MORE information on Sagara & the Sekihoutai (and other wonderful st

A big, MAJOR thank you to Kevin for finding this for me (and us) and making the waters even murkier! Gives some idea of how a group like the Sekihoutai was operating �on its own,� what happened in terms of halving taxes (announcement that taxes would be halved vs. halving taxes collected), and MissB, it gives us a name for the group that was creating havoc in Edo. Looks like Sagara continued with some of his terrorist activities with the Sekihoutai, after all, before settling down to closer to what Watsuki represented in RK (and reminding me of the first episode with Katsu in the anime, with Shindou recreating the Sekihoutai and robbing warehouses). Wonder what was in Suzuki�s thoughts if he participated in these raids? Wonder if he joined as a way of tracking down certain remaining wolves? Also, the Sekihoutai was much larger than I was anticipating. Lots more to think about and re-evaluate. (The personal connection to Saigou seems to be getting more distant, though I still
think he was a skunk.)



All diacritical marks are missing from proper names in this text (the mailer won�t reproduce them and I don�t know enough about equivalents to correct them), and I�m assuming that it becomes �sekibotai� because of what Masayoshi explained about �h� turning to �b� in some cases (as in jinbaori for war haori). Numbers in parentheses after the paragraphs are the footnote references, which I don�t have a copy of at the moment (and neither does Kevin, who told me they�re mostly in Japanese, which I can�t reproduce here anyway�)



From: Modern Japan: Aspects of History, Literature and Society, edited by W. G. Beasley (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975). (Amazon lists the ISBN as 0049520121; the book is out of print, but used copies were available starting at around $40.) Article on �The Politics of the Civil War of 1868" by C. D. Sheldon. Pages 42-43.



�Even most Japanese writers have overlooked two important aspects of the army�s role in the civil war period: propagandizing the people on behalf of the new government and transmitting orders to the han as well as supervising them to see that they were enforced. Towards the peasants, the ultimate weapon of propaganda was the Imperial declaration of a reduction by half in the annual taxes on crops. Such declarations were apparently reserved for particularly difficult areas, but the general effect must have been considerable, provided the peasants were disposed to believe in them. Charity for the most impoverished people was often offered, and sometimes delivered, in a conscious attempt to contrast what the government liked to call the Emperor�s concern for his people with the traditional unconcern of the feudal overlords. (32)



�Given the history of the success of irregular troops or auxiliary militia in Choshu, it is not surprising that the government army included a number of such units, incorporating members of the lower classes trained mostly in the use of rifles. Some were attached as integral units of the army, others were permitted to operate independently, and it is those last which presented the greatest problems of discipline. One of these units was called the Sekibotai, organized immediately after the Toba-Fushimi battles by Sagara Sozo, with a nucleus of the Somo Roshitai, already mentioned as the gang organized in Edo in 1867 to create disturbances on orders from Saigo Takamori. The Sekibotai was a mixed group of about five hundred men, the majority of peasant origin. They were dedicated to fighting against supporters of the Bakufu, all those who got in their way, and those engaged in foreign trade. They collected money by force from wealthy houses, mostly of merchants, in Edo. Some were
caught by Bakufu officers and executed for armed robbery. (33)



�The Sekibotai received an order from the government to be a vanguard for the Imperial army in the Kanto, and at the same time they were informed of orders to reduce by half the taxes collected from former Bakufu direct territories, and were given instructions to render material assistance to the poor. The members of the Sekibotai were rather overzealous in spreading the word not only in former Bakufu territories, but in the han as well, especially in the Tosan region. In this area, the government never acknowledged publicly that the orders were inapplicable, but it simply did not apply to them, and it charged the Sekibotai with fomenting peasant uprisings. The government�s attitude towards groups like the Sekibotai who were not exactly under military discipline changed after mid-February from making use of them to suppressing them. The domains were rapidly turning towards co-operation with the government, and there was no longer a need for these semi-independent irregulars. (34)�



SUPER NEWS! (just in AFTER I wrote the above) Kevin just turned his photocopies of this *entire* article into a pdf document and has uploaded it into the SHQ files!! You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader loaded on your computer (for anyone who doesn�t, when it tries to load the document, it *may* give you an option of downloading a version of the reader (which is free)� if not, does anyone here know where to go to download it?). It can be a little difficult to read in spots because of the vagaries of photocopy images, but not impossible. Thank you *SO* much, Kevin!!



phil (rubbing her hands excitedly� something good to read!)


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks Phil. That was the first pdf file I have ever
made so I apologize to everyone for the two page
format. That was the way I xeroxed it and scanned it.
When I originally xeroxed it I didn't know I would be
doing this. I don't have time right now, but either
late tonight or tomorrow when I get home I will do
another version of it that is just one page at a time
that will be easier to read while zooming 100%. So,
expect a better version of it tomorrow afternoon. I
have a few more I want to send to the group
eventually. I will see what I can do about finding the
notes on that article as well this week, but like Phil
said from what I saw those specific references were
Japanese sources so they probably won't help too much
other than telling us where the author got his
information.

Kevin






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I just uploaded a new update of the "The politics of
the Civil War of 1868" article. Since it is now single
pages the size doubled to around 4 megs. So, if anyone
has a hard time downloading it notify me I'll see if I
can make it smaller.

Thanks,

Kevin




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