Spitit Samurai

8/6/2019 Spitit Samurai

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Spirit/ ^ of the Samurai

General Maresuke Nogi lived and died by astrict Sam urai codeand tried to raise futureEm peror H irohito the same way


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GUNS THUNDERED AROUND TOKYO on September 12,1912, as the cortege ol Meiji, Jap an s firsl mod fm emperor,passed thousands ol Japanese who knell solemnly, in somecases pounding their foreheads against the pavement asthe sacred white oxen led the emperor, dead of slomachcancer at 53, to his buiial mo und . W hen the funei al pro -cession left ihc city. General Maresuke Nogi, director ofthe Peers School for Japanese princes of the blood, re-turned to his humble house in old Tokyo's Akasaka dis-trict. His wife Shizuko bowed as she greeted him at thealcove, then the couple took a ritual bath and changed intopure white kim onos. Then, kneeling at the tokonoma, th efamily shrine, Shizuko Nogi cut her throat with a razor-shaip dagger. As soon as she was dead, Nt)gi drew hiswakizashi, or short sword, drove the blade into his bellyand disemboweled himself. He died several hours later.When the neighbors an d police airived, ihey found a notedeploring the self-indulgenee of the younger generationand urging Japanese to exercise the ancient warrior spirit.Briefly, the world gasped. Maresuke Nogi was interna-tionally known through newspaper accounts as the con-queror of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.Highly educated, fluent in English, French and German,he had been a popular genteel curio.sit\' during visits toEngland. Although David Belasco's play Madcuue Butter-fly and Giacomo Pueeini's opera of ihe same nam e had es-tablished suicide, by a jilted geisha, as a staple of Japan eseculture, the deaths of Maresuke and Shizuko Nogi sentShockwaves through Weslem diplomatic an d m ilitary cir-cles. The West soon developed its "official" viewpointNogi and his wife, as loyal retainers, w anted their spiritsto follow Emperor Meiji to the hereafter. But many in-formed Japanese felt othei^uise.Bo m in 1849, Nogi had been called Nakito, literally "nota person," because his father had lost two previous new-born sons and wanted lo ctmvince evil spirits that this onewasn't worth taking. Later, when the boy proved lo behealthy, he was nam ed Maresuke, or "Round Boy."Five years after Nogi's birih, a U.S. Navy loree com-manded by Commodore M atthew C. Pen>' forcefully priedopen Japan's door to Western contaetsand loreed itspeople to come to terms with European imperialism.Opinions varied amo ng th e eounlr\''s elans. Nogi's latherwas a samurai of the Chosu in southern Japan, an aiTnyclan that produced advocates of agriculture and conser-vatism, who came to view Russia as Japan's most dan-gerous enemy. The rival Sats um a clan, with an establishednaval tradition, was business oriented, international and

Survivors of the bloody Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05gather at a Japanese field hospital near Port Arthur. Thedecisive hattle for 203-IVIeter Hill, which led to the fall of

elitist in outlook, and hostile to the Westem European col-onizers in China and the Pacific.As a boy, Nogi had wanted to be a famier and a poet.Neither ambition was especially strange or effete in oldJapan, where the caste system ranked farmers only asingle step below the sam urai wanior-po lice caste. Toughswordsmen often v\,Tote haiku or tanka while pi'eparingfor brushes with death and dismemb erment.Nogi's father wanted him hardened lo a rigorous life. Ifthe boy complained abo ut the w inter cold, his father stoodhim barefoot in the snow and dumped buckets of coldwater over his head. Swordsmanship and judo played a routine part in the education of an upper-easte Japanese, a ndat age 16 Nogi lost the use of one eye in a fencing acc identIN 1868 THE YOUNG Emperor Meiji launched themodemization of Japan with his Imperial RescriptThe samurai were deprived of their once-exclusiveright to bear arm s. Japan was ordered to form a new na-tional army draw n, in the m ann er of Napoleon I, from allclasses of society. For one tumultuous year the samurai,because iheir clan loyalty posed a thre at to n ational sov-ereignty, were entirely banned from their previous casteemplo>Tnent as soldiers or officers. Shortly after that, theywere admitted to the national amiy on the same basis asevery other Japanese, but their wanior tradition sooncame to inspire, if not dom inate, the new nationa l forcesYoung Nogi joined the new army as soon as his sam u-rai caste status permitted. Still a poet at heart, he wasrenowned for his swordsmanship, his insubordinate atti-tude and for "drinking green liquors under scarletlantems"sampling imported French absinthe in broth-els and geisha houses.Not all traditionalists w ere satisfied to roister and drink.In Kyushu, once the bastion of Japan's largely extermi-nated native Chi'istian minority, later the seat of clan in-transigence, traditionalisl sam urai led by Takamori Saigorevolted against the national forces in February 1877.

Nogi, now a cap tain, led a compan y of 240 multicaste sol-diei"s against the rebels and charged into an ambush. Shottwiee, Nogi lost many of his men, along with the bannergiven to the new regiment by the emperor. On Se ptemb er25, Saigo, shot in the groin du ring his com ered army's lasstand at Kagoshima, aeknowledged defeat and commit-ted hara-kiri to implore pardoti for his followers, most ofwhom were duly spared. Nogi, humiliated by the loss ofthe regimental banner, sent a request through the nationalarmy's chain of command to atone for his disgracethrough suieide. His request was approved by GeneralAritomo Yamagata wh o, as a boy, had swum out to attackCommodore Pem's "black ships" armed only with adagger in his teeth. When the request reached Meiji, how-ever, he replied, "Not while I am still alive, Nogithat is


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SPIRIT OF TH E SAMURAI

A stem samurai to the end of hislife, General Maresuke Nogi gainedinternational renown as the first EastAsian m ilitary leader to defeat a Euro-pean army in modem ground warfare.

ture when the emperor took hisearthly leave. More grateful for thecompliment than the reprieve, Nogideveloped a devotion to Meiji atidthe imperial family that was extremeeven for a samurai.Letting bygones b e bygones, Meijihad a statue erected of the defeatedSaigo, clad not in samm ^i ai mo r butin his rabbit-hunting costume withbow and an'ows. He also ma nie d offNogi to Shizuko ("Quiet Girl"), a 19-year-old daughter of the rival Satsum aclan. The first years of the marriagewere trouhled. Nogi drank heavily,

even during their honeymoon.Shizuko took their two children tolive with her family, while Nogisometimes lived with his motherEventually they learned to tolerateeach other as domestic partners andraised two boys, Katsusuke {"VictoiyBoy"), and Yasusuke ("Peace Boy"),in the samurai tradition.In 1886, Nogi was sent to studyniihtan' science in Germany. Hefound the kaiser's peacetime parad earmy too frivolous, and retumed to Japan as a martinetinstead of a roistererand apparently as a better husbandand father. Nogi and his wife and sons took up the familyhobby of potting bonsai, minia ture trees with landscapes.IN 1894, AFTER MANY years of mod emization, Ja panmade its OV^TI bid to be a powei" in Asia by going to waragainst the decadent China of the Manchu DowagerEmpress Tzu Hsi. The Chinese were trampled and Nogi,as a brigade commander, captured the Chinese forti"ess inManchuria that would later be known as Poil Arthur, aconqu est he describe d as "slightly mo re diffieult thantwisting a baby's arm ."Japa n had won its war by 1895, but Euro pean inter-vention rob bed it of most of the loot. In 1904 Nogi and histwo sons, now grown to young m anhood, w ere told to pre-pare for war with tsarist Russia."Please show a smiling face at least for once," ShizukoNogi said at th e family farewell di nn er in Tokyo. "This isnot a smiling matter," Nogi replied soberly. "A father andtwo sons are going to war. None of us know s wh o will bekilled first. There should be no funeral until all three areretumed in coffins."Although unruly, inefficient and poorly led, the Ru ssianarmy proved tougher foes than the baflled Chinese. Be-sides dogged courage, they had electrified barbed wire,

palling. Katsusuke was the firto fall, while leading his trNanshan as the tsar's men wiinto the fortified lines at Port Mortally wounded, he confersamurai sword on a brother saying: "I give it to you, an d yoenter the eity of Port Arthur of myself. My soul is in the s"I am glad he died so splenNogi said when told of hisson's death. "It is the higheshe could have," Later he visigrave with its simple woodmarker and left two bottles so Katsusuke's spirit eould slthirst. He also viTote a morosin classic Chinese charactei-s

For ten miles the wind smells ofblood from this new battle

the warhoTTse balks, men are siI stand outside the town in ihe l

of the settmg sun.Yasusuke, fun-loving "Peacand his stem father's favoricarrying dispatches fixim the h^ont lines at Port Acritical 203-Meter Hill when a Russian bullet killeThis time Nogi arrived in time to see the body of twbo had once played around him Uke a puppy awarm ed their feet together at the family ehaie oal The father noted that the bullet had entered the bYasusuke's head. "Was it after he had completed hor was it before?" he asked quietly. A staff soldierthat Yasusuke had delivered his message bravelyhe aw fire and was killed while retum ing to repo rt cess. Nogi nodded. "I often wond er how I could apto His Majesty a nd to the people for having killed s

of my men," he said. "But now that my son hakilled...." He wept silently, then said, "Cremate it,to ashes," turning away to hide his emotion.On Deeember 6, 1904, Nogi's Third Imperial Armtured 203-Meter Hill at a eost of 14,000 dead. A sculated that three Russian officers had sold the Jaa map of the minefields and were later murderedthey tried to colleet. In any ease, U -ineh Kiu pp siegitzers had breached the biick and stone fortress befJapanese stormed in through machine gim fire antrified barbed wire to rout the shell-shocked s u n ivocold steel. Onee 203-Meter Hill was captured, Ja

foru'ard observers eould direct heav^y shells on thsian warships in the harbor. They sank foui" batt


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5,000 men that

on a train unmolested. Stoes-

enemy's Heet has been destroyed,

have been an ideal spot for anNogi served as headmaster of the PeersSchool, where he m entored the EmperorMe iji's grandsons, including the futureEmperor H irohito, shown here at age 9.

S TH E FIRST EAST ASIAN to defeat a w hite Eun )-pean nation in a mode m land b attle, Nogi becamean intemational celebrity, much in demand fory supp orted Japan's war as a way of containing Rus-

ns w ere being groomed as future nalers. Hirohito,, was the leading can didate. A studious butd, Hirohito saw his father ab out once a m ontb

n the ten ns a child would use when speak-her. Nogi raised H irohito as he himself h ad been10-year-old under aglaeie r-fed water-

sho emp eror The Gemian-Ioving Taisho barelysons, and a council of princes sought Nogi's

built St. Luke's Hospitai in Tokyoand whose co urt sou rces were excel-lent, Nogi ui^ed that Hirohito be putaside in favor of Chichibu, thesecond son. Besides Hirohito's physi-cal clumsiness, Bergamini cited theold general's "vague presentiment, asense of something dark" in Hiro-hito's character. Taisho, who loved adrink as mueh as Nogi had, and en-joyed th e sort of heavy Germanicpageantry that Nogi found prepos-terous, listened politely but disre-garded the old samurai's advice.

Nogi, dismayed, confronted th eemperor's 12-year-oid heir. "I ask youto study harder," he admonished."You are now the crown prince...!beg you to attend to your militaryduties. I beg you to take daily care ofyour health, no ma tter how busy youare. Remember, I shall be watching.Work well for yourself and Japan."That night Nogi and his wife com-mitted their double suicide. West-erners might believe that he waseager to follow Meiji to the land ofghosts, and many Japanese saw Shizuko's voluntary deathas a way of rejoining h er two sons in the next world. Butothers, including Japanese courtiers who spoke in confi-denee to Bergamini, believed Nogi had been so outragedby Hirohito's succession, against his strong ad vice, that hekilled himself in sheer rage and resentment.

Nogi was a stem samurai whose soldiers called them-selves "hum an bullets," and he spared neither his men, hissons nor himself in the pursuit ot honor. It is doubtful,however, that he would have appro\ed some of the meth-ods Hirohito later endoi^sed, ranging fi'om the mass cor-iTjption of Manchuria through deliberate introduction ofmoiphine and heroin, to the Nazi-style medical experi-ments on Chinese an d Soviet prisone rs and the fascina-tion with germ warfare that pereolated out of the palaceonee H irohito was enthroned. These tactics had little todo with the samurai's code of honor in warfare.

Infomied of his tutor 's dea th^a nd no doubt aware ofNogi's attemp t to bump him out of the successionHiro-hito bowed and said, "Japan has suffered a regrettableloss." His face reportedly betrayed no emotion whatso-ever MHBased in Glen Rock, N.J., John Koster is related by marriageto jonner kaiuakazi pilots and uumerous members ofJapan's prewar nobility. For finiher reading he recommends:


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Spitit Samurai