Siege of Kumamoto Castle

After the confrontation between the principality of Satsuma and Saigo Takamori announced his intention to go to the capital , where he will be able to "interrogate" (jimmon) the Tokyo government. The chosen word indirectly hinted at the alleged purpose of the conspiracy of Nakahara Kisao, but this was a weak basis for mobilizing more than ten thousand people. Trying to portray his campaign as an armed visit to the emperor, the leader of the Satsumians deliberately limited the size of the detachment and ordered his soldiers to be dressed in official uniforms.

The path to Tokyo ran through Kumamoto, in which there was an old castle that housed the center of the Kumamot garrison of the Imperial Army of Japan . Meiji government leaders knew that the loss of Kumamoto would mean one thing: all Kyushu would come under the control of Satsuma forces, and such a loss would inflame the flames of rebellion in other regions of Japan. On February 15, the first two Satsuma army battalions gathered at Tsurumaru Castle, under unusually thick snow, and began their march north, in the direction of Kumamoto. The battle plan of the rebel army was to force the Kumamoto garrison to surrender, but it did not have a clear political manifesto.

The Satsumi Army march to the north intensified a long-overdue discontent throughout Kyushu. In Kumamoto Prefecture, the entire countryside was revolted after thousands of peasants expressed their dissatisfaction with the Meiji government. Commoners were outraged by the introduction of new local taxes designed to pay for government projects, such as universal education and land demarcation.

The commandant of the castle, Major General Tani Tateki, informed the head of Kagoshima Prefecture Oyama Tsunayoshi that any attempts by Satsuma soldiers to enter Kumamoto would be suppressed by force. At the disposal of Tanya was 3800 soldiers and 600 police officers. The ranks of the defenders of the fortress included many of the subsequently known Japanese military, including Kabayama Sukanori , Kodama Gentaro , Kawakami Soroku , Legs Maresuke and Oku Yasukatu . However, since most of the fighters of the Kumamoto Castle garrison were from Kyushu, and many officers came from Kagoshima , the capital of the Satsuma Principality, their loyalty was dubious. Almost immediately, two groups of former Saigoµ students from the Gakkoto and Kedotai schools ran across to the rebel side. However, Major General Thani decided to fight to the last possible opportunity until the main forces of the imperial army arrived.

The fighting officially began on the afternoon of February 19, when government troops fired on Satsuma's advancing army near Kawashiri, three miles south of Kumamoto Castle. Kumamoto Castle, built in 1598 , was one of the strongest fortresses in Japan, but Saigoµ was confident that his samurai were superior to Tanya's draftees from peasant families who were still demoralized by the recent Sympuren uprising .

On February 22, the main forces of the Satsuma army, led by Saigo, arrived, undertook a decisive assault in an attempt to immediately seize the fortress. The fighting continued until late at night. Government forces retreated, and Acting Commander of the 14th Regiment, Major Nogi Marasuke, lost the regimental banner in fierce battles. However, despite its successes, the Satsuma army was unable to take the castle, and this confirmed that the draft army was not inferior in combat capability to the samurai militia. After two days of fruitless attacks, Satsuma forces dug a ring of fortifications around the castle in the icy ground and tried to force the garrison to surrender by siege. The situation seemed desperate for the defenders, as their stocks of food and ammunition stored in a warehouse were burned by a fire shortly after the start of the rebellion.

A romantic cliche has established itself in world culture, according to which the Seinan war was a clash of traditions and modernity, but the siege of Kumamoto Castle revealed a more complex historical picture. Although the defenders of Kumamoto were equipped with the most modern weapons, the main weapon of the government forces of the Kumamoto garrison was the castle itself - one of the most powerful seventeenth-century defensive fortifications created by Kato Kiyomasa . To inflict tangible damage to the castle, the rebels needed to place their field artillery in positions close to the castle, but this made them vulnerable to retaliatory fire from the castle's defenders. In this case, the modern weapons of the rebels were powerless before the tactics of the Kumamoto garrison, supported by traditional fortifications. In other cases, the situation changed to the opposite: after breaking a gap in the castle gates, the rebels rushed to the attack, but were stopped by detached anti-personnel mines .

During the siege of Kumamoto Castle, many former samurai who had already laid down their arms flocked to the banner of the legendary Saigo Takamori, who in a short time increased his strength to 20,000, but was forced to split his forces to maintain an extended defensive line from Mount Tabaruzak to the bay .

A long siege gave the government time to transfer troops to the south of the country - 3 thousand soldiers of the Tokyo garrison were deployed in Kobe , and parts from the Osaka and Hiroshima garrisons were sent to Fukuoka . During the week, imperial troops concentrated in the north of Kyushu. Prince Arisugawa Taruhito was appointed commander of the army sent to suppress the Satsum uprising, but in fact the operation was led by General Yamagata Aritomo , a former associate of Saigo.

Bringing the size of the government contingent on the island of Kyushu to several tens of thousands of bayonets, her leadership attempted to counter the advancement of the rebels. On March 4, 1877, Yamagata attempted to break through to the fortress from the north, from the heights in the area of ​​Tabarudzaki, the ninth infantry brigade of the Imperial Army (about 9,000 people). In turn, Saigoµ transferred 15,000 samurai to the area under the command of Kirino Toshiaki . The storm of Tabaruzaki grew into an eight-day bloody battle.

Having concentrated all his forces on the capture of Kumamoto, Saigoµ left his main base in Kagoshima unprotected. This was a serious miscalculation, because soon the city was attacked by imperial troops and warships and fell into their hands. On March 8, 1877, government forces struck at the very heart of the uprising, capturing Kagoshima. On three ships, 500 police officers and several army companies were brought to the center of the rebellious province. Taking advantage of the lack of samurai, the troops easily occupied the arsenal and administrative buildings of Kagoshima and arrested the Satsuma governor Oyama, who was immediately sent to Osaka.

Meanwhile, the position of the imperial army in Kumamoto Fortress became desperate. The besieged food and ammunition were drawing to a close. To save the besieged, General Tani ordered the creation of a group to break the blockade. On the night of April 8, eight mouths in hand-to-hand skirmish paved the way from Kumamoto to the positions of Yamagata. They managed to keep a narrow corridor until the garrison of the fortress connected with the main forces of the imperial army, receiving food and ammunition. The path to the north for the Satsuma army was now blocked not by a weak garrison, but by a combat-ready and numerous army. Meanwhile, the ranks of the rebels significantly reduced. Arriving on April 12 in the Kumamoto area, troops under the command of Kuroda Kiyotaki and Yamakawa Hiroshi forced Saigo to retreat. On April 27, the battered samurai army withdrew to Hitoshi .

The defeat of Saigoµ near Kumamoto demoralized and significantly weakened his supporters, who retreated in disarray and were unable to resume the offensive to the north. Although after the siege of Kumamoto, Saigoµ commanded several battles up to the final battle of Shiroyama , each battle was a defensive operation, with forces shrinking from battle to battle against the ever-growing imperial forces.

The Japanese folding fan, now in the collection of the Staten Island Historical Society in New York , has an image with Saigo Takamori under the caption “Fight Under / Citadel / Kumamoto” ^[1] .

Books

• Buck, James Harold. Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History. - University Publications of America, 1979. - ISBN 0-89093-259-X .
• Keane, Donald. Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912. - Columbia University Press, 2005. - ISBN 0-231-12341-8 .
• Mounsley, Augustus H. Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History. - University Publications of America, 1979. - ISBN 0-89093-259-X .
• Ravina, Mark. The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori. - Wiley, 2004 .-- ISBN 0-471-08970-2 .

• Satsumi Uprising: Clan of the Satsuma Samurai against the Japanese Imperial Army