The Breaking Point
MILITARY MODERNIZATION AND CONSCRIPTION (1873-1876)
The Creation of the modern conscript army didn’t only represent military reform but also a social revolution that destroyed the samurai’s defining role and demonstrated commoners could equal or exceed warrior effectiveness. The Conscription Law of January 1873 obliged all men to perform six years of military service, of which the first three years would be active. This challenged the centuries-long samurai monopoly on military affairs by French and German models of discipline, training, and modern weapons over individual warrior excellence. The 1874 Taiwan Expedition, of but small military value, was the first essential historical proof of the military capability of the conscript forces and provided a further important political event in the justification of military modernization, and the appearance of French military advisors in 1875 and the establishment of Western-style military academies introduced a new generation of military leaders who placed a high priority on technical knowledge, thereby undermining warrior knowledge and habits inherited from the samurai. The disbanding of the samurai forces and their replacement by conscript regiments in 1876 thereby swept away the last vestiges of military samurai superiority, and the skills of the samurai were made redundant overnight, a psychological blow from which the samurai class could never recover, having long prided itself on being the military in Japan and finding it impossible to accept the notion that peasants and merchants could also be soldiers, and this led, of necessity, to the desperate rebellion that followed in a last, despairing bid to retain their monopoly on military identity.
ECONOMIC DISMANTLING OF SAMURAI CLASS (1873-1876)
The Meiji government systematically destroyed the economic foundation of the samurai through the stipend reform program that replaced previous hereditary payments with low-value governmental bonds. Starting with the voluntary commutation of 1873 and becoming complete in a mandatory conversion on August 10, 1876. The policy forced many samurai to accept bonds that depreciated in value rapidly. Further than that, many samurai lacked the financial literacy to invest wisely or make proper use of what bonds they did have. The government worsened this devastation on the samurai by eliminating the tax exemptions and commercial privileges that had previously been added to the samurai income, forcing them to compete in the social markets for which they were not trained or willing to learn. By 1877, historians estimated that three-quarters of former samurai were living in poverty or homeless, with many forced to sell their swords and, along with it, the last symbols of their status.
CULTURAL AND LEGAL RESTRICTIONS (1871-1876)
The Meiji government went on to launch an extensive attack on the samurai cultural identity through various kinds of legal restrictions that targeted the obvious visible symbols and social practices that distinguished warriors from the commoners. This was done in an attempt to create a homogeneous citizenry. Following these attacks, the 1871 abolition of the eta class eliminated a key importance in defining the samurai superiority, stripping their position as the “untouchables” in the dominant social hierarchy. The March 1876 Haitōrei directly damaged the heart of samurai identity by banning public sword-wearing, removing their most visible status symbol and theoretical right to kill disrespectful commoners. Along with this ban, policies like the Dampatsurei encouraged Western dress and hairstyles that made traditional topknots and samurai clothing markers of backwardness rather than honor. Ending in the eventual choice for the samurai to decide between identity and social acceptance. Religious and legal reforms also encroached upon the samurai’s privileged position by creating a pluralistic society that contradicted the ideological foundations the samurai built themselves upon. Buddhism’s suppression and legalization of Christianity created religious pluralism that undermined the neo-Confucian ideological framework that served as the primary justification of samurai superiority. The new legal system treated all citizens equal before the law, eliminating samurai judicial privileges including exemption from torture and the right to trial by peers rather than magistrates. These specific cultural attacks proved even more devastating than the previously developed economic deprivation for many samurai. The legal restrictions destroyed the social recognition and respect that had often compensated for their actual power and reduced them to impoverished citizens indistinguishable from the commoners they had once despised and dominated.
SAMURAI REBELLIONS (1874-1877)
There were several revolts in the period from 1874-1877 that represented the final death throes of the warrior class. In a last desperate attempt to turn back the clock the February 1874 Saga Rebellion led by Samurai Etō Shinpei fared no better and falling within weeks to the newly formed conscript army, the hopelessness of conventional warfare, while revolts broke out in October 1876 within Kumamoto, Akizuki, and Hagi simultaneously in direct reaction to the ban of the sword and the commutation of the stipend. The 1877 Satsuma Rebellion marked the final hope for the restoration of the samurai, led by the popular Saigō Takamori with a following of over 30,000 who successfully married modern weaponry with the time-honored code of the warrior, though the seven-month-long battle ended with the initial successes of the samurai weakening against the sheer number, logistics, and artillery advantage of the conscript army. Saigō’s eventual suicide in September 1877 was no less than the tragically gallant finale that would come to typify their legend, but in the process marked the final military defeat of the samurai class, defeated by the very modernization they had set in motion, proving the irrelevance of the warrior code in the face of modern Japanese military strength.
