The Toba-Fushimi fighting marked the opening battle of the
Boshin (dragon) Civil War, named after the Chinese zodiacal cyclic character
that designated the year 1868. The new army fought under makeshift arrangements
with unclear channels of command and control and no reliable recruiting base.
Samurai and kiheitai units paradoxically were fighting in the name of the
throne, but they did not belong to the throne. To correct this anomaly and
defend the court, which was in open rebellion against the shogunate, in early
March 1868 the newly proclaimed imperial government created various
administrative offices, including a military branch. The next month it
organized an imperial bodyguard, about 400 or 500 warriors, composed of Satsuma
and Chōshū units augmented by veterans of the Toba-Fushimi battles, yeomen, and
masterless warriors from various domains, who reported directly to the court.
The imperial court next notified domains to restrict the size of their local
armies and contribute to the expenses of a national officers’ training school
in Kyoto.
Within a few months, however, authorities disbanded the
ineffective military branch and the imperial bodyguard, which lacked modern
equipment and weapons. To replace them, in April authorities established the
military affairs directorate, composed of two bureaus: one for the army, one
for the navy. The directorate drafted an army organization act based on
manpower contributions from each domain proportional to its respective annual
rice production. This conscript army (chōheigun) integrated samurai and
commoners from the various domains into its ranks.
As the Boshin Civil War continued, the newly formed military
affairs directorate had expected to raise troops from the wealthier domains. In
June 1868 it fixed the organization of the army by making each fief
responsible, at least in theory, for sending to Kyoto ten men per each 10,000
koku of rice the domain produced. The policy put the government in competition
with the domains to recruit troops, a contradiction not remedied until April
1869 when it banned domains from enlisting soldiers. The quota system to
recruit government troops, however, never worked as intended, and the
authorities abolished it the following year.
Meanwhile, in mid-March 1868 Prince Arisugawa took command
of the Eastern Expeditionary Force as loyalist columns pushed along three main
highways toward the shogun’s capital at Edo (present-day Tokyo). Skirmishes
involving a few hundred warriors on either side brushed aside bakufu
resistance, and the columns swiftly converged on the capital. The advancing
army continually proclaimed its close bond with the imperial court, first to
legitimize its cause; second, to brand enemies of the government as enemies of
the court and therefore traitors; and third, to gain popular support.
For food, supplies, horses, and weapons, the government army
established a series of logistics relay stations along the three major
thoroughfares. These small depots stocked material supplied by local
pro-government domains or confiscated from bakufu agencies, senior retainers of
the old regime, and anyone opposing the government. The army routinely
impressed local villagers as porters or teamsters to move supplies between the
depots and the frontline units. Japan’s largest merchant families also
contributed money and supplies to the new army. The Mitsui branch directors in
Edo, for example, donated more than 25,000 ryō (US$25,000) as insurance to
protect their storehouses from pro-bakufu arsonists and probably government
troops as well.
Government propaganda teams accompanied the army to extol the new imperial government’s virtues and to attract adherents by offering an immediate halving of taxes on rice harvests. To complement the effort, the army issued regulations governing conduct. All ranks would share the same food, accommodations, and work details; troops would immediately report anyone spreading rumors that might lower morale; quarreling and fighting in camp were forbidden; attacks against foreigners were strictly prohibited; and commanders were supposed to prevent arson, plunder, and rape from tarnishing the new government’s image. The results were mixed. If the populace cooperated, they were treated fairly, which meant the men might be persuaded to work as military porters or laborers, the villages to donate food, and promises made to cooperate with the government army. But the standard tactic to combat the roving bands of Tokugawa supporters who harassed government columns with hit-and-run attacks was to burn nearby homes to deny the guerrillas shelter. Suspected collaborators were summarily executed.
As the government troops pushed into bakufu strongholds, coercion replaced persuasion. Soldiers requisitioned food; confiscated weapons, valuables, and cash; and impressed villagers for labor details. Although government orders prohibited arson, it was an effective tactic during battle and for pacification purposes. Uncooperative villages risked being burned to the ground, likely because soldiers understood that inhabitants feared arson above all other forms of retribution. In extreme cases, such as the final northeastern campaign, government troops torched more than one-third of the homes in the Akita domain. To avoid that fate, villagers along the army’s route-of-march provided commanders with food, supplies, and intelligence. But this cooperation was based on little more than extortion and did not indicate a sudden shift in allegiance to the new government.
By the time the main loyalist forces reached Edo in early
May, Saigō Takamori had already negotiated a peaceful surrender of the city
with bakufu agents, the shogunate being divided internally between hard-liners
and those favoring an accommodation with the new government. The 41-year-old
Saigō stood almost six feet tall and weighed about 250 pounds, making him a
giant by Japanese standards. After a decade as a minor provincial official, in
1854 Saigō moved to Edo to promote Satsuma policies. Four years later
reactionary shogunate officials forced him to flee to Satsuma, but he was then
exiled. After his pardon in 1864, Satsuma officials sent Saigō to Kyoto to
handle the domain’s national affairs.
There was no denying Saigō’s ability, but the man was an
enigma, given to lengthy silences that could be interpreted as contemplative
wisdom or hopeless stupidity. His indifference to awards, honors, or material
trappings, complemented by his dynamic charisma and humanism, made Saigō the
most respected personality in early Meiji Japan. His deal with the bakufu,
however, had enabled more than 2,000 warriors loyal to the shogun to escape
from Edo, and the guerrilla war these reactionaries were waging against the
loyalists was ravaging the nearby countryside.
North of Edo pro-bakufu forces held Utsunomiya castle; in
early June, government forces defeated the shogun’s troops in a series of minor
engagements between Utsunomiya and Edo. They withstood a subsequent bakufu
counteroffensive and, strengthened with reinforcements, occupied the castle to
secure the northern approaches to Edo. The vanquished bakufu units fled to
northern Japan.
Meanwhile, loyalist troops had garrisoned the shogun’s
capital without opposition, but their efficiency and morale slowly
disintegrated as the provincial troops settled in to the comforts and fleshpots
of the big city. As martial skills eroded, Saigō worried about the diehard
pro-shogun radicals who retained de facto control of the city. The most
powerful of these bands was the Shōgitai (League to Demonstrate Righteousness),
formed in February 1868, which eventually enrolled about 2,000 warriors, each
sworn to kill a Satsuma “traitor. ”
Operating from its headquarters in Edo’s Ueno district,
Shōgitai units selectively cracked down on the roving criminal gangs that had
turned the nighttime capital into a place of robbery, murder, and extortion.
Besides punishing these outlaws they also ferreted out Satsuma informers and
pro-court spies, and while the government army slipped into idleness, Shōgitai
units busily constructed strongholds around Ueno Hill. The ongoing fighting in
the north and the deteriorating conditions in Edo created the impression that
the new government was unable to control the strategically vital Edo region.
When reports of the impasse in Edo reached the Kyoto government, leaders Ōkubo
Toshimichi (with Saigō a central leader of Satsuma since 1864), Kido Koin
(leader of Chōshū with Takasugi from 1865), and Iwakura Tomomi (a high-ranking
court noble) sent Ōmura Masujirō to restore government control in the city and
eliminate the Shōgitai influence.
Compared to Saigō, Ōmura seemed physically clumsy; and,
unlike the gregarious Saigō, his introverted personality and perpetually sour
countenance attracted few friends, much less casual admirers. Saigō’s patient
wait-and-see style and measured diplomacy left Ōmura seething at the sight of a
seemingly powerless government army standing idly by while the Shōgitai incited
antigovernment violence in Edo. Ōmura demanded action, but Saigō’s
disinclination to turn the city into a battleground was a major reason for his
lenient terms with the shogun’s representatives.
Assured from Kyoto that reinforcements and money were on the
way, Ōmura and his lieutenant Eto Shimpei decided to attack. They believed that
the Shōgitai were few in number and ignored Satsuma commanders’ arguments that
more loyalist troops were needed to stabilize the city. Moreover, Ōmura was
certain that his artillery would rout the pro-shogunate forces. His only
concession was to the weather; he postponed the offensive until the arrival of
the rainy season rather than bombard the city during the dry weather, when
Edo’s wooden buildings would burn like tinder.
On July 4 Ōmura summoned Saigō and ordered him to attack the
Shōgitai’s Ueno strongpoint immediately, overriding Saigō’s objections with a casual
wave of his fan. As Saigō and his captains had predicted, the attack ran
headlong into a ready-and-waiting enemy, the Shōgitai having been alerted to
the impending assault by Satsuma deserters. Although outnumbered two to one,
the approximately 1,000 Shōgitai troops fought from behind well-prepared
defenses that were anchored by a small lake on one flank and thick woods on the
other and could only be taken by a frontal assault.
Ōmura expected that artillery fire would drive the Shōgitai
from their shelters, leaving them vulnerable to Saigō’s infantry. From Edo
castle, Ōmura watched the billowing smoke and heard the loud explosions and
thought that his plan had succeeded. But the artillery guns soon malfunctioned,
and the few that did fire were wildly inaccurate, producing noise and fireworks
but few enemy casualties. Saigō’s vanguard, led by Kirino Toshiaki, charged
directly into the Shōgitai’s barricades, losing at least 120 men killed or
wounded. About twice that number of Shōgitai supporters were slain, although
many more were apprehended fleeing from Ueno.
The victory secured Edo for the new government, crushed one
of the largest and most violent antigovernment units, restored the momentum of
the imperial forces by releasing them to move north, and, by showing that the
pro-Tokugawa forces could not defeat the emperor’s army, calmed fears of a
prolonged civil war. Despite the artillery fiasco and the heavy government
casualties, Ōmura emerged as a hero, acclaimed for his grasp of modern military
science, much to Saigō’s chagrin, who had lost face over the incident.
Formidable resistance continued in northern Japan, but by controlling Edo the
army had turned a corner. To signify the bakufu’s demise, the next month the
capital moved from Kyoto to Edo, which had been the de facto political center
of Japan for 250 years. On September 3 Edo was officially renamed Tokyo, and
the next month Emperor Mutsuhito adopted the reign name of Meiji and henceforth
was identified as the Emperor Meiji.
The Northern Campaigns
On June 10, 1868, two Aizu samurai attacked a senior Chōshū
officer in a Fukushima brothel. Desperate to escape, he jumped through a
second-floor window only to land face-first on a stone walkway, where he was
seized by his assailants and later executed. Among the murdered official’s
personal effects were confidential government plans to subjugate the northern
domains, including the Tokugawa stronghold of Aizu. Reacting to these threats,
twenty-five pro-bakufu vassals in northern Honshū formed a confederation to
resist the Satsuma-Chōshū government, as distinct from the imperial government.
To crush the league, Ōmura devised a complicated strategy to capture the city
of Sendai on the Pacific (east) coast and then send converging columns
southward to attack the Aizu rebel stronghold at Wakamatsu castle from the
rear. Landings in Echigo Province on the Japan Sea (west) coast with probing
attacks against the major passes would fix the defenders in place.
Yamagata Aritomo commanded the 12,000-man-strong government
army contingent that landed along the west coast in late July and quickly
captured Nagaoka castle. Then he hesitated, even though his veteran forces
(leavened with about 1,000 kiheitai and Satsuma warriors) outnumbered the
rebels three to one. Yamagata spread the entire army along a 50-mile-long
defensive front, leaving him no reserve. He parceled out artillery, giving each
unit a few guns but not enough firepower to blast through league
fortifications. When he tried to evict rebel defenders from strategic mountain
passes, the army suffered successive reverses. Thereafter the rainy season made
streams and rivers impassable and restricted campaigning. By that time,
Yamagata was barely on speaking terms with his second-in-command, the veteran
Satsuma commander Kuroda Kiyotaka, who spent much of the campaign sulking in
his tent.
The opposing armies faced each other about 6 miles north of
Nagaoka, with their flanks bounded on the west by a river and on the east by a
large trackless swamp. Stuck in their cold, wet trenches, morale among
government troops plummeted, abetted by rebels chanting Buddhist funeral sutras
throughout the night. Meanwhile, battle-hardened, aggressive pro-Tokugawa
commanders executed an active defense, probing and raiding government outposts
and disrupting their rear supply areas.
On the east coast, operations initially went smoother. The
main government army moved overland from Edo on Shirokawa castle, which
dominated a strategic mountain pass leading to Aizu. By mid-June government
troops had taken the castle in a frontal attack coordinated with columns
enveloping the town. Government artillery destroyed the prepared defenses and
routed the 2,500 defenders. Several smaller domains in the league promptly
capitulated. The hardcore Aizu defenders withdrew into their main defenses,
which were constructed to blend into the rugged mountainous terrain. With
Yamagata’s western campaign stalled, there was little pressure on the Aizu
rear, enabling the rebels to concentrate their forces against the eastern prong
of the government offensive. The Kyoto high command sent reinforcements under
Saigō’s leadership to reinvigorate Yamagata’s operations.
Unable to break into the southern approaches to
Aizu–Wakamatsu castle, government troops commanded by Itagaki Taisuke and
Ichiji Masaharu maneuvered north along the main highway and in mid-October
captured the northern outposts protecting Aizu’s rear areas. They then pivoted
west through the mountains and defeated successive Aizu contingents by
concentrating artillery fire to pin down defenders while small bands of
riflemen turned their flanks. When the rebels shifted troops to protect their
vulnerable flanks, loyalist forces smashed through the weakened ridgeline
defenses. By late October Itagaki and Ichiji were within five miles of
Wakamatsu castle.
Around the same time, Saigō seized Niigata city, a major
port on the Sea of Japan about forty miles north of Nagaoka castle. Capturing
the port cut off rebel access to imported foreign-manufactured weapons and
interdicted a major supply route running from the city to Aizu-Wakamatsu. But
the day Niigata fell, rebel troops farther south capitalized on their knowledge
of the local terrain to cross the supposedly impassable swamp, outflank the
main government lines, and then overwhelm the small government garrison at
Nagaoka castle. With government forces divided and their line of communication
threatened, Yamagata fled for his life, allegedly discarding his sword and
equipment in his haste. Saigō countermarched south and retook the castle five
days later. Yamagata, however, failed to cut off the withdrawing rebel forces,
and the western campaign stalled again.
These setbacks and the slow progress on the eastern front
sowed doubt among government leaders in Kyoto that the army could finish the
campaign before the region’s heavy winter snows made further campaigning
impossible. Satsuma troops, which formed the backbone of the army, came from
southern Japan and were neither acclimated nor equipped for winter operations.
Rather than risk the imperial army’s carefully crafted reputation for
invincibility and its best troops, Ōmura suspended eastern operations against
Aizu until the following spring.
Itagaki and Ijichi ignored Kyoto’s orders and unilaterally
assaulted the main Aizu stronghold, forcing the heavily outnumbered Aizu
samurai to commit their entire reserve. One such unit, the White Tiger Brigade,
consisted of a few hundred 16- and 17-year-olds and suffered severe losses.
Retreating toward Wakamatsu castle, sixteen survivors mistakenly assumed that
the thick black smoke and red flames rising from the adjacent castle town meant
the castle had fallen. With all hope apparently lost, they committed suicide,
an act of sincerity that redeemed their treason and apotheosized the White
Tiger Brigade as a symbol of loyalty and selfless courage that resonated
powerfully among the public.
Once the main Aizu defenses collapsed, the army overran
minor strongholds in rapid succession and rebel survivors fled to Wakamatsu
castle. Although the government artillery could not penetrate the thick castle
walls, the defenders were unprepared for a winter siege and surrendered in
early November. Losses of pro-Tokugawa forces for the entire campaign were
around 2,700 killed. Sporadic fighting continued in northern Japan until
mid-December, when the league finally capitulated and its leaders took
responsibility for defeat by committing ritual suicide.
During the Tokugawa period suicide to atone for mistakes or
defeat was an accepted cultural norm among the warrior class. During the Boshin
Civil War warrior customs regarding fallen enemies or prisoners likely
encouraged battlefield suicides. Both armies routinely cut off the heads of
dead or wounded enemies for purposes of identification or morale-enhancing
displays. In one case a bakufu leader’s severed head was brought to Kyoto for
public display. The gruesome practice was widespread, and western doctors
working in Japan reported that they rarely saw wounded enemy soldiers,
apparently because of the criteria for head-taking and surrender.
Surrender was recognized, provided both sides agreed on
terms for capitulation. During the Boshin War’s early stages, potential
prisoners were usually executed for suspected cowardice for surrendering (the
idea of the shame of surrender) or because their wounds testified that they had
resisted government troops. Suspected spies or bakufu agents were summarily
executed. Many Shōgitai prisoners captured at Ueno fit all categories and were
promptly beheaded. In the later stages of the war, the new army accepted
surrenders of pro-bakufu troops as the government realized that reconciliation
was necessary to unify the nation.
This conciliatory attitude did not carry over to the
disposition of the dead. The government honored its war dead with special
ceremonies that Ōmura later institutionalized by establishing the Shōkonsha
(shrine for inviting spirits) in June 1869 as the official shrine to
commemorate government war dead. He hoped that official memorialization of the
war dead would stimulate a popular national consciousness by enshrining the
concept of an official death for the sake of the nation, not merely a private
death in a meaningless vendetta.
Enemy dead were regarded as traitors and ineligible for
enshrinement in government shrines. Their beheaded corpses were often left
where they fell, and local villagers would furtively bury the remains. Partly
because the Aizu warriors had so fiercely resisted the government army and
partly owing to Aizu’s long-standing enmity with Chōshū, the Meiji leaders
forbade even the burial of Aizu corpses and ordered them left to rot in open
fields.
At the end of 1868, Tokugawa supporters still controlled
Ezochi (Hokkaidō). In October 1868, bakufu ground and naval units from Sendai
had landed on Hokkaidō’s south coast and overwhelmed the undermanned army
garrison. The remaining government troops abandoned the island, fleeing to the
safety of nearby Honshū. In the spring of 1869, reconstituted and
much-strengthened government ground and naval forces returned and converged on
the major rebel stronghold at Hakodate. The outnumbered pro-shogunate rebels
fell back and by early May prepared for a final stand from Hakodate’s
pentagon-shaped fortress.
Constructed by the bakufu between 1857 and 1864 to protect
Ezochi from the Russian threat, the first western-style fortress in Japan
defended Hakodate’s harbor, where the three remaining bakufu warships were
sheltered. During naval battles on May 11, one government ship sank after a
shell exploded its powder magazine, but two bakufu warships ran aground, and
the third was previously damaged. The subsequent fighting for the fortress
produced more sound and flash than bloodshed. Thousands of government artillery
shells fell on the fortress, causing three casualties. Government losses were two
dead and twenty-one wounded. The siege did reduce the rebels to near
starvation, forcing them to surrender on May 25.
