Spirit / ^ of the Samurai

General Maresuke Nogi lived and died by a strict Samurai codeand tried to raise future Emperor Hirohito the same way

N 1868 THE YOUNG Emperor Meiji launched the modemization of Japan with his Imperial Rescript. The samurai were deprived of their once-exclusive right to bear arms. Japan was ordered to form a new naBriefly, the world gasped. Maresuke Nogi was interna- tional army drawn, in the manner of Napoleon I, from all tionally known through newspaper accounts as the con- classes of society. For one tumultuous year the samurai, queror of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War. because iheir clan loyalty posed a threat to national sovHighly educated, fluent in English, French and German, ereignty, were entirely banned from their previous caste he had been a popular genteel curio.sit\' during visits to emplo>Tnent as soldiers or officers. Shortly after that, they England. Although David Belasco's play Madcuue Butter- were admitted to the national amiy on the same basis as fly and Giacomo Pueeini's opera of ihe same name had es- every other Japanese, but their wanior tradition soon tablished suicide, by a jilted geisha, as a staple of Japanese came to inspire, if not dominate, the new national forces. Young Nogi joined the new army as soon as his samuculture, the deaths of Maresuke and Shizuko Nogi sent Shockwaves through Weslem diplomatic and military cir- rai caste status permitted. Still a poet at heart, he was cles. The West soon developed its "official" viewpoint renowned for his swordsmanship, his insubordinate attiNogi and his wife, as loyal retainers, wanted their spirits tude and for "drinking green liquors under scarlet to follow Emperor Meiji to the hereafter. But many in- lantems"sampling imported French absinthe in brothels and geisha houses. formed Japanese felt othei^uise. Bom in 1849, Nogi had been called Nakito, literally "not Not all traditionalists were satisfied to roister and drink. a person," because his father had lost two previous new- In Kyushu, once the bastion of Japan's largely extermiborn sons and wanted lo ctmvince evil spirits that this one nated native Chi'istian minority, later the seat of clan inwasn't worth taking. Later, when the boy proved lo be transigence, traditionalisl samurai led by Takamori Saigo healthy, he was named Maresuke, or "Round Boy." revolted against the national forces in February 1877. Five years after Nogi's birih, a U.S. Navy loree com- Nogi, now a captain, led a company of 240 multicaste solmanded by Commodore Matthew C. Pen>' forcefully pried diei"s against the rebels and charged into an ambush. Shot open Japan's door to Western contaetsand loreed its twiee, Nogi lost many of his men, along with the banner people to come to terms with European imperialism. given to the new regiment by the emperor. On September Opinions varied among the eounlr\''s elans. Nogi's lather 25, Saigo, shot in the groin during his comered army's last was a samurai of the Chosu in southern Japan, an aiTny stand at Kagoshima, aeknowledged defeat and commitclan that produced advocates of agriculture and conser- ted hara-kiri to implore pardoti for his followers, most of vatism, who came to view Russia as Japan's most dan- whom were duly spared. Nogi, humiliated by the loss of gerous enemy. The rival Satsuma clan, with an established the regimental banner, sent a request through the national naval tradition, was business oriented, international and army's chain of command to atone for his disgrace through suieide. His request was approved by General Aritomo Yamagata who, as a boy, had swum out to attack Commodore Pem's "black ships" armed only with a Survivors of the bloody Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 dagger in his teeth. When the request reached Meiji, howgather at a Japanese field hospital near Port Arthur. The ever, he replied, "Not while I am still alive, Nogithat is decisive hattle for 203-IVIeter Hill, which led to the fall of an order." In the Shinto tradition both men followed, the Port Artiiur and effectively won the war for the Japanese, best waniors were sometimes reserved for a mass deparcost the Imperial Army 14.000 killed.
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GUNS THUNDERED AROUND TOKYO on September 12, 1912, as the cortege ol Meiji, Japans firsl modfm emperor, passed thousands ol Japanese who knell solemnly, in some cases pounding their foreheads against the pavement as the sacred white oxen led the emperor, dead of slomach cancer at 53, to his buiial mound. When the funei^al procession left ihc city. General Maresuke Nogi, director of the Peers School for Japanese princes of the blood, returned to his humble house in old Tokyo's Akasaka district. His wife Shizuko bowed as she greeted him at the alcove, then the couple took a ritual bath and changed into pure white kimonos. Then, kneeling at the tokonoma, the family shrine, Shizuko Nogi cut her throat with a razorshaip dagger. As soon as she was dead, Nt)gi drew his wakizashi, or short sword, drove the blade into his belly and disemboweled himself. He died several hours later. When the neighbors and police airived, ihey found a note deploring the self-indulgenee of the younger generation and urging Japanese to exercise the ancient warrior spirit.

elitist in outlook, and hostile to the Westem European colonizers 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 old Japan, where the caste system ranked farmers only a single step below the samurai wanior-police caste. Tough swordsmen often v\,Tote haiku or tanka while pi'eparing for brushes with death and dismemberment. Nogi's father wanted him hardened lo a rigorous life. If the boy complained about the winter cold, his father stood him barefoot in the snow and dumped buckets of cold water over his head. Swordsmanship and judo played a routine part in the education of an upper-easte Japanese, and at age 16 Nogi lost the use of one eye in a fencing accident.

SPIRIT OF THE SAMURAI

ture when the emperor took his palling. Katsusuke was the first Nogi earthly leave. More grateful for the to fall, while leading his troops at compliment than the reprieve, Nogi Nanshan as the tsar's men withdrew developed a devotion to Meiji atid into the fortified lines at Port Arthur. the imperial family that was extreme Mortally wounded, he conferred his even for a samurai. samurai sword on a brother officer, saying: "I give it to you, and you shall Letting bygones be bygones, Meiji enter the eity of Port Arthur instead had a statue erected of the defeated of myself. My soul is in the sword." Saigo, clad not in samm^i aimor but "I am glad he died so splendidly," in his rabbit-hunting costume with Nogi said when told of his eldest bow and an'ows. He also manied off son's death. "It is the highest honor Nogi to Shizuko ("Quiet Girl"), a 19he could have," Later he visited the year-old daughter of the rival Satsuma grave with its simple wooden slat clan. The first years of the marriage marker and left two bottles of beer were trouhled. Nogi drank heavily, so Katsusuke's spirit eould slake its even during their honeymoon. thirst. He also viTote a morose poem Shizuko took their two children to in classic Chinese charactei-s: live with her family, while Nogi sometimes lived with his mother Eventually they learned to tolerate For ten miles the wind smells of each other as domestic partners and A stem samurai to the end of his blood from this new battle. raised two boys, Katsusuke {"Victoiy life, General Maresuke Nogi gained the warhoTTse balks, men are silent. Boy"), and Yasusuke ("Peace Boy"), international renown as the first East I stand outside the town in ihe light in the samurai tradition. Asian military leader to defeat a Euroof the settmg sun. In 1886, Nogi was sent to study pean army in modem ground warfare. niihtan' science in Germany. He Yasusuke, fun-loving "Peace Boy" found the kaiser's peacetime parade and his stem father's favorite, was army too frivolous, and retumed to Japan as a martinet carrying dispatches fixim the h^ont lines at Port Arthur's instead of a roistererand apparently as a better husband critical 203-Meter Hill when a Russian bullet killed him. and father. Nogi and his wife and sons took up the family This time Nogi arrived in time to see the body of the boy hobby of potting bonsai, miniature trees with landscapes. wbo had once played around him Uke a puppy as they warmed their feet together at the family ehaieoal brazier. N 1894, AFTER MANY years of modemization, Japan The father noted that the bullet had entered the back of made its OV^TI bid to be a powei" in Asia by going to war Yasusuke's head. "Was it after he had completed his task, against the decadent China of the Manchu Dowager or was it before?" he asked quietly. A staff soldier replied Empress Tzu Hsi. The Chinese were trampled and Nogi, that Yasusuke had delivered his message bravely under as a brigade commander, captured the Chinese forti"ess in heaw fire and was killed while retuming to report his sucManchuria that would later be known as Poil Arthur, a cess. Nogi nodded. "I often wonder how I could apologize conquest he described as "slightly more diffieult than to His Majesty and to the people for having killed so many of my men," he said. "But now that my son has been twisting a baby's arm." Japan had won its war by 1895, but European inter- killed...." He wept silently, then said, "Cremate it, tum it vention robbed it of most of the loot. In 1904 Nogi and his to ashes," turning away to hide his emotion. two sons, now grown to young manhood, were told to preOn Deeember 6, 1904, Nogi's Third Imperial Army cappare for war with tsarist Russia. tured 203-Meter Hill at a eost of 14,000 dead. A storv cir"Please show a smiling face at least for once," Shizuko culated that three Russian officers had sold the Japanese Nogi said at the family farewell dinner in Tokyo. "This is a map of the minefields and were later murdered when not a smiling matter," Nogi replied soberly. "A father and they tried to colleet. In any ease, U-ineh Kiupp siege howtwo sons are going to war. None of us knows who will be itzers had breached the biick and stone fortress before the killed first. There should be no funeral until all three are Japanese stormed in through machine gim fire and electrified barbed wire to rout the shell-shocked sun ivors with retumed in coffins." Although unruly, inefficient and poorly led, the Russian cold steel. Onee 203-Meter Hill was captured, Japanese army proved tougher foes than the baflled Chinese. Be- foru'ard observers eould direct heav^y shells on the Russides dogged courage, they had electrified barbed wire, sian warships in the harbor. They sank foui" battleships land mines and Maxim heav'y machine guns. The Japa- and four eaiisers in days, and the Russian commander, nese won almost everv battle, but their casualties were ap- General Anatole Stoessel, sued for peace, The Russians

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were so eager to get out of Port built St. Luke's Hospitai in Tokyo Arthur after losing 5,000 men that and whose court sources were excelthey left some ofthe 25,000 soldiei^' lent, Nogi ui^ed that Hirohito be put wives and officers' widows behind. aside in favor of Chichibu, the To their credit, the Japanese put second son. Besides Hirohito's physithem on a train unmolested. Stoescal clumsiness, Bergamini cited the sel even gave Nogi his fme Arabian old general's "vague presentiment, a horse. sense of something dark" in Hirohito's character. Taisho, who loved a While Russian stragglers and drink as mueh as Nogi had, and enJapanese soldiers eelebrated their joyed the sort of heavy Germanic survival with leftover vodka, Nogi pageantry that Nogi found prepospoured sake in a solemn eeremony terous, listened politely but disrehonoring the spirits of the dead, ingarded the old samurai's advice. toning: "I wish to tell you that your noble saerifice w'as not in vain, for Nogi, dismayed, confronted the our enemy's Heet has been destroyed, emperor's 12-year-oid heir. "I ask you and Port Arthur at last has suirento study harder," he admonished. dered...with you, spirits ofthe dead, "You are now the crown prince...! I wish to share the triumph." beg you to attend to your military "The mountain after its capture duties. I beg you to take daily care of \\ ould have been an ideal spot for an your health, no matter how busy you fintemational] peace conference," Nogi served as headmaster of the Peers are. Remember, I shall be watching. wrote British eon^espondent Ellis School, where he mentored the Emperor Work well for yourself and Japan." Ashmead-Bartlett after the stmggle Meiji's grandsons, including the future That night Nogi and his wife comended. "There have probably never Emperor Hirohito, shown here at age 9. mitted their double suicide. Westbeen so many dead crowded into so erners might believe that he was small a space since the French eager to follow Meiji to the land of stormed the Great Redout at Borodino." ghosts, and many Japanese saw Shizuko's voluntary death as a way of rejoining her two sons in the next world. But S THE FIRST EAST ASIAN to defeat a white Eun)- others, including Japanese courtiers who spoke in confipean nation in a modem land battle, Nogi became denee to Bergamini, believed Nogi had been so outraged an intemational celebrity, much in demand for by Hirohito's succession, against his strong advice, that he missions to Britain, which had diplomatically and tech- killed himself in sheer rage and resentment. nically supported Japan's war as a way of containing RusNogi was a stem samurai whose soldiers called themsian ambitions in Asia. In 1908 Emperor Meiji aeeorded selves "human bullets," and he spared neither his men, his Nogi another honor: The white-bearded general beeame sons nor himself in the pursuit ot honor. It is doubtful, the headmaster of the Peers School, where Meiji's three however, that he would have appro\ed some of the methgrandsons were being groomed as future nalers. Hirohito, ods Hirohito later endoi^sed, ranging fi'om the mass corthe oldest boy, was the leading candidate. A studious but iTjption of Manchuria through deliberate introduction of clumsy child, Hirohito saw his father about once a montb moiphine and heroin, to the Nazi-style medical experiand his mother about once a week. He customarily ad- ments on Chinese and Soviet prisoners and the fascinadressed Nogi in the tenns a child would use when speak- tion with germ warfare that pereolated out of the palace ing to a father. Nogi raised Hirohito as he himself had been onee Hirohito was enthroned. These tactics had little to raised, standing the 10-year-old underaglaeier-fed water- do with the samurai's code of honor in warfare. (ail and dressing him in coarse and ragged clothes. Nogi, Infomied of his tutor's death^and no doubt aware of however, was less impressed with Hirohito than he was Nogi's attempt to bump him out of the successionHirowith Prince Chichibu, a fun-loving and naturally graceful hito bowed and said, "Japan has suffered a regrettable boy who may have reminded him of his second son Ya- loss." His face reportedly betrayed no emotion whatsosusuke. ever MH In 1912 Meiji died, and the issue of a ctown prince became critical to the crowning of Meiji's son Yoshihito Based in Glen Rock, N.J., John Koster is related by marriage as the Taisho emperor The Gemian-Ioving Taisho barely to jonner kaiuakazi pilots and uumerous members of knew his own sons, and a council of princes sought Nogi's Japan's prewar nobility. For finiher reading he recommends: adWee. According to American author David Bergamini, The Tide at Sunrise, by Dennis and Peggy Wamer; and a Japanese-raised American whose father designed and Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, by Edward Behr.
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