<Articles>Process of the Political Change about Debates on the Expedition to Korea

This article attempts to elucidate the actual conditions and historical significance of the political changes surrounding the debates on the Expedition to Korea, an issue which has recently been the object of much research. During the fifth and sixth years of the Meiji period, fierce opposition developed between those ministries which attempted to enlarge haphazardly an "enlightened policy (開化政策)" in order to modernize rapidly and the Ministry of Finance, controlled by the Kido group, which tried to restrict This policy. During the latter of the fifth year of the Meiji, except for the Kido group, most people in government tended towards a hard line towards foreign countries and came to advocate an expedition to Taiwan. The Ministry of Finance firmly opposed this tendency and prevented the expedition. In the governmental reform of May, the sixth year of the Meiji period, the Kido group's control over the Ministry of Finance was broken by Eto Shinpei. As a result, this brake on taking a hard line towards foreign countries was lost. It was under these conditions that the Korean issue came to a head, and the government decided to dispatch Takamori Saigo, a man extremely likely to escalate matters to war, to Korea on August 17th. Members of the Iwakura Mission such as Iwakura Tomomi, Okubo Toshimichi, and Kido Takayoshi who returned from abroad opposed the Eto group and hoped to reform the government. The Iwakura group did not approve of sending Saigo, believing that domestic affairs should be given first priority and that war should be avoided. In this way, the opposition between the two groups took form on two levels of a struggle for power and a policy towards Korea. Thus, in August, whether or not to approve dispatching Saigo, who had been''decided upon informally (内決), " became a critical issue for the government. When Iwakura had returned in September, the government was faced with a number of outstading problems, the Korean issue being only one of them. However on October 11, Saigo demanded a formal decision as to whether ha was to be dispatched. The Korean issue having become so prominent, there arose a movement towards compromise between the groups to avoid splitting the party. Because of Saigo's intransigence in the cabinet session of October 14th and 15th, compromise was not possible and opposition between the two groups became absolute. By the decision of Sanjo Sanetomi, Saigo was dispatched to Korea. Immediately afetr the cabinet session, the defeated group began work to reverse the situation, applying pressure to Sanjo. On October 18th, Sanjo fell ill. On October 19th, the Eto group-led cabinent session decided to hold a cabinent session in order to appoint Iwakura to acting Prime Minister and to discuss the Korean issue once more. However, the Iwakura group secretly gained the Emperor's support, maneuvering matters to the close advisors of the Emperor. Iwakura decided not to discuss the issue and instead addressed a memorial directly to the throne in which he objected to the previous decision reached by the cabinet. In response, on October 22nd, the Eto groups cross-examined Iwakura, but he did not change his opinion. The same day, Iwakura addressed a memorial to the throne which was approved the next day, and the victory of the Iwakura group was clear. The rise of a hard-line stance towards foreign countries within the government from the latter half of the fifth year of the Meiji period onwards was to divert the discontent of various social strata which had emerged from the forced implementation of the enlightned policy. In a sense, it was the end of the competition for enlightenment begun in the fourth year of the Meiji era. As a result of a series of political changes in the sixth year of the Meiji era, the Okubo group occupied the heart of the government. This brought an end to the control of the Kido group in the administration which had lasted from the second year of the Meiji era and ushered in a shift in pol