What the "Satsuma Students" Brought to Bloom

In front of JR Kagoshima-Chuo Station, it is not Saigo Takamori or Okubo Toshimichi, but a statue of 19 people titled "Young Group of Satsuma" that stands in a row.

They are the young men of Satsuma who studied in the West during the end of the Edo period, praised by the British as "Brilliant Satsuma Students".

What are the Satsuma Students?
During the end of the Edo period, there was a group of students from Choshu called the "Choshu Five", which I introduced in a previous article, but

Satsuma also had a group of students called the "Satsuma Students" (details such as the names and achievements of the 19 people will be described later).

Satsuma Domain Lord Shimazu Nariakira believed that in order to prevent Japan from becoming a colony, it was necessary to acquire Western knowledge and technology as soon as possible and transform Japan into a modern nation, but

After Nariakira passed away in 1858, that wish was realized by the Satsuma retainers who studied in England starting in 1865.

The trigger was the Namamugi Incident
In September 1862, while the Satsuma Domain's father of the lord, Shimazu Hisamitsu, was on his way back to Kyoto after entering Edo Castle for shogunate reforms, he encountered a group of British people who were sightseeing in Japan on horseback as he approached Namamugi Village in Musashi Province.

The group, who did not know Japanese customs or language, approached Hisamitsu's palanquin while still mounted, disrupting the procession, and were cut down for their insolence by the surrounding retainers.

Britain was enraged by this incident and, through its acting minister, demanded an apology, compensation, and the execution of the culprits from both the Shogunate and the Satsuma Domain.

Outbreak of the Anglo-Satsuma War
To put pressure on Satsuma, which continued to resist this, Britain sent a fleet into Kagoshima Bay in August 1863.

However, because Satsuma continued to refuse these demands, the British fleet captured three domain ships on which Godai Tomoatsu (described later) and others were aboard.

Taking this as an act of war, the Satsuma Domain began firing on the British fleet from the Tenpozan Battery, and the Anglo-Satsuma War broke out.

In Kinko Bay, 101 naval guns from 7 British ships and 82 cannons from 10 Satsuma Domain batteries engaged in a fierce exchange of fire, but

The opponent was the fleet of the British Empire. The Satsuma Domain's cannons were no match for the British Armstrong guns, which boasted more than double the range, and the castle town of Satsuma suffered immense damage.

Having witnessed the overwhelming military power of the West, Satsuma came to re-recognize the importance of acquiring Western knowledge and technology, as Lord Nariakira had once advocated.

Afterward, negotiations were held at the British Legation in Yokohama, and a reconciliation was reached with the Satsuma Domain paying reparations.

During the negotiations, the Satsuma Domain requested that Britain act as an intermediary for the purchase of warships, and from then on, Satsuma-British relations took a turn and deepened.

The key figure was "Tomoatsu Godai"
The greatest key figure who realized the study abroad of Satsuma samurai in England was Tomoatsu Godai, who also became the protagonist of the movie "Tengaramon" (Note 1).

Godai was born in the Satsuma Domain in February 1836, received education in both literary and military arts through the Goju system from a young age, and was a person of such talent that he was named "Saisuke" by Lord Nariakira.

In 1856, he was dispatched to the Nagasaki Naval Training Center, where he studied navigation and other subjects alongside Ryoma Sakamoto.

The following year, in 1862, Godai traveled to Shanghai by order of Lord Nariakira(Note 2) and purchased a steamship. It seems that he deepened his friendship with Shinsaku Takasugi in Shanghai at that time.

As mentioned earlier, during the Anglo-Satsuma War, he was captured by the British fleet along with his ship.

Meeting with Glover
Afterward, Godai was released in Yokohama, but because he had been a prisoner of the "barbarians" and advocated for opening the country, he was targeted by the anti-foreign faction and could not return to Satsuma.

He hid in Nagasaki for a while and received protection from the trade merchant Thomas Glover (Note 3).

Godai, who had learned about the global situation through Glover and begun to feel a sense of crisis,

in June 1864, submitted a written proposal to the Satsuma Domain in which he wrote over 13,000 words on how the nation should be built.

To put the content simply, it was:
1. Exporting domestic specialty products overseas
2. Purchasing warships and the like with those profits
3. Encouraging overseas study and returning the results

This was typical of Godai, who had been called "Saisuke" since childhood, and the content, which included specific figures, was sufficiently persuasive.

This proposal by Godai suppressed the anti-foreign sentiment within the domain and prompted the Satsuma Domain's decision to send domain samurai to study in England, even if it meant defying the Shogunate's ban on overseas travel.

The Domain Order is Finally Issued
In February of the following year, 1865, students were selected from the Kaiseijo (Note 4), and a domain order was issued for 19 people, including inspectors, to study in England.

Since Japan was still in the midst of national isolation at the time, the 19 men used aliases and, carrying a fake order for "surveying the area around Koshikijima Island," they snuck into Hashima (present-day Hashima, Ichikikushikino City).

They spent the two months until their departure in this Hashima.

In this era, even though it was a domain order, being discovered by the Shogunate meant certain death.

This monument features a poem composed by one of the students, Hatakeyama Yoshinari, but

as someone from a family of high-ranking retainers of the Shimazu clan, he seemed to have had strong resistance to learning from the barbarians until the very end.

The Time of Departure
On April 16, 1865, the young patriots finally boarded the steamship "Australien", which Glover had arranged, off the coast of Hashima,

With burning passion in their hearts, they set off on their journey to England.

Soon after boarding, they were instructed by the captain to hand over their swords.

Should they hold onto the soul of the samurai,
or should they pursue their academic ambitions?

After much hesitation, they thought, “This is no longer an era to fight with swords,” and decided to entrust their swords to the crew,

and eventually, some made the resolve to cut their topknots.

A world filled with surprises
Although some of the retainers had experience with the Shogunate Navy, life on an ocean-going vessel was full of unfamiliar things.

The English language flying about, unfamiliar Western cuisine, and what tormented them most was seasickness.

Even so, the long journey to England became one filled with surprises.

At their first port of call, Hong Kong, they could not hide their surprise and excitement at the dozens of warships, the large brick roads, and the rows of shining gas lamps,

and they put on their first tailored Western clothes, wore watches, drank black tea, and gradually learned Western manners.

Here, the group transferred to the passenger ship “Madras.” (It is said that when Godai saw a Western-style toilet for the first time on board, he did not realize it was a toilet and scooped up the water to wash his face.)

In Singapore, they ate pineapples and ice cream for the first time. Gradually, they got used to seasickness and spent their time during the voyage studying English.

In Bombay and Aden, they witnessed the impoverished lives of the local people and the discriminatory treatment by Westerners, and it seems they felt a sense of crisis, thinking, “If our return to Japan is delayed, Japan might end up like this too.”

At Suez they observed the canal construction which utilized an immense labor force, traveled the land route to Alexandria by railway as fast as the wind, and also experienced the telegraph.

And then, to the British Empire
On June 21, 1865, 65 days after leaving Japan, the group finally arrived at Southampton Port in the UK.

The long-awaited life in London began.

They studied hard at University College London (UCL) without looking aside, focusing on mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and more(Note 5).

Meeting the Choshu Five
From November 1863, a little earlier, three of the Choshu Five who were also studying at UCL—Nomura, Endo, and Yamao—visited the lodgings of the Satsuma retainers in July 1865.

Satsuma-Choshu Alliance Since this was before (March 1866), Satsuma and Choshu were in a conflicting relationship within Japan, but

both sides recognized each other as "Japanese compatriots with the same aspirations" (Note 6), and transcended their domains to discuss the future of the nation and deepen their friendship.

The Satsuma retainers, seeing that Yozo Yamao of Choshu was in trouble because his study funds were running out, pooled their money together to help him, and

helped Yamao go to Glasgow to study shipbuilding technology.

To their respective paths
In this way, they overcame obstacles in a foreign land with strong determination, broadened their horizons, acquired knowledge and technology, and after returning home, became the driving force for modernizing Japan in its dawn period.

I would like to briefly introduce 5 of the 19 people from the table below (1-5).

1. Tomoatsu Godai
Godai, who led the Satsuma retainers to study in England, subsequently visited various European countries including France, and returned to his domain at Yamakawa Port in Satsuma in February 1866.

Upon returning home, due to the growing demand for a dry dock capable of repairing large ships, Godai immediately constructed the Kosuge Ship Repair Dock near the entrance of Nagasaki Port together with Glover and Takamori Komatsu.

After serving as an official for the new Meiji government starting in 1868, Godai stepped down to the private sector, and from then on, for about 15 years, until his passing in 1885, he devoted himself to the commercial development of Osaka, which had been economically stagnant.

Mutual aid and trust above all were his guiding principles, and he continued to work with the conviction that the prosperity of Osaka would also contribute to the promotion of industry (Note 7).

Thanks to Godai, Osaka eventually grew to be called the "Manchester of the East".

Although Tomoatsu Godai was a samurai, he continued to use his talents not to "cut people down", but to "uphold justice and honor" for the development of the country and society, and he can truly be called a person worthy of the term "Samurai spirit and merchant talent".

② Hisanari Machida
While studying in England, Hisanari Machida saw the British Museum and the Paris World Exposition and thought, "To enlighten the nation, it is necessary to establish a museum," and after returning to Japan, he founded the Museum Bureau and held the Yushima Seido Exposition in 1872.

After that, he founded Japan's first museum, the Tokyo National Museum (then the Imperial Museum), which I introduced in this article,

and as its first director, he devoted himself to the protection of Japan's traditional crafts and cultural assets.

☞ A Life Devoted to Founding a Museum - Hisanari Machida

③ Hisanari Murahashi
was involved in the founding of the first beer brewery in Japan, the Kaitakushi Beer Brewery (now Sapporo Breweries) in Hokkaido.

④ Nagasawa Kanaye
And Kanaye Nagasawa, who was just a 13-year-old boy, was...

After arriving in the U.S., he took over a piece of land from a Christian-based emerging group called Fountaingrove, developed it into one of California's leading wineries, and eventually became known as the "Grape King" of California.

In later years, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who visited Japan in November 1983, gave a speech at the Japanese Diet and mentioned the name of Kanaye Nagasawa as a Japanese person worthy of respect (in the video below, from around 26 minutes 00 seconds for about one minute).

⑤ Matsumura Junzo
Junzo Matsumura, who traveled to the U.S. with Nagasawa, enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis from December 1869 to May 1873, becoming the school's first Japanese graduate.

After returning to Japan, he served as the Superintendent of the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy many times from 1876 onwards, dedicating himself to naval education by utilizing his experience studying abroad.

Toward a Japan opened up with the ocean and navy
In March 1871, five years after the Satsuma students' study abroad in England, Togo Heihachiro traveled to England alone as a then-unknown "Japanese naval officer" and learned many things in the British Empire.

The Victorian era (1837–1901) was the heyday of the British Empire, which was truly an "Empire on which the sun never sets", sending warships bearing the title "Her Majesty's Ship" to colonies and waters all over the world.

This summer, the British Royal Navy will deploy a fleet centered on the "His Majesty's Ship" aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales to the Pacific region to conduct joint training with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Young people's horizons are broadened through the navy, and a nation's prosperity is brought about through the ocean.

I believe this remains true today, just as it was in the past.

Conclusion
The Satsuma samurai who once deceived the Shogunate, risked their lives to cross the sea, traded their swords for pens, and were described by the British as "Brilliant Satsuma Students"...

eventually, not only in the new government but in all fields such as the navy, commerce, agriculture, education, and academia, and in every part of Japan, they "caused to bloom" what they had learned from the West for the safety and prosperity of Japan.

As can be seen from the words left behind by Tomoatsu Godai, those flowers...

were, needless to say, seeded with a noble spirit of continuing to learn and act for the sake of realizing the happiness and bright future of others, never for the sake of status, honor, or money.

More than 150 years have passed since then, and the "seeds" of that noble spirit, which they surely sowed across Japan, are on the verge of being forgotten.

Why do we learn, and what do we use that learning for?

Perhaps it is time for us to re-examine that once more.

Thank you, as always.🍀