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Person1828 – 1877

Saigō Takamori

Satsuma leader of the Meiji Restoration who resigned when his call to send a mission to Korea was rejected, and died leading the Satsuma Rebellion

A low-ranking Satsuma samurai, he forged the Satsuma–Chōshū alliance and secured the bloodless surrender of Edo Castle in the Boshin War, becoming a leading figure of the Meiji Restoration. While the Iwakura Mission was abroad he led the caretaker government and proposed going to Korea himself as envoy — to provoke a pretext for war (the Seikanron, the call to subdue Korea by force) — but was blocked by Ōkubo Toshimichi and others on their return and resigned in 1873. He opened private academies in Kagoshima and in 1877, pushed by the samurai, led the Satsuma Rebellion, meeting his end at Shiroyama.

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3 related events

  1. 1
    1871Abolition of the Domains and the Meiji Reformsparticipant

    The Meiji government abolished the feudal domains and replaced them with prefectures, creating a centralised state, then drove modernization from above with the end of status distinctions, conscription, land-tax reform, a school system and state-led industry.

  2. 2
    1871 – 1873Iwakura Missionrelated figure

    Half of the Meiji leadership spent a year and nine months in the United States and Europe, sounding out revision of the unequal treaties and studying Western institutions and industry.

  3. 3
    1877Satsuma Rebellioncommander

    The last and largest revolt of former samurai, launched by Satsuma warriors who had lost their privileges, with Saigō Takamori at their head. The government’s conscript army crushed it.

People who appear alongside

  • Ōkubo Toshimichi1830 – 1878

    Satsuma statesman who led the early Meiji government, pushing through the abolition of the domains and state-led industry, and opposed invading Korea

  • Emperor Meiji1852 – 1912

    Emperor of Japan (r. 1867–1912) in whose name the shogunate was overthrown, the Meiji reforms carried out and the Meiji Constitution promulgated

  • Iwakura Tomomi1825 – 1883

    Court noble who engineered the imperial restoration and led the Meiji government’s 1871–1873 embassy to America and Europe

  • Itō Hirobumi1841 – 1909

    First prime minister of Japan who forced the 1905 protectorate treaty and became the first Resident-General; shot by Ahn Jung-geun at Harbin

Themes this person appears in

  • The Opening of East Asia1839 – 1901

    From the Opium War to the Boxer Protocol — sixty years in which China, Japan and Korea, forced open by Western gunboats, each tried to reform and went separate ways