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Unlock This CourseBy the early 1870s the new government had ended the domains and was planning an army of conscripts. Its leaders also wanted Japan to look modern, so that Western countries would treat it as an equal. Between about 1871 and 1873 many everyday customs, mostly in the cities and among officials, changed very fast. Historians sometimes call this the Cultural Revolution of the early Meiji years.
Key terms:
In 1872 the government ordered Western-style clothes for officials on formal occasions. The police and the army also wore Western-style uniforms. By 1873 the emperor himself had cut his hair and appeared in a Western-style uniform. Most ordinary people kept wearing traditional clothes.
Samurai wore their hair in a topknot. In 1871 a new law allowed men to cut it off. Nobody was forced, but short hair soon became the sign of a modern man, and a topknot began to look old-fashioned.
On 1 January 1873 Japan switched from its traditional calendar, which followed the moon, to the Western calendar. This made it easier to deal with other countries.
Eating meat had long been discouraged in Japan. In 1872 the emperor's own meals were reported to include beef, and eating meat became a fashion in the cities. Parts of Tokyo were rebuilt with brick buildings and gas lamps.
For the samurai these changes were painful. Their swords and topknots had shown who they were. Now their hairstyle was called out of date, they would soon be banned from wearing swords in public, and the new conscript army meant that anyone could fight. Many were also losing their income. They were losing their money, their status and their way of looking different from everyone else. Some samurai found jobs as officials, teachers or police, but many felt that the new Japan had no place for them.
It is important not to overstate this. The changes reached the cities and the government first. In the villages, where most people lived, life changed far more slowly.
The men who ran Japan after 1868 did not always agree. In 1871 a large group of them, including Iwakura, Okubo, Kido and Ito, left on the Iwakura Mission. Other leaders were left in charge at home, among them Saigo Takamori, a Satsuma samurai and one of the heroes of the fall of the shogun, and Itagaki Taisuke, Soejima Taneomi and Eto Shimpei.
The question that split them was Korea. Korea kept its own policy of seclusion and refused to deal with the new Japanese government. In 1873 the leaders at home agreed that Saigo should go to Korea as an envoy. Many people expected that he would be insulted or even killed, and that this would give Japan a reason for war. Many historians also think that Saigo and his friends hoped a war would give the unemployed samurai a purpose.
When the Iwakura Mission members came home in 1873, they were against the plan. They argued that:
In October 1873, after a bitter argument, Iwakura persuaded the emperor to cancel the plan. Saigo, Itagaki, Soejima and Eto all resigned. The Restoration Coalition had broken up. The leaders who had come back from abroad, such as Okubo, Iwakura and Ito, were now in control and wanted modernisation before any foreign adventure. The disagreement was about timing, not principle: Japan sent troops to Taiwan in 1874 and forced Korea to sign a treaty in 1876.
Saigo went home to Kagoshima in Satsuma, where he set up private schools to train young samurai. Other angry samurai rose up in smaller revolts, such as Eto's rising in Saga in 1874, which was put down. In 1876 the end of samurai incomes and the ban on swords made many more samurai angry, and there were revolts in Kumamoto, Akizuki and Hagi.
In January 1877 the government began to move weapons out of the arsenal at Kagoshima. Saigo's followers saw this as a threat and seized weapons themselves. Saigo then led his army of samurai north. They besieged Kumamoto Castle, but its defenders held out until help arrived. The government's army was made up mostly of conscripts, led by Yamagata Aritomo. It had rifles, cannon, and steamships to move supplies. Saigo's men were driven back to Kagoshima and, on 24 September 1877, they were defeated at Shiroyama. Saigo died in the final battle.
The Satsuma Rebellion was the last great samurai revolt. It showed that an army of ordinary conscripts could beat the samurai. Kido died of illness in May 1877 and Okubo was murdered by samurai in 1878, so the three great Restoration leaders, Saigo, Kido and Okubo, were all dead within a year. But the new government was safe.
Western dress, short hair and a Western calendar spread. The leaders split over Korea. The samurai lost their place and the last of their revolts failed.
Japan was still run by a small group of former samurai in the emperor's name. Most people were still farmers who kept their old ways.
Explain TWO causes of the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. [8 marks]
Remember: for each cause, give precise facts and show how it led to the rebellion. One cause alone scores no more than 4.
One cause was the loss of samurai privileges. In 1876 the government banned samurai from wearing swords in public and ended their incomes, replacing them with lump sums in bonds. Many samurai were poor and felt insulted by the government they had helped to create. This left a large group of angry men in Satsuma, ready to follow a leader into rebellion.
A second cause was the split in the government over Korea in 1873. When the leaders who came home from the Iwakura Mission stopped the plan to send Saigo Takamori to Korea, Saigo resigned in October 1873 and went back to Kagoshima. There he trained young samurai in private schools and became the leader of the discontented. When the government moved weapons from the Kagoshima arsenal in January 1877, his followers took up arms and Saigo led them north.
What lifts this to the top level: each cause has precise facts and a clear explanation of how it led to the rebellion.
Start each paragraph by naming the cause, add a date or name, then finish with a sentence that starts "This led to the rebellion because...".