
development of the
steamship in the early part of the century served the expansionist
purposes of the Western
powers. Colonization of Asian countries by European powers surged.
In 1818 Great Britain
subjugated much of India. Through the Treaty of Nanking, which ended
the first Opium
War in 1842, the British acquired Hong Kong. The Western encroachment
reached Japan
in 1853,when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy led
a squadron of
heavily armed warships into the bay off the shogun¹s capital,
forcing an end to Japanese
isolation and inciting fifteen years of bloody turmoil across the
island nation.
Until Perry¹s arrival, pursuers of foreign knowledge existed
outside the mainstream of
Japanese society. Kaishu was an outsider, both by nature and circumstance.
But when his
sword master urged him to discontinue fencing to devote himself to
the study of Dutch,
with the objective to learn Western military science, the young outsider
balked. That it was
frowned upon for a direct retainer of the shogun to study Dutch had
little, if any, impact on
Kaishu. He was innately inquisitive of things strange to him. He was
also filled with a
burgeoning self-confidence. But the idea of learning a foreign language
seemed to him
preposterous. He had never been exposed to foreign culture, except
Chinese literature. It
wasn¹t until age eighteen that he first saw a map of the world.
³I was wonderstruck,² he
recalled decades later, adding that he had now determined to travel
the globe.
Kaishu¹s wonderment was perfectly natural. His entire world still
consisted of a small,
isolated island nation. But his determination to travel abroad was
strengthened by his
discovery of strange script engraved on the barrel of a cannon in
the compounds of Edo
Castle. The cannon had been presented to Edo by the Netherlands, and
Kaishu correctly
surmised that the engraving was in Dutch. Thus far he had only heard
about ³those
foreigners, the Dutch,² who lived in a small, confined community
in the distant Nagasaki.
³Those foreigners² had occasionally fluttered through his
mind as mere phantasm, the stuff
of youthful imagination. But now, for the first time, he saw in his
mind¹s eye, however
vaguely, the people who had manufactured the cannon, and who had engraved
in their
own language the inscription upon its barrel. Those undecipherable
letters of the alphabet,
written horizontally rather than vertically, served as cold evidence
of the actual existence of
people who communicated in a language completely different from his
own, but who until
now had only existed as so much hearsay. Since these foreigners were
human beings like
himself, why shouldn¹t he be able to learn their language? And
once he had learned their
language, he would be able to read their books, learn how to manufacture
and operate
their cannon and realize his aspiration to travel the world.
In the face of Perry¹s demands, the shogunate conducted
a national survey, calling for
solutions to the foreign threat. The shogunate received hundreds of
responses, the
majority of which, broadly speaking, represented either of two conflicting
viewpoints. On
one side were those who proposed opening the country to foreigners.
Their opponents
advocated preserving the centuries-old policy of exclusionism. But
neither side offered a
constructive means for realizing their proposals. In contrast, the
memorial submitted by one
unknown samurai was clear, brilliant, progressive, and included concrete
advice for the
future of Japan. In his memorial Kaishu pointed out that Perry had
been able to enter Edo
Bay unimpeded only because Japan did not have a navy to defend itself.
He urged the
shogunate to recruit men for a navy. He dared to propose that the
military government
break age-old tradition and go beyond birthright to recruit men of
ability, rather than the
sons of the social elite ‹ and certainly there was nobody in all of
Edo more poignantly
aware of this necessity than this impoverished, brilliant young man
from the lower echelons
of samurai society. Kaishu advised that the shogunate lift its ban
on the construction of
warships needed for national defense; that it manufacture Western-style
cannon and rifles;
that it reform the military according to modern Western standards,
and establish military
academies. Pointing out the great technological advances being achieved
in Europe and
the Untied States, Kaishu challenged the narrow-minded traditionalists
who opposed the
adoption of Western military technology and systems.
Within the first few years after the arrival of Perry, all of Kaishu¹s
proposals were adopted
by the shogunate. In January 1855, Kaishu was recruited into government
service. In
Japanese chronology this corresponded to the second year of the Era
of Stable
Government, to which purpose Kaishu dedicated the remaining forty-four
years of his life.
In September, Kaishu sailed to Nagasaki, as one of a select group
of thirty-seven
Tokugawa retainers to study at the new Nagasaki Naval Academy, where
he remained for
two and a half years.
In January 1860 Katsu Kaishu commanded the famed Kanrin Maru, a tiny
triple-masted
schooner, on the first authorized overseas voyage in the history of
the Tokugawa
Shogunate. Captain Katsu and Company were bound for San Francisco.
They preceded
the Japanese delegation dispatched to Washington aboard the U.S. steam
frigate
Powhattan to ratify Japan¹s first commercial treaty. After the
arrival of the Powhattan, they
would return to Japan to report the safe arrival of the delegation.
But more significantly for
Captain Katsu and Company was the opportunity to demonstrate the maritime
skills they
had acquired under their Dutch instructors at Nagasaki, ³for,²
as Kaishu emphasized, ³the
glory of the Japanese Navy.²
Kaishu remained in San Francisco for nearly two months, observing
American society,
culture and technology. He contrasted American society to that of
feudal Japan, where a
person was born into one of four castes warrior, peasant, artisan,
merchant and, for the
most part, remained in that caste for life. Of particular interest
to Kaishu, who was
determined to modernize and indeed democratize his own nation, were
certain aspects of
American democracy. ³There is no distinction between soldier,
peasant, artisan or
merchant. Any man can be engaged in commerce,² he observed. ³Even
a high-ranking
officer is free to set up business once he resigns or retires.²
Generally, the samurai, who received a stipend from their feudal lord,
looked down upon
the men of the merchant class, and considered business for monetary
profit a base
occupation. ³Usually people walking through town do not wear
swords, regardless of
whether they are soldiers, merchants or government officials,²
while in Japan it was a
samurai¹s strict obligation to be armed at all times. Kaishu
also observed the peculiar
relationship between men and women in American society. ³A man
accompanied by his
wife will always hold her hand as he walks.² The immense cultural
and social gaps
notwithstanding, Kaishu, the outsider among his countrymen, was pleased
with the
Americans. ³I had not expected the Americans to express such
delight at our arrival to San
Francisco, nor for all the people of the city, from the government
officials on down, to make
such great efforts to treat us so well.²
In 1862, Kaishu was appointed vice-commissioner of the Tokugawa Navy.
He established
his naval academy in Kobe in 1863, with the help of his right-hand
man, Sakamoto Ryoma.
The following year Kaishu was promoted to the post of navy commissioner,
and received
the honorary title Awa-no-Kami, Protector of the Province of Awa.
In October 1864, Kaishu,
who had thus far enjoyed the ear of the shogun, was recalled to Edo,
dismissed from his
post and placed under house arrest for harboring known enemies of
the Tokugawa. His
naval academy was closed down, and his generous stipend reduced to
a bare minimum.
In 1866 the shogun¹s 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, ³I¹ll have things settled
with the Choshu men within one
month. If I¹m not back by then, you can assume that they¹ve
cut off my head.² 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
government¹s 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
Saigo¹s forces.
When Kaishu was informed of the imperial government¹s 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,
Yoshinobu¹s life
spared, and war avoided. At an historic meeting with Saigo on March
14, one day before
the planned attack, Kaishu accepted Saigo¹s conditions, and went
down in history as the
man who not only saved the lives and property of Edo¹s 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.
(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.)