10 questions · History
Saigō Takamori was born in 1828 in Kagoshima, the capital of the Satsuma domain in the far south of Japan. He came from a poor family of low-ranking samurai and grew up in the same neighbourhood as Ōkubo Toshimichi, his friend from childhood. Tall, heavy and with strikingly dark eyes, he was a man others followed. Twice he had to spend years on remote southern islands, once hidden from the shogunate, once banished by his own lord, and each time he came back, as indispensable as before. In the 1860s he became the military head of the movement against the shogunate. In 1866 Satsuma allied itself with its old rival Chōshū, and two years later Saigō led the imperial troops against the Tokugawa. Outside Edo he and the negotiator Katsu Kaishū reached an agreement that spared the city of a million people from street fighting: the castle was handed over without a fight. In the new Meiji government he sat at the very top. But in 1873 he fell out with it over how to deal with Korea, resigned and went home, where he founded schools for young samurai. In those years the samurai lost their swords, their stipends and their status. In 1877 thousands of them rose up in Satsuma, and Saigō put himself at their head, probably more out of duty than conviction. Against the modern conscript army they stood no chance. On 24 September 1877 the rebellion ended on the hill of Shiroyama above Kagoshima, where the wounded Saigō died. Twelve years later the emperor rehabilitated him. Since 1898 his bronze statue has stood in Ueno Park in Tokyo, in a plain kimono with his dog on a leash, and the 2003 film “The Last Samurai” loosely drew on his story.
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Kagoshima
He grew up in the samurai quarter of Kajiya-chō, where Ōkubo Toshimichi was also raised.
💡 Did you know? Kagoshima has a second famous statue of him, there in uniform rather than a kimono.
Chōshū
The Satchō Alliance was brokered by Sakamoto Ryōma; Kido Takayoshi negotiated for Chōshū.
💡 Did you know? Only two years earlier Satsuma and Chōshū had fought each other in Kyoto.
Edo
The shōgun’s castle passed to the imperial troops without the city of over a million inhabitants coming under fire.
💡 Did you know? That same year Edo was renamed Tokyo, and soon the young Emperor Meiji moved into the castle.
Korea
Korea had refused to recognise the new Meiji government; Saigō wanted to go there as envoy and accepted that it might lead to war.
💡 Did you know? When the opposing side around Ōkubo Toshimichi prevailed, he resigned all his posts and returned to Kagoshima.
Ōkubo Toshimichi
Together they led Satsuma into the Meiji Restoration; from 1873 Ōkubo steered the government that crushed Saigō in 1877.
💡 Did you know? Ōkubo was assassinated in Tokyo in 1878, a year after Saigō’s death, by disgruntled former samurai.
Battle of Shiroyama
Only a few hundred rebels were left there, facing a government army many times their size.
💡 Did you know? Exactly how he died is disputed: according to the best-known account, a comrade helped him to his death after a severe wound.
1877
With him ended the last great armed resistance of the samurai against the modern state.
💡 Did you know? In 1889 he was pardoned posthumously and his court rank was restored.
Ueno Park
The statue was made by the sculptor Takamura Kōun; it shows Saigō not in uniform but in a plain summer kimono.
💡 Did you know? His widow is said to have remarked at the unveiling that her husband had not looked like that.
Dog
Saigō liked to go hunting with dogs; the statue shows him with a dog on a leash.
💡 Did you know? The dog is usually called Tsun, after a dog Saigō is said to have owned.
The Last Samurai
The rebel leader Katsumoto, played by Ken Watanabe, is reminiscent of Saigō; the plot and the hero are invented, however.
💡 Did you know? Unlike in the film, Saigō’s rebels of 1877 did use rifles and cannon as well.
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