Clement, Ernest W.

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THE SAKURADA AFFAIR IX YEDO.BV ERNEST W. CLEMENT.DOUBTLESS, most, if not all, of the foreign residents of Tokyoare inclined to pass along the streets of the metropolis withoutthinking of the historic associations of places. There are, it is true,some spots which have a well-known and definite historic interest,such as the temple called Sengakuji, with the tombs of the famousForty-Seven Ronin. P.ut there are many other places, the historicmemories oi which have been obscured or even obliterated by thelapse of time and the march of modern civilization. We think ofUeno now in connection with cherry blossoms, of the conservatoryof music, or the museum, or an ephemeral exposition: and we arenot likely to recall the facts that, on July 4, 1868, it was the site of abattle between the forces of the last Shogun and the Imperial Army:and that it was the Abbot of Kwan eiji (a Buddhist temple at Ueno)whom the Tokugawas put up as a rival of the late Emperor MeijiTenno. Here and there throughout the city of Tokyo, we may findBuddhist temples, like Tozenji and Zempukuji, which once shelteredthe ambassadors of Western countries and were the scenes of fierceattacks by the anti-foreign ronin. The present arsenal at Suido-bashi was the site of one of the three Mito Yashiki^ in Yedo : the FirstHigher School is the site of another Mito Yashiki and now marksits historic character with a monument in honor of a Chinese Mingscholar who took refuge with the famous Mito Prince. Mitsukuni (orGiko). in the seventeenth century. The Imperial University is lo-cated on the grounds of the old Kaga Yashiki of the mighty Maedafamily. Sakurada Mon (Gate) is one of the old gates of the formerShogun's castle (now the Imperial Palace), and is now known as ntram-car transfer point : but it was the scene, sixty years ago, of avery important e\ent in the development of New Japan. Thatevent is known as the "Sakurada Affair."1 "Yashiki" = mansion, of a noble Family.THE SAKL'RADA AFFAIR IX VF.DO. / ODIt occurred on the third day of the third month according to theold hinar calendar, the date of the famous Girls' Festival or DollsFestival which fell that year ( I860) on ]\Iarch 24. That festival is oneof the Fi\e Festivals ( Go-Sekku ) which come on the first day ofthe first month, the third day of the third month, the fifth day of thefifth month, the seventh day of the seventh month, and the ninthday of the ninth month (all according- to the old calendar). It wasthe custom of the Tokugawa Shogunate to hold a kind of levee inthe castle of Yedo on each of those festivals. As March 24 was sonear the spring equinox, it is not strange that a storm of sleet andsnow was raging even in Japan. From that circumstance, as wellas from the fact that the principal j)articipants in the afi'air did notsurvive to write up the story with all the modern newspaper em-hellishments. it is a little difficult to establish with certainty thedetails of what did happen. The best that can be done is to piecetogether se\eral versions of the tragedv.The chief victim of this tragic attair was li Kamon-no-Kami.Lord of Hikone. Tairo (literally "Chief Flder"), that is. PrimeMinister of the Shogun (who was a minor), and thus (since theEmperor was then a figure-head) practically the regent of lapan.He had dared to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with theAmerican Consul-General Townsend Harris and to have it signedJuly 29, 1858, without waiting for the imperial approval : and hehad followed this up by making similar treaties with Holland, Russia,Great Britain and France. This had brought down upon him thewrath of the ultra-Imperialists under the lead of ]Mito, who, onaccount of Ii"s autocratic manners and methods, had dubbed himthe "swaggering Prime Minister." He knew very well that he wasmarked for death whenever a favorable opportunity should presentitself. Only a few da}'s before this afl:"air he had been advised by afriend to resign and thus avoid danger. He replied: "My own safetyis nothing, when I see a great danger threatening my country. 'Even that very morning he had been warned again ; but, like luHusCaesar, he paid no attention to the prophesied dangers of his "Idesof March."li's mansion was situated on the hill about where the WarDepartment and the General Stait Office are now located. It was.therefore, only a little way that he had to go in his palanquin tothe Shogun's castle. Even for that short distance he was escortedby a retinue of retainers both for display and for protection. And.as the retinues escorting other lords, coming from other directions,all had to converge upon the same spot, it produced more or less736 THE OPEN COURT.confusion, which, added to the storm then raging, made a stage set-ting eminently suited to carrying out the conspiracy to a successfulissue.The other chief actors were eighteen samurai, seventeen ofMito and one of Satsuma.It seems quite clear, from the various available reports of the"Sakurada Affair" (reports naturally conflicting, and even coloredor doctored, and hence obscure in many points ) , that, when Lordli, in his palanquin, had reached a certain (prearranged?) spot, afew persons, who had apparently been idly hanging around there forthe mere purpose, a common one, of watching the various feudaltrains go by, rushed out in front of the li retinue. It was, of course,a very rude performance to break into the progress of a daimyo,as the Englishman Richardson learned two years later to his sorrowat Namamugi, near Kanagawa. It would seem that the rush ofIi"s retainers to avenge this affront left his palanquin comparativelyunprotected, so that others of the assaulting party were able to reachthe palanquin without much difficulty. The attacking party hadeasily divested themselves of the straw rain-coats or other meanswith which they had been disguised to look like innocent bystanders.But li's retainers, taken so completely by surprise, were, some ofthem, slain before they could divert themselves of the coverings withwhich they had protected their armor and weapons from the weather.Consequently, the unarmed Lord of Plickone fell an easy victim tohis assailants.According to one report, the men who succeeded in reaching lifirst demanded of him an explanation of his conduct and engaged ina discussion with him on the right and wrong of his policy, and thenassassinated him. liut, while such a procedure was quite in accordwith the conventionalities with which a vendetta was performed inthose feudal days;yet, in this case it seems unlikely that there wa<:time enough for such a formality. A counter-attack by some friendyTokugawa retainers, or by those of the Shogun himself, was alto-gether too imminent to allow such a diversion, however interesting.There are also contradictory reports concerning the dispositionmade of li's head. One statement is that the man who started offwith it was unable to effect his escape and was brought to bay in themoat, where he was permitted unmolested to commit harakiri in theorthodox manner. It seems much more likely that he had only adecoy head, while, by a prearranged plan, the man with the real headof the high victim effected an escape. It is stated that li's head wascarried to Mito and exhibited to his old rival, Prince Nariaki, whoTHE SAKURADA AFFAIR IX VFDO. 737is said to have gloated over it and spat upon it. It is needless toadd that the Mito adherents deny the truth of that report. It is alsoafifirmed, with more jjlausibility, that the head was taken to Kyoto,there publicly exposed as the head of a traitor, then carried backto Yedo and cast one night into the Hikone Yashiki grounds.( )ne of the most interesting features of this affair illustratesone of the curious old customs of feudal Japan. It was an un-written law that the estate of a daimio who suffered death violentlyor awav from home should be either confiscated or reduced. Itwas, therefore, necessary to avoid such disgrace by officially con-cealing the exact truth, flence, the principal gentlemen in the lateregent's service is re])orted to have written as follows: "This morn-ing, while my master was on his way to the castle to pay his respzctsto the Shogun. an attack was made upon his train. In the scuffleone man was killed, and the servants of li brought the body to tliehouse here." That is certainly a remarkable example of the skilfulway in which the truth can be told and yet concealed ! And thisfiction was maintained by the Shogun's officials, who reported to theforeign ambassadors for several days, that li "was not worse"!Even more interesting is the statement made in Dickson's "Ja-pan." that li himself wrote to the Shogun as follows: "I proposedgoing to the levee at the palace and was on my way there, when,near the Sakurada ( iat?, about tw-enty men w^ere collected. Theybegan to fire pistols, and afterward with swords attacked me in mynorimono. My ser\ants thereupon resisted and killed one of themen—the others ran oft' and escaped. Having received severalwounds, I could not pay my intended visit to the Shogun, and wasobliged to return to my house. Xow I send the names of such ofmy servants as were wounded."According to another old feudal custom the assailants issueda formal statement gi\ing their reasons for the deed. This issummed up in the following words: "They accused him, first ofpossessing himself of the person of the young Shogun, and of dis-missing and a])])ointing officials as his own selfish objects suggested;secondly, of receiving enormous bribes and granting private favors;thirdly, of having driven away the princes of Owari. Mito, andEchizen, thereby dejiriving the Shogun of the support of those whowere most nearly allied to him by blood ; fourthly, of having deludedHis Highness Kujo. besides confining many Court nobles, and put-ting numbers of the samurai and common people to death; andfifthly, of being frightened by the empty threats of the foreign bar-738 THE OPEN COURT.barians into concluding treaties with them, without the sanction ofthe Mikado, and tuider the pretext of pohtical necessity."At this point let me only add that while the Mito Ronin thuswreaked vengeance upon the man who had heaped indignities upontheir prince, the latter enjoyed his triumph for only a few months,and died in ( )ctol)er of the same year ( 1860). The deaths of thesetwo leaders may have diminished a little the bitterness of partyfeeling, but also "left Japan without any master mind to controla difficult situation."It remains now to consider brietly the effects of the assassina-tion of li. A Japanese writer (lyenaga) has said that the "familywas called the dodai or foundation-stone of the power of the Toku-gawa dynasty [of Shoguns]" ; but the same writer has characterizedli as "bold, ambitious, able and unscrupulous." "the Richelieu ofJapan. "h'rom this point of view is was probably a good thing thathe was removed from the scene of action. Ciubbins, in "The Progressof Japan," gives li due credit for what he had done: "There can belittle doubt that the regent's direction of aff'airs greatly assisted thework of reopening Japan to foreign intercourse." It may not beunfair to say that his removal might naturally have retarded thatsame process, which indeed moved very slowly after his death.Anyhow, the death of li hastened the downfall of the TokugawaShogunate, the overthrow of which was essential to the nationalunification of Japan. li's lifework and his death cooperated to ih^same end, the development of a New Japan.

The Sakurada Affair in Yedo.

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The Sakurada Affair in Yedo.

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