On a muddy field outside Kagoshima on September 25, 1877, the feudal system that had dominated Japan for 700 years died, not with a whimper but with a defiant roar. At 6 that morning, the 40 remaining warriors of the last traditional samurai army in Japanese history rose from their foxholes, drew their swords and charged into the guns of the 30,000-man-strong imperial army.

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Twenty-three years earlier, Japan was officially ruled by a figurehead emperor, while the real power rested in the hands of the shogun, or ‘barbarian-expelling commander in chief.’ Under the shogun, and answerable only to him, came the daimyo (’great lords’), who were clan heads and hereditary provincial governors. Within the han (a term meaning both ‘province’ and ‘clan’), society was a rigidly controlled pyramid, with the peasant at the bottom. The glue that held that structure together was the military caste that served the daimyo: the samurai.

That system began to come apart in 1854, when U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sailed into Kagoshima Harbor and invited Japan to join the modern world — at gunpoint. Determined to prevent future humiliations, Japanese leaders decided that they needed a modern army equipped with the most up-to-date weapons, trained by the best officers of the day: the French and Germans. In 1872, the imperial army was reorganized as a force of 46,000 conscripts from every social class. Suddenly, 2 million samurai found themselves ineligible for careers that had once been theirs alone.

During the 1860s, Japan underwent a period of turmoil as conservative-minded daimyo and samurai attacked both the government and foreigners in an attempt to restore the country’s isolation. Japan’s future was ultimately resolved in 1868, however, when Emperor Mutsuhito stepped into power under the title of Meiji (’enlightened peace’), abolished the shogunate, ratified a constitution and moved the imperial capital to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo. While the army was becoming westernized, statesmen such as Prince Tonomi Iwakura and Toshimichi Okubo championed industrialization, so Japan could sustain a modern, competitive war machine. In August 1871, the daimyo lost their old domains — for which they were given compensatory pensions — and the old provinces were replaced with prefectures. In the same year, the wearing of swords in public became optional, and in 1876 it became illegal. For the unemployed samurai, such edicts piled degrading insult upon injury. Many able men who had fought and bled to return real power to the emperor in 1868 now spoke of the ‘good old days’ of samurai dominance. Prominent among them was Field Marshal Takamori Saigo. Born in Satsuma, the westernmost province on the island of Kyushu, in 1827, ‘Great Saigo,’ as his supporters called him, had backed the Meiji emperor in 1867.

So great was his dedication that when his government sought a plausible excuse for a war with Korea, Saigo offered to go there as ambassador in 1873, intending to insult the Korean government to such a degree that it would be forced to kill him, thereby providing Japan with its casus belli. Saigo was already on board a ship to Korea when the government reconsidered its agreement to his scheme and recalled him.

Although deprived of his grand gesture, Saigo and fellow conservatives continued to agitate for war and a samurai-based army, but the peace party got the upper hand in the imperial councils. The war party resigned in protest, and Saigo returned to his home city of Kagoshima, where he went into voluntary retirement from public life. Even personal appeals for aid from his close friend, Shimpei Eto, who led 2,000 Kyushu samurai in revolt in 1874, failed to move him. The rebellion was quickly crushed, and Eto was beheaded.

A large number of imperial guardsmen had resigned with Saigo and later accompanied him to Kyushu. To help support and employ those men, Saigo started a series of 132 private schools, or shigakko, scattered throughout Satsuma province. Instruction at the schools centered on the Chinese classics, although French and English were also taught. In addition, all students were required to take part in weapons training and instruction in tactics. Saigo also started an artillery school. Emphasis was placed on the historical prowess of the Satsuma warrior, and students were indoctrinated in Bushido, the samurai’s ancient chivalric code.

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