I see that the gals of the SHQ are at it again :)
Ofcourse if Tokio shows up she'll collar the wolf and drag him home!
I posted a question at 3-hajime.com as to whether the stage play and
the novel are related and the webmaster answered that they are
independent of one another. So basically we have Fujita Goro in a
play and in a novel. Furthermore if you nifty
http://www.3-hajime.com/cgi-local/bbs_06.cgi and check out the reply
to my post the name NAGAKURA SHINPACHI shows up very clearly in her
reply. Although the translation isn't clear (is it EVER?) it means
that the writer of either the play [or] novel had the 2 meet ^_^
awesome fanfiction we can't read.
I was reading some more Seinan War stuff and found that the soldiers
had 2 major complaints. Keep in mind that much of the hard fighting
will occur after the month of February and southern Japan supposedly
has hot/humid conditions AND often these guys had to climb
hills/mountains.
1) uniforms were too hot
2) leather boots/shoes extremely uncomfortable and finally the
officials allowed their guys to go back and wear good old straw sandals...
*if you examine the pic
http://www.3-hajime.com/syouzou2.html
the sitting next to Fujita Goro was wearing straw sandals
War coverage
There was a strong desire by the government to cover the war in
detail, hence the newspaper article we have which mentions F.G. not
surprisingly the articles may not be 100% accurate, because the gov.
wanted people in the cities to stay optimistic (people were wondering
why it was taking soo long to supress the rebellion---reasons will
appear in my write up). While the war was going on in the south,
Tokyo was experiencing a series of mysterious fires and arson was
suspected. Basically people in the city had very good reason to fear
that rebel sympathizers were retaliating. Furthermore, before the
Siege of Kumamoto castle/garrison (in February) there was an earlier
night attack on the same garrison where 300 policeman were killed (I
believe the number includes injuries? 300 is a very high number the
number of rebels is not clear)...regardless of how many were killed
what is clear is that many bodies were found still in bed which
reveals the true nature of the attack...it was an inside job AND some
officers, it is BELIEVED by writers, let the rebels inside the
garrison. Kumamoto had policemen who were natives of Satsuma as well.
This news once it entered the major cities started a whirlwind of
rumors amongst the population. In the month of March the gov.
attempted to implement "western/modern" strategies which were
ineffective or incompatible to the rough terrain.