Ryoma : Life of a Renaissance Samurai by Hillsborough, Romulus

Bloodlust
Although the flame of patriotism for a united Japan which burned in Ryoma s heart had initially been sparked several years before by Takechi Hanpeita, and later fueled by the fiery rhetoric of Kusaka Genzui, it was the cool wisdom of Katsu Kaishu which steered him on a more definite course toward more definite goals. The navy commissioner would change the life of the outlaw-samurai, who until now had been groping in the dark for what he had just found. Kaishu was to Ryoma an endless source of energy-as the clouds were to the great white dragon of his fantastic vision. The Dragon had begun to soar.

Ryoma s thinking had developed into an eclectic realism, based on his love of freedom, and laced with a combination of anti-Bakufu and xenophi-lous elements which, to most of his emotion-driven comrades, seemed not only contradictory, but even traitorous. His friends could not help but feel that he had overnight taken a complete turnabout by substituting his anti-foreign convictions for a call to open the nation. And as if to add fuel to the fiery spirits of his comrades, Ryoma had even gone so far as to enter into the service of a leading Bakufu official whom other Men of High Purpose had branded an enemy to their cause and traitor to Japan. Some of Ryoma's comrades, upon hearing the news of his conversion, even concluded that he had abandoned Imperial Loyalism in support of the Bakufu, an assumption which was totally mistaken. Most of these zealots not only failed to realize that Ryoma's newly formed synthesis of ideals coincided logically with the merchant blood that flowed in his veins, but what's more, they refused to acknowledge the bitter reality that dealing with the rest of the world was the only way to modernize Japan, and save the nation from foreign subjugation.
While Takechi Hanpeita was officially a lower-samurai, he was now the de facto leader of Tosa Han. His following was numerous, and the influence he had suddenly come to wield was, for the time being, not to be challenged by even the retired daimyo himself, fuming in anger at his Edo villa.

"Izo!" Hanpeita called from his room at an inn in Osaka. Although Okada Izo had not been invited to become an official member of the Tosa Loyalist Party, he was absolutely loyal to the party leader. Master Zuizan was kneeling on the tatami floor, brush in hand, hunched over a bamboo landscape done in Chinese ink, on fine ivory-colored Tosa paper in various shades of black and gray, lodged deeply in his psyche from the annals of ancient Chinese literature.

Dressed only in a black cotton kimono, open at his chest on this scorching afternoon of the last day of July, Izo jumped up from the wooden floor where he had been dozing, just outside the entrance of his master's room. "Yes, Sensei. What is it?" Izo now held his long sword in his right hand, the short one stuck through his sash at his left hip, as he waited anxiously for Hanpeita to invite him inside.

"I have an assignment for you of utmost importance, Izo." Hanpeita spoke calmly, his face an expressionless void, his eyes never once leaving the Chinese landscape before him. The Loyalist leader had been sure to arrange for Okada Izo and several other expert swordsmen to accompany him to nearby Kyoto for reasons he had not yet disclosed.

Izo bowed deeply from the threshold. "Yes, Sensei," he said obediently, still not entering the room. His complete awe for his fencing master had intensified over the years by Hanpeita's penchant for assuming majestic airs, a technique which was effective with many of the Tosa men, but never with Sakamoto Ryoma. Since the assassination of Yoshida Toyo, Hanpeita had been using his rhetorical skill, laced with the solemn silver of samurai ethics and Imperial Loyalism, to dupe his less intellectual followers into obeying his every command. Toppling the Bakufu and Imperial Loyalism was the maxim, Heaven's Revenge the battle cry of the self-styled "Shield of the Emperor."

"Sit, Izo," Hanpeita gently ordered, as he put down his ink brush, replacing it with a small white fan. "You're like a fierce animal with a sword in your hand." Hanpeita calmly fanned his face, staring hard into the eyes of his overwhelmed disciple. "You're the perfect weapon of the Emperor," he continued to flatter. "Having trained you myself, I know that better than anyone else," he said calmly, still fanning his face. "The daimyo will leave Osaka for Kyoto in a few days."

"Yes, Sensei." Izo was like a vicious dog that could be controlled only by its master.

"There is a certain person who must not be there when our lord arrives."

"Yes, Sensei." Izo's eyes lit up at this chance for his first "assignment."

"That certain person is Inoue Saichiro, of the Tosa police force," Hanpeita whispered, a sinister grin on his otherwise expressionless face. "He's staying with the entourage of our daimyo at Tosa headquarters in Osaka. We can't have him prying." Hanpeita feared that prying by the Tosa police might arouse suspicion, linking his Loyalist Party to the murder of the regent, and even possibly diminishing his de facto rule over Tosa policy. "This is your first opportunity to inflict Heaven's Revenge."

"Heaven's Revenge" Izo repeated the now familiar phrase with religious fervor. "Heaven s Revenge. Yes, Sensei, I understand." After bowing his head to the floor, he stood up, drew his sword, and with an animal-like expression slammed the blade, over two and a half feet long, back into its dark blue lacquered sheath. "I'll get started right away."

Four Tosa samurai sat at a table in a crowded Osaka sake house late in the afternoon on the second day of August. On the table were several ceramic flasks, all empty but one, from which Izo was pouring himself the last drink. 'You both know Inoue quite well," Izo said to two of his comrades-in arms.

"We'll invite him for a drink tonight, and get him so drunk he won't be able to defend himself," whispered one of the men.

"Then we'll take over from there," Izo snickered, putting his arm around f the shoulders of the fourth man.

All four of these men resented their fellow lower-samurai, Inoue Saichiro, for having sided with the Yoshida Toyo faction, while Hanpeita's arch- ' enemy was still very much alive and completely in control of Tosa. Inoue had sold his soul, they reasoned, to the upper-samurai in turn for a chance of improving his own personal lot. And even worse, he was now working with the Tosa police, tracking down Yoshida's assassins.

That evening two of Izo's comrades went to Tosa headquarters in Osaka to invite the unsuspecting police agent on a drinking binge. After getting him sufficiently drunk, they led him over a bridge, above the river which flowed through the city, where Izo and another man were waiting. "Murata," Izo called one of their names, feigning surprise. The streets were empty this late at night, and aside from Izo's gruff voice, the only sound was the clean murmur of the river below. Izo and the other man quickly approached the' three. "Hello, Inoue," Izo said nonchalantly.

"Izo? When did you get here?" the Tosa police agent suspiciously slurred.

"Never mind," Izo said, putting his arm around Inoue's shoulders. "Come, f let's get some women and drink."

Before Inoue could reply, Izo slipped his arm around his neck in a vise-like headlock. "Heaven's Revenge," he wailed, and one of his three accomplices' responded with a kick to Inoue's groin. As Inoue keeled over in pain, Izo produced a piece of rope he had brought for the purpose, wrapped it around the drunken man's neck, and proceeded to strangle the life out of him.

"Here, take this too, traitor," another man snarled, drew his sword and

drove it through Inoue's neck, before the others threw the body into the river

below.

Having felt the blood-lust from his first victim, Okada Izo had transformed; into a murderer whose notorious nom de guerre, "The Butcher," was soon: to be equated with Heaven's Revenge throughout Osaka and Kyoto. Izo experienced for the first time a rush of pleasure at the pit of his gut from the feeling of power which accompanied the act of murder. He had never felt so important, as if he too was now playing an essential role in realizing the lofty political goals of which Hanpeita had often spoken, but he himself so little understood.

Hanpeita and Izo sat in the sword master's private quarters at the Toranotel Inn, located near Tosa headquarters in Kyoto. Private lodgings away from official Tosa headquarters, reasoned the Tosa Loyalist Party leader, would} be necessary as a command post from which to devise his bloody plans fd| Heaven s Revenge against Tokugawa supporters, former henchmen of Iff Naosuke, and other undesirable elements whom Master Zuizan deemed best; eliminated. "You did a good job on Inoue." Hanpeita praised his hit man as he would a dog, handing him a small pouch of gold coins as a reward. Izo's eyes lit up. "Thank you, Sensei," he said, bowing his head to the floor. This was more gold than he had ever seen at once in all the twenty-five years of his heretofore impoverished life.

"And you can use this in your next assignment," Hanpeita said, handing Izo his own sword. Master Zuizan, the planner of murders, spoke these words with a sinister tinge of pleasure derived from the very power he felt in dictating the fate of his enemies.

"Who this time?" Izo asked eagerly.

"Honma Seiichiro," Hanpeita whispered.

"Honma!" Izo exclaimed in disbelief. "But I thought he was on our side."

"It is not for you to question my orders, Izo," Hanpeita calmly scolded, subduing his "wild dog" with an icy stare.

Izo could not understand why Hanpeita would want to murder this champion of Toppling the Bakufu and Imperial Loyalism. Honma, one of the pioneers of Imperial Loyalism, had visited the Tosa Loyalists in Kochi during the previous spring to urge their support in the planned uprising, which was later crushed by the slaughter at the Teradaya. After the fiasco, Honma negotiated the aid of radical court nobles, the success of which earned him the jealousy of the Tosa Loyalist Party leader, who now wanted this rival eliminated from the Kyoto scene.

It was a rainy night in Kyoto in late August when Honma, escorting a pretty young courtesan clad in a bright flowery kimono, stepped out from the gay realm of a bacchanalian pleasure palace and into a bloody hell of razor-sharp steel and eternal blackness. The courtesan screamed under a white paper lantern flickering in the dark rainy night, as nine swordsmen rushed out from nowhere to surround Honma.

"Heaven's Revenge" wailed Izo, holding his drawn sword high above his head.

"Izo!" screamed Honma. "Is this another murder for Takechi Hanpeita?" "Heaven's Revengel" Izo screamed again. Honma drew his sword, but he was no challenge to Izo's overwhelming skill, as "The Butcher" emitted an ear-piercing guttural wail, diagonally slicing Honma from his left shoulder down to his right hip. Blood spurted like a fountain, spraying the white lantern above, and covering the shock-stricken courtesan who continued to scream bloody murder. "Heaven's Revengel" wailed another swordsman, drawing his blade and impaling the chest of the frenzied woman, who slowly choked on her own blood. The assassins took Honma's head and ran with it to the grassy banks of the Kamogawa, where they mounted it on a bamboo spike stuck firmly in the soft mud.

Three days later Izo led another attack on vassals of a pro-Bakufu family of court nobles, who had been instrumental in both Ii Naosuke's purge and the marriage between the Emperor's sister and the Shogun. "Heaven's Revengel" screamed Izo, delivering the deathblow to his fourth victim, the head of whom was also publicly displayed in the now bloody city of the Emperor. One week later Izo was accredited with the gruesome murder of

another former supporter of Ii. Before strangling this victim, "The Butcher" and his band of hit men first drove bamboo spikes through his penis and up his anus, as he screamed in agony. Not long after this, the heads of three more Bakufu agents who had also been involved in Ii's purge were found on public display on the riverbank near Hanpeita's command post.

Having thus far succeeded in his plan to eliminate his enemies, the Shield of the Emperor, high on the glory of his sudden rise to power, continued to whisper his terrible command of Heaven's Revenge" into the ear of his obedient hit man for the remainder of 1862 and into the following year. Before Hanpeita's reign of terror would end, the victims of the notorious "Butcher" would number twenty, earning Okada lzo the most feared reputation of all the radicals who had gathered in the ancient capital during the bloodbath oft the 1860s.

* *

A few weeks after Ryoma had entered the service of Katsu Kaishu, Takechi; Hanpeita's elaborate palanquin appeared in front of the house of the navy commissioner, on a moonless night in October. The Shield of the Emperor, recently promoted to Imperial samurai status, had been serving as personal; bodyguard to two Imperial messengers dispatched by the court to Edo to; demand that the Bakufu renounce its foreign treaties and resume its policy of seclusionism to, in Hanpeita's own words, "expel the filthy barbarians from the sacred soil of Japan."

Hanpeita, accompanied by two attendants, was dressed in silk, his topknot neatly tied and looped over his cleanly shaven pate. Instead of the long blade; for which the sword master was known, he now wore the dainty ornamental; sword of a court noble. Ordering his two attendants to remain with the palanquin, Hanpeita alighted, and approached the house. "Ryoma!" he called, staring hard at his friend in the dim light of a single lantern. Ryoma was sitting, alone under the eaves of the front gate, his sword on his lap.

"Hanpeita," Ryoma returned the greeting. He had heard of the recent assassinations in Kyoto, and did not doubt rumors that Hanpeita was behind them. Nor did Ryoma doubt the hearsay that Hanpeita's key hit man was his old friend Okada lzo. Almost as much as the actual killing, Ryoma despise Hanpeita's uncanny ability to use people around him as pawns to realize his own personal glory. But despite these ugly thoughts that raced through his mind at his first sight of Hanpeita in over six months, Ryoma was glad to see him.

Hanpeita, for his part, felt a fast feeling of disgust. Not only had Ryomif abandoned Tosa and the Loyalist Party, but it now seemed that his friend§ whom he had always greatly respected, had become a traitor to the verjf cause for which brave men from all over Japan had pledged, and indee' even laid down their lives. "Ryoma, what are you doing here?" Hanpeita sai indignantly. "I couldn't believe that you'd actually be here, but now I see it’s true."
Ryoma jumped to his feet. "You don't understand, Hanpeita. I know exactly what you're thinking, but you're completely mistaken. I'm working for the greatest man in Japan. And to answer you're question, I'm guarding him from crazy maniacs like you." Ryoma shook his head slowly. "What's become of you? What do you expect to gain by slaughtering people?"

"Why are you guarding a traitorous Bakufu official?"

"You just don't understand," Ryoma said.

"Then, you've turned against us?"

"No, I haven't turned against you."

"Then tell me," Hanpeita whispered, "do you still support Toppling the Bakufu and Imperial Loyalisml Are you still ready to give your life to protect Japan from the wicked barbarians, overthrow the Tokugawa and restore the power to the sacred Emperor? Or have you really sold out to those who want to open the country to foreign subjugation?"

"What do you think?" Ryoma retorted harshly, looking directly into Hanpeita's eyes, then lowering his voice to a whisper. "I'm still determined to topple the Bakufu. I'm still determined to restore the Emperor to power, and drive the barbarians out of Japan. But I have my own way of accomplishing these things."

Since meeting Katsu Kaishu, Ryoma had completely risen above the simplistic view that expelling the foreigners was inseparable from Imperial Loyalism, and that the open-door doctrine was tantamount to supporting the Bakufu. Unlike Hanpeita, and indeed almost every Loyalist in Japan, Ryoma realized that under the present circumstances Japan could not win a war against the Western powers. Unfortunately, the misinformed Imperial Court, and indeed the chronically xenophobic Emperor himself, were under the dangerous impression that Japan could never be subjugated. And capitalizing on Imperial ignorance, the Choshu and Tosa rebels, led by Kusaka Genzui on the one hand and Takechi Hanpeita on the other, had convinced the court in Kyoto to demand that the Edo regime renounce the foreign treaties.

Thus, the Bakufu found itself faced with a difficult dilemma. Neither bold enough to refuse the Imperial demands, which were supported by the Satsuma, Choshu and Tosa rebels, nor able to violate the foreign treaties for fear of triggering a war which it could not hope to win, the Bakufu had no choice but to appease the court with the vague promise to "eventually close the country to all barbarians." Encouraged by the Choshu and Tosa Loyalists, the court, in turn, insisted on a deadline for expelling the foreigners. If the Bakufu could not meet that deadline, it was insinuated that Imperial forces would attack Edo.

And so, despite Ryoma's realization that Japan was not yet militarily prepared to defend itself from foreign invasion, Hanpeita and his allies remained adamant in equating Opening the Country with a pro-Bakufu policy. Ryoma could not convince his comrades it was only by means of Kaishu's policy of openness that Japan could ever hope to stand up to the foreign demands.

"Then, tell me this," Hanpeita said, "are you still a Loyalist?"

"I'm Japanese," Ryoma answered bluntly.

Hanpeita gave Ryoma a hard look. The concept of simply "being Japanese" was contrary to the mind-set of the people who populated the conglomerate of feudal domains in this particular time in Japanese history. A samurai's country was his han. Accordingly, a Choshu samurai was of Choshu, while ' a Satsuma samurai was a man entirely of that han. Takechi Hanpeita was of Tosa, as were his followers in the Tosa Loyalist Party as well as his i adversaries from the faction of Yoshida Toyo. Similarly, men of the court' were Imperial nobles, while the Shogun's retainers, and samurai from the." Tokugawa-related han, Were men of the Bakufu. Things were cut-and-dry; one's social lot was predetermined by birth. Like Ryoma, however, Katsut Kaishu was an exception. Although as a shogunal retainer he had been born j into the Tokugawa camp, his modern and farsighted outlook enabled him to see beyond the narrow scope of han and Bakufu, and to consider himself as one organic part of the whole of Japanese society.

"Of course you're Japanese?" Hanpeita said. "As I am. But you're also; from Tosa."

"I'm Japanese," Ryoma repeated firmly. "I don't give a damn about Tosa or any of the other han. They're concerned only for themselves. If we are to; save Japan from foreign subjugation, and I believe that's what everyone is; ranting and raving about, then we must work together as one unified nation.' To hell with birthright, to hell with class, to hell with the han and to hell with; the daimyo," Ryoma hollered, as if he were oblivious to the fact that he wasj standing in front of the home of a high-ranking Bakufu official. Then, regaining his composure, Ryoma looked straight into Hanpeita's eyes. "I'm still determined to accomplish one thing," he whispered. "And that's to topple the Tokugawa Bakufu. But I have my own way of doing it."

"By working for a traitorous Bakufu official?" Hanpeita seethed. "I don't understand you at all."

"Like I told you before," Ryoma said, "the worst thing we can do is to be killing each other."

"I can call off my dogs," Hanpeita said, "the men from Tosa, but I can't guarantee that there won't be men from other han after you."

Although Ryoma shared the goal of Hanpeita and the Choshu and Satsumaj radicals, he differed greatly with them not only in his reasons for wanting to;" topple the Bakufu, but also in the means by which he would bring about ths| revolution. The Loyalists were striving to unite the most powerful domains in western Japan (Tosa, Choshu and Satsuma) into one Imperial faction: which would rally around the Emperor and topple the Bakufu with its combined military and political might. Unlike Ryoma, they refused to throw off their chains of feudalism in their actions and ideals. Just as Hanpeita had insisted on working within the feudal structure of Tosa Han, so too weref the Choshu and Satsuma men absolutely dedicated to their own respective clans. As Ryoma well knew, however, even if the Loyalists were successful in overthrowing the Bakufu, they would again break up into individual han to compete with one another for the political authority which had been held by the Tokugawa for the past two-and-a-half centuries. Ryoma, on the other hand, viewed things from a scope that exceeded the individual han. He now realized that the only way to save Japan from foreign subjugation would be to get rid of the feudal system entirely, which meant abolishing the clans altogether. Rather than a conglomerate of individual han, each most concerned with its own self-interest, Ryoma realized the absolute need to combine the resources of all the clans, and form a unified nation to compete with the rest of the world. But in his insight, he also realized that proposing such a concept would only further alienate his comrades. "Timing is of the essence," he told himself, as he patiently awaited his chance to act under the wing of Katsu Kaishu, and so prove to his comrades the wisdom behind his newfound ideas. Not only did Ryoma understand the need for national unity, but his recent exposure to Kaishu's ideas had convinced him that the only realistic way to topple the Bakufu would be by first fortifying the nation against foreign subjugation, thus his perfect dedication to his mentor's school of thought which called for "knowing the enemy through importation of Western military and industrial technology."

"Hanpeita," Ryoma said as the two stood in front of Kaishu's house on this moonless night, "if you think I'm afraid for myself..."

"No. I know you too well for that," Hanpeita said. "But what are you doing?" he repeated, this time in a tone of genuine anguish, as if speaking to a younger brother.

"I just told you. I'm working for the greatest man in Japan. We're getting ready to build a navy. And with our navy, and this," Ryoma held up his sword, "and this," he tapped his temple, "I'll topple the Bakufu."

"By working with a Bakufu official?"

"This isn't the place to discuss the matter," Ryoma hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the house. "By the way, when did you start traveling around in a palanquin? I didn't know you were so important," he snickered. "And what happened to your sword?" he gibed, pointing at the dainty weapon in Hanpeita's sash.

"I'm here on an Imperial mission," Hanpeita said.

"And I'm here recruiting men for our navy," Ryoma retorted. "Do you know anyone who would like to join?"

Hanpeita's pride in his recent elevation in social status lacked the cockiness that compelled Ryoma to brag about his newfound occupation of recruiting trainees for a naval academy which Kaishu was planning to establish. Lately, in fact, when Ryoma wasn't guarding Kaishu's house, the outlaw had been recruiting men to join him in his grand escapades.

"Ryoma, I could really use you with me, especially now," Hanpeita pleaded. Then in a whisper he added, "Tosa, Satsuma and Choshu have united in Kyoto, and we have the backing of the Imperial Court."

Much to the chagrin of the Lord of Satsuma, he had recently been bamboozled into lending his own name to the radical elements behind the Imperial messengers whom Hanpeita was escorting in Edo to demand that the Bakufu expel the foreigners. The conservative Lord of Satsuma, however, who had himself just returned from Edo after persuading the Bakufu of the importance of uniting with the court, was by no means an anti-Bakufu fanatic. But because during his absence from Kyoto the radicals at court had joined hands with the Choshu and Tosa Loyalists, he had no alternative, for the time being, but to endorse the alliance.

"It's only a matter of time," Hanpeita said with conviction, "before we topple the Bakufu."

"Damn it, Hanpeita," Ryoma turned his head to spit. "What are you thinking? Do you want to destroy our nation?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you don't know by now, I guess you never will," Ryoma said in disgust. "You'll never change, Hanpeita. You're just as rigid as ever. You can't rush things. The time just hasn't come. Like you've always said yourself: 'Timing is of the essence!' It's the same in kenjutsu, and you should know that as well as anyone."

"You don't understand, Ryoma. Here you are guarding the enemy, when you should be working with us in Kyoto. We're ready to move, and nothing is going to stop us."

"What do you propose to do after the Bakufu is toppled? Who's going to rule then?"

"The Imperial Court, of course," Hanpeita answered without hesitation.

"The Imperial Court?" Ryoma said derisively. "That's fine, but who's going to keep the barbarians from attacking? That's where this man comes in," Ryoma said, pointing over his shoulder at Kaishu's house. "He's the most important man in Japan." Ryoma paused, folded his arms at his chest, and continued. "You might even say he's our last hope," he added with complete conviction. Then, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword, he said, "Just as the great sword masters have taught through the ages, and just as you yourself have always said, the surest way to defeat an enemy is to first: understand him entirely." Ryoma paused again to take a deep breath. "And; that's exactly what Katsu Kaishu is doing. The man has not only dedicated his life to understanding the West, but he's doing it for different reasons than you seem to understand.

"Which are?"

"Certainly not for his own glory, nor for the sake of any one individual* han."

"Yes, but for the sake of the Tokugawa Bakufu," Hanpeita retorted.

"No, Hanpeita. You're wrong. Both Katsu-sensei and I are working for one thing."

"Which is?"

"I just told you," Ryoma said bluntly. "Japan. And I'll tell you this, too," he suddenly raised his voice, his face stone-serious. "If anything should happen to Katsu Kaishu, I'll personally see to it that those involved pay with their lives."

"Ryoma, let's talk again soon, at a more appropriate place."

"I don't know what more there is to say," Ryoma said sadly, realizing once and for all that the distance between himself and this close friend of his past had grown too great for the two to ever see eye-to-eye again.

"I'll be in Edo for a while longer," Hanpeita said.

"And I suppose you expect me to come to Tosa headquarters so I can be arrested," Ryoma snickered.

"No. I'm staying at the Imperial lodgings in the Ryunokuchi district. You can find me there," said the Shield of the Emperor, then turned around and, without looking back, returned to his palanquin.