Ch 20 - The Awakening of Japan

Satsuma and Choshu

Foreigners suffered numerous insults and brutality at the hands of rabidly anti-Western Japanese activists. The complicated and confused state of affairs within the Japanese government's dual sovereignty dramatically erupted when the British attacked the city of Kagoshima in Satsuma and Lord Mori of Choshu forcefully closed the Straits of Shimonoseki to foreign shipping.

Townsend Harris' determined efforts finally helped bring about an American commercial treaty with Japan in 1858. Promoted to the rank of Minister Resident in early 1859, Harris moved to Edo, where he and his western colleagues formed a diplomatic corps. The presence of foreigners in Edo was not a welcome development and Harris quickly learned the visible resentment of the population was not just a figment of one's imagination. He had been convinced hostilities against foreigners would ease after Japan signed the 1858 Ansei Commercial Treaties with the United States, Russia, Britain, France and the Netherlands. Instead, the increased close contact with foreigners triggered a virulent outbreak of xenophobia. Only nominally protected by treaty, foreigners suffered numerous insults and brutality at the hands of rabidly anti-Western, dogmatic, self-righteous, intolerant shishi activists, men from the lower rungs of the samurai hierarchy. Angry ronin stalked the streets of the capital at night, just hoping for a chance to kill a Westerner. Over the next eighteen months, shishi murdered seven Westerners, beginning with two Russian sailors in the summer of 1859.

British Consul General Rutherford Alcock, the first British Minister to Japan, felt utterly cut off and insecure in his Legation at Tozenji, a temple near Shinagawa in Edo. Legation members were insulted and pelted with stones on an almost daily basis. Sometimes, the assaults were far more serious. Twenty-eight-year-old Henry C.J. Heusken, Townsend Harris' Dutch interpreter, who worked as interpreter for the American legation, spent most of January 15, 1861, assisting Prussian envoy Count Eulenberg in treaty negotiations. After dinning with Count Eulenberg, Heusken left around 9 p.m. in the company of three mounted officers and four footmen bearing lanterns to return to the American Legation at Zenpukuji Temple along Sendai-zaka Street. The party was suddenly ambushed by seven shishi from the Satsuma domain led by Imuta Shohei. During the ensuing melee, Heusken received mortal wounds to both sides of his body. Mounting a horse, he galloped about 200 yards to the steps of the American Legation, where he was taken inside and treated. Shortly after midnight, Heusken died of his wounds. Although Heusken's death came as a shock to Harris, the calm and reasonable diplomat refused to join the outcry from the foreign diplomatic corps. Harris never walked about in Edo after dark and stated that Heusken died for displaying a remarkable lack of common sense;  the young interpreter should have known better.

The British, French, Dutch and Prussian legations withdrew from Edo for a time after Heusken's murder, but returned to the capital in July, believing the security of foreigners had improved. On July 5, 1861, a band of fourteen ronin attacked the British Legation at Tozenji Temple, killing two and wounding ten members of the legation guard. One of the wounded was Laurence Oliphant, Lord Elgin's personal secretary, who had accompanied Elgin to Nagasaki in 1858. The British Legation returned to their Legation at Tozenji Temple in June 1862, while Rutherford Alcock accompanied a Japanese mission to Europe. Lieutenant Colonel St. John Neale, the British chargè d'affaires, his staff and a unit of British Marines no sooner settled into their quarters than they were attacked in a night raid. One British corporal was killed and the legation was burned to the ground. Xenophobia was on the rise across Japan.

In the summer of 1862, with the Imperial Court's blessings, Lord Shimazu Hisamitsu, father of Lord Shimazu Tadayoshi and the power behind the Satsuma daimyo, led a large retinue of men into Kyoto to call for the appointment of Tokugawa Yoshinobu and Matsudaira Yoshinaga as advisors to Shogun Iemochi. When the Satsuma delegation reached Edo with the news, the bakufu's senior councilors feared the true motive behind Lord Shimazu's recommendation was the eventual overthrow of the shogunate itself. Suddenly thrown into the political spotlight, Yoshinobu resolved to do whatever he could to cooperate with the bakufu in his new position as an advisor.

The high level transfer of duties left Lord Shimazu powerless and he left Edo enraged. Before he departed, shogunate officials asked his representatives not to cause any trouble with foreigners during their journey home. It was not an unreasonable request, since Lord Shimazu supported kobu gattai, the "union of the court and military," and took an extremely hard line against outsiders. Shimazu left Edo with his 400-man procession and traveled the Tokaido Highway toward home. That same day, Charles L. Richardson, a Shanghai-based trader visiting Yokohama's foreign settlement before returning to Britain, was riding with two other British merchants and a lady to Kawasaki Daishi Temple. Before leaving that morning, Richardson was advised not to leave the settlement because Satsuma samurai were scheduled to march along the Tokaido Highway that day.

At around 2 p.m. on the afternoon of August 21, 1862, as the four riders passed through the small village of Namamugi in the hills behind Yokohama, they suddenly came face-to-face with Shimazu Hisamitsu's procession. Samurai at the head of the procession, waving their arms for emphasis, angrily ordered the foreigners to retreat. Unable to speak or understand the language, Richardson and his friends tried instead to avoid the procession by moving their horses forward along the narrow road to pass along side the lengthy column. It was a fatal mistake. As the riders neared Lord Shimazu Hisamitsu's sedan chair, young samurai suddenly attacked them with swords. Three of the riders managed to escape the attack, but Richardson sustained fatal wounds and died nearby. The tragic event came to be known as the Namamugi Incident.

Because of the long delay in communications between Japan and Great Britain, months passed before the British Foreign Minister received a reply to his report of the Satsuma clan's attack on the British riding party. The British Government demanded the payment of a £ 100,000 indemnity and an immediate and public apology from Japanese authorities for the murder of one of its citizens. The Shogun was also informed that since he could not lay his hands on Charles Richardson's killers, a British naval force would steam into Kinko Bay and demand the arrest and execution of the assassins and the payment by the Satsuma treasury of a £25,000 indemnity to the British subjects who had suffered at their hands. The Emperor issued peremptory orders that no apology and no indemnity would come from Japan. Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi however, whose officials were within range of British warships lying in Yokohama Bay, was well acquainted with the power wielded by Britain's Foreign Minister;  the Emperor was not. Two months later, the Shogun authorized the apology and payment of the indemnity, but not before the complicated and confused state of affairs within the Japanese government's dual sovereignty dramatically erupted.

In Kyoto, the Shogun's advisor, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, worked tirelessly to maintain the stability of the shogunate after the Namamugi incident. He met with Emperor Komei and gained his trust and met with rival factions and the Imperial Court in attempts to suppress their movements against the foreigners and the bakufu. Intrigues by Satsuma and Choshu extremists coupled with the shishi's xenophobic violence managed to swing the Imperial Court back toward a rigidly anti­Western position. Many daimyo urged the emperor to assume military command, immediately form an imperial army and set June 25, 1863, as the date for the expulsion of foreigners. The vacillating bakufu knew that Japan had no power to force such an order, but it could not convince the daimyo to tolerate their continued presence.

The bakufu, which had no intention of provoking hostilities or making anything more than the minimum concessions to comply with Emperor Komei's wishes, unsuccessfully tried to reopen negotiations on the closure of foreign treaty ports. When Shogun Iemochi arrived in Kyoto to call on Emperor Komei, he received an ultimatum to set a time limit for the treaties with the foreign powers. Yoshinobu worked feverishly to protect the shogunate's interests, but still promised to end the treaties by May 10, knowing full well that he could not keep his word. When Tokugawa Iemochi notified all foreign representatives that he proposed to act on Emperor Komei's decree to remove every foreigner from Japan, the diplomats issued a joint decree that intimated that if any such action occurred in violation of the treaties, it would be interpreted as an act of war by Japan.

The Straits of Shimonoseki lie between the westernmost tip of the main Japanese island of Honshu and the northeastern extremity of Kyushu. Ships transiting the inland seas of Japan passed through this narrow, tortuous channel directly under the watchful eye of Lord Mori Takachika, the daimyo of Choshu. Not long after the Emperor's deadline arrived, Lord Mori proceeded to take forceful measures to close the Straits, a task he fully believed he could accomplish, even in the face of foreign opposition. A series of gun batteries armed with flinch guns and 32-pound cannon guarded the straits. A steamer and two sailing ships similarly armed sat anchored off the town of Shimonoseki. The first hint of Lord Mori's intentions came on June 25, 1863, as the U.S.S. Pembroke passed through the straits enroute from Yokohama to Shanghai. Without warning, Japanese gunners opened fire on the American steamship. News of the attack reached Nagasaki the following day and caused much concern among foreign circles.

The French dispatch ship Kienchiang, unaware of the the previous day's events, steamed into entrance to the straits late in the day on June 26 and anchored for the night. The anchor barely hit bottom when the Kienchiang came under intense cannon fire from the north shore, taking several hits in the hull. The ship escaped being sunk only by cutting is lines and rapidly steaming southward through the Bungo Channel.

The 16-gun Dutch corvette Medusa, which departed Nagasaki for Yokohama on July 11, became the third ship to receive a welcome from Lord Mori Takachika's artillery. As soon as the ship drew abreast of the Choshu vessels anchored near Shimonoseki, shore batteries shelled the Medusa, killing or wounding several of its crew. Unlike Choshu's two previous victims however, the Dutch warship could and did retaliate. The Dutch corvette ran the straits at full speed, returning fire as rapidly as its crew could reload the guns. Badly damaged from thirty-one shell hits, the Medusa reached Yokohama two days later and brought with it news of the two recent attacks.

The American Civil War was raging at its height at this point and the United States Navy was concentrated in home waters. The only American warship in Japanese waters at the time was the 6-gun sloop U.S.S. Wyoming. Five days after the attack on the Medusa, the Wyoming steamed toward the eastern end of the Straits of Shimonoseki, intent upon exacting revenge for shelling the Pembroke and the United States flag. The sloop rounded the rocky promontory on the southern shoreline that had screened its approach and steamed at full speed directly toward Shimonoseki and the three Choshu vessels moored in shallow water. Under intense battery fire from the heights above, the Wyoming surprised the Choshu gunners by driving between their anchored ships instead of holding to the channel. In a single swift pass through the anchorage, American gunners sank one ship and seriously disabled another right under the Japanese shore defenses.

The same day as the Wyoming attack, French Rear Admiral Jaures took his 35-gun frigate Semiramis and the gunboat Tancrède into the straits to avenge the attack against the Kienchiang. As the frigate shelled the Choshu batteries from the channel, the Tancrède provided close covering fire for a 250-man force that landed near the eastern end of the Japanese defenses. French troops succeeded in demolishing the barracks and magazines of one of the gun batteries before returning to their ship. Admiral Jaures retired to Yokohama feeling the honor of the French flag had been vindicated. In the space of nine days, the Choshu clansmen had engaged with foreign ships three times and three times the foreigners retaliated.

While Emperor Komei temporized, the British responded in a manner that gave Japanese authorities and the daimyo their first lesson since their invasion of Choson as to the power that a maritime nation can bring to bear to protect its interests, and the vulnerability of an insular nation without a strong fleet of its own. While the shogunate reluctantly complied with the British request in a bid to settle the issue, the Shimazu clan of Satsuma completely ignored London's demands. British Minister Sir Rutherford Alcock postponed action for a short time in hopes the issue could be settled, but by the beginning of August he decided against any further delays.

On August 6, 1863, Vice Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper took command of seven warships at Yokohama and set a course for the uncharted waters of Kyushu's southern coast. The squadron consisted of Kuper's flagship, the 2,371 ton 35-gun frigate H.M.S. Euryalus, the corvette Pearl, the sloop Perseus, the paddle-sloop Argus, and the gunboats Racehorse, Coquette and Havoc. The British target was Kagoshima, capital of the Satsuma domain and headquarters of Lord Shimazu Hisamitsu.

Vice Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper's squadron arrived off the mouth of Kagoshima Bay late on the afternoon of August 11 and anchored just inside the entrance for the night. The following day, after responding to questions from local Japanese officials as to their intentions, the squadron steamed to an anchorage off the town of Kagoshima itself, close in to shore and within range of Japanese gun batteries. Local officials were given a letter addressed to the Lord of Satsuma which demanded the arrest and execution of the men who murdered Charles Richardson near Yokohama and the payment of a £25,000 indemnity. After an attempt to delay the issue, they finally replied to the British ultimatum with an indefinite and evasive answer, suggesting the entire affair should be taken up with the Shogun and that the squadron should withdraw. After nearly forty-eight hours of stalemate, the British Minister aboard the flagship requested Admiral Kuper to take charge of the situation and commence forceful measures.

Mid-August was the height of the hurricane season. By the evening of August 13 the barometer was falling rapidly. Although even the smallest of the squadron's ships could ride out a typhoon better than any ship that carried the Mongols to Japan centuries before, the British were over unknown depths near an uncharted coastline and time was of the essence. Realizing that if he left Kagoshima for any reason without satisfying British demands, it would be a moral disaster, on the morning of August 14 Admiral Kuper decided to deal with the deteriorating weather and went on the offensive. Three British ships immediately went after the three steamers purchased by Lord Shimazu, anchored just north of Kagoshima. Within a matter of hours, the three ships were set ablaze and destroyed, a loss of between £60,000 and £70,000.

With gale force winds beginning to sweep the bay, the Japanese artillery opened fire on the British with every gun they could bring to bear. Admiral Kuper put his ships in line-ahead formation and proceeded to engage the Japanese at ranges between 400 and 800 yards along their entire defensive line. The 64-pound and 100-pound British guns fired continuously as heavy seas washed across the pitching and rolling decks of the their ships. In a short, fierce engagement at very close quarters, the British virtually destroyed Kagoshima and its defense works, including a recently built gun factory. Japanese casualties were heavy. In contrast, the British suffered only sixty-three sailors killed and light to moderate damage to its warships.

The attack against the highly reputed and powerful Satsuma clan by a small squadron of warships left a strong impression. The Battle of Kagoshima was a revelation to all of Japan, particularly the Satsuma leadership. It convinced Satsuma's samurai that Japan was not the strongest country in the world;  there were other nations more powerful. Afterward, they stopped looking on foreigners with contempt and "opened" the Satsuma domain. The Satsuma clan took the lead in Japan in the introduction of European technology and the employment of skilled foreigners to teach them to use it. Despite the domain's great wealth, Satsuma borrowed £25,000 from the Tokugawa Shogunate to pay the indemnity to Britain. It never repaid its debt to the shogunate however, and the culprits in Richardson's killing were never arrested or punished. Ironically, this brief engagement prompted Britain and the Satsuma domain to form close ties. Satsuma began to modernize its military with Britain's help and soon took the lead in introducing Western technology and employing Western advisors to teach them how to apply it.

By this time, Choshu had become the seat of the anti-Western, anti-bakufu extremists. The foreign ministers sent a joint letter to Shogun Iemochi that demanded the removal of the guns and the destruction of the gun batteries overlooking the Straits of Shimonoseki. They also demanded that Choshu's Lord Mori be punished, threatening dire consequences if their demand was refused. For nearly a year, admirals at Yokohama had been ready and anxious to mount an attack against Choshu, but the foreign diplomats would not take a firm grasp of the situation and promptly demand that Japan observe its treaties and open the Straits of Shimonoseki to free navigation. The numerous diplomatic exchanges that occurred during the winter of 1863-64 produced no concrete results. It became quite evident to the treaty powers that they would either have to accept their actual position in Japan, withdraw altogether, or enforce their treaty rights by force of arms. After ten months of deadlocked diplomacy, British Minister Sir Rutherford Alcock proposed to his French, Dutch and American colleagues that the successful measures taken against Kagoshima should be visited on the Choshu clan at Shimonoseki.

On May 30, 1864, the foreign legations notified the Shogun in forceful terms to deal with Lord Mori in Choshu and warned against further procrastination. After the Shogun expressed surprise at the strong language and noted that any hasty measures taken against Japan could have disturbing, if not disastrous effects, the foreign ministers responded with an ultimatum. Redress their grievances within twenty days or they would take action. Tokugawa Yoshinobu, unable to resolve the issue concerning the expulsion of foreigners, continued to work with the bakufu's senior councilors to reach an amicable solution. News of the Choshu attacks against foreign shipping sent a wave of panic throughout Kyoto. Fearing for Shogun Iemochi's life, plans were hastily made to evacuate him from Kyoto to the safety of Edo Castle. Matsudaira Takamori, Lord of the Aizu and Lord-Protector of Kyoto, immediately ordered the detention of all suspicious ronin in the city.

Yoshinobu took responsibility for failing to expel the foreigners from Japan and submitted his resignation from the shogunate, but it was refused. Meanwhile, Choshu's Katsura Kogoro and Fujita Koshiro of Mito met to discuss a possible alliance between their two clans. In the midst of the developing storm in Kyoto, Lord Shimazu Hisamitsu of Satsuma was appointed to the Imperial Council. When Yoshinobu submitted a recommendation to the council that would close the port of Yokohama, Lord Shimazu vetoed the matter, a decision that created a rift between the two men and resulted in Satsuma breaking away from the bakufu altogether. Shogun Iemochi ordered Satsuma and Aizu to put guards at the Imperial Palace gates in Kyoto, an honor formerly given to the Choshu clan. Angered by the decision, Choshu samurai, fully prepared to die for their cause, began amassing troops in the city. The Choshu rebellion destroyed nearly two thirds of Kyoto, as violence intensified in Mito. In Edo meanwhile, senior councilors desperately continued to find a way to subjugate Choshu. Tokugawa Yoshinobu believed the potential of foreign intervention provided an ideal opportunity to defeat the rebels, but the elders among Edo's senior councilors continued to drag their feet on a decision. Instead, they ordered troops into Mito to hunt down rebels.

When Shogun Iemochi failed to respond to their ultimatum, Britain's Sir Rutherford Alcock, leader of the foreign diplomatic corps, forced the issue with support from the Netherlands, France and the United States. He directed the foreign ministers to simulataneously order their respective commanders to

"proceed with all convenient speed to open the Straits of Shimonoseki, destroying and disarming the batteries of the Prince of Chosiu [sic], and otherwise crippling him in all his means of attack."

Alcock's action was unsanctioned by the British Foreign Office, but the slow communications between Japan and London - the telegraph link had at that time not got beyond Galle in Ceylon - allowed him to act on his own initiative. Following a brief war council among the British and French admirals and Dutch and American captains, on August 17, a combined fleet of seventeen warships sailed from Yokohama to execute their mission. The British squadron consisted of Vice Admiral Kuper's flagship, the frigate H.M.S. Euryalus, the warship H.M.S. Conqueror, armed with 100-lb Armstrong cannons and carrying a battalion of British Marines, the corvettes Tartar, Leopard, and Barrow, the sloops Perseus and Argus, and the gunboats Coquette and Bouncer. The frigate Semiramis, the corvette Dupleix, and the gunboat Tancrède made up the French squadron. The Dutch squadron included the paddle sloop Amsterdam and the corvettes Medusa, Metalen, Kruis, and D'Jambi. The single-gun chartered steamer Takiang was the sole American ship present.

The fleet rendezvoused near Himeshima Island in the Inland Sea on September 3 and proceeded to the eastern entrance to the Straits of Shimonoseki, where they anchored well beyond the range of Lord Mori's artillery batteries later that afternoon. After a final reconnaissance on the morning of September 4, final plans were made and orders were issued for the attack, which would take place with an easterly tide so that any ship disabled or forced to withdraw during the battle would not be carried into the strait. The fleet got underway by early afternoon and with tidal flow shift at 2 p.m., the H.M.S. Euryalus executed the signal to engage. The ships steamed at full speed toward their assigned stations, opening fire as soon as they got into position. The Japanese forts opened fire immediately in response and soon every gun afloat and ashore that could sight a target in range was in action. The continuous bombardment lasted throughout the afternoon. The thunder of heavy guns echoed across the straits and far inland across the Choshu domain, causing great excitement among the Japanese population for miles inland. Although Lord Mori's men made a determined, even courageous stand, their weapons were no match for the much larger European guns. One after another, the Japanese batteries fell silent and by 5:30 p.m. the last of the Choshu guns ceased firing.

That evening, the admirals concluded that Lord Mori's defense works had suffered enough damage and decided to land troops ashore the following day to mop up. The ships anchored for the night with every crew on alert. At dawn on the morning of September 5, the Japanese proved their determination by opening fire on the fleet from the lone gun battery still in condition to put up a fight. The corvettes Tartar and Dupleix suffered heavy damage before concentrated gunfire from ships anchored close to shore reduced the Japanese gun emplacement to rubble. Soon afterward, the Euryalus hoisted the landing signal and 1,500 British, 350 French, and 200 Dutch sailors and marines embarked into longboats that were towed to prearranged landing points ashore under cover of the fleet's big guns. Vice Admiral Kuper personally led the advance against the shore batteries, which lay deserted and partially in ruin from the previous day's bombardment.

After establishing a defensive perimeter, the troops set about to dismantle the guns, burn their carriages and destroy the remaining powder magazines. A large number of Choshu samuraioffered some resistance from a stockade located in a wooded valley to the rear of the main position, but British troops soon drove them out . The demolition work was finally completed by nightfall and the whole force returned to the fleet.

After successfully destroying Lord Mori Takachika's artillery, the fleet commanders decided to rest their own troops for a day, partly in an effort to give Lord Mori a chance to surrender. There was no indication he intended to give up the fight. On the morning of September 7, the corvettes Tartar, Dupleix, Metalen, Kruis, and D'Jambi were ordered into the straits to destroy the two westernmost gun batteries, which still presented a threat to shipping. When the Japanese failed to returned fire, it became evident that a general surrender was imminent.

An envoy arrived alongside the H.M.S. Euryalus in mid-morning with a message from Lord Mori asking for a cessation of hostilities and a declaration there would be no further opposition to free passage through the straits. As proof of Lord Mori's claim he had acted under Imperial orders, the envoy produced Emperor Komei's written instructions to expel the foreigners. Less than a month earlier, when Lord Mori dispatched his samurai to attack Kyoto and seize the emperor, he suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the Shogun. In Japan's chaotic political environment, it appeared the anti-foreign Mikado was punishing a rebellious daimyo with the active assistance of the very foreigners he had been trying to expel, a daimyo who had enthusiastically executed imperial orders issued just months before.

It took three days to completely disarm the Choshu fortresses and haul away some 62 heavy Japanese guns, leaving Choshu incapable of inflicting any further damage on foreign shipping. After receiving written assurances from Lord Mori that foreign ships would be able to sail the Straits of Shimonoseki without interference, the four squadrons of the combined fleet separated and returned to Yokohama independently. Total casualties among the fleet were only 72 killed or wounded and only the gunboats Tartar and Dupleix suffered any serious damage.

Some two weeks after the engagement at Shimonoseki, the foreign diplomats held a conference with the Shogun's representatives to settle the extent of the indemnity owed by Japan for an action they had warned would come due if it became necessary to open the Straits of Shimonoseki by force. In the document of surrender, Lord Mori agreed to pay all expenses of the expedition as well as a hefty ransom to keep the fleet from attacking the town of Shimonoseki. Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi paid the $3,000,000 fine from the Imperial Treasury and made his own arrangements to recover the money from Lord Mori.

The attacks on Kagoshima and Shimonoseki, while somewhat similar in terms of the results achieved, were very different in terms of material results. Kagoshima was not a treaty port, had no bearing on foreign trade and its destruction provided no advantage to commercial interests. The British bombardment of Kagoshima was a unilateral action seeking retribution for the murder of Charles Richardson and the insult to British citizens and the flag. It had the remarkable result of opening the eyes of the Satsuma clan to the superior firepower of the West and literally turned their hostility into overtures of friendship.

The attack against Shimonoseki was a joint action taken by a coalition of Western nations with strictly commercial interests in mind to enforce international treaties. Lord Mori Takachika and his samurai effectively closed the Straits of Shimonoseki to foreign shipping for fifteen months in defiance of every warning. HIs attacks not only damaged foreign ships, but foreign trade. They forced ships to take a longer route and created an atmosphere of uncertainty about Japan's foreign policy and whether the neglect of authorities to disarm Choshu implied sympathy with Lord Mori's position. Ironically, despite the destruction and casualties, the Battle of Shimonoseki proved to benefit the Japanese most. The forcefulness of the foreign reprisals made the point to Emperor Komei and his supporters that Japan could no longer look on the West with contempt, a point that had a lasting effect on Japan's future rulers.