Outbreak of the Satsuma Rebellion
- When
- January 1877
- Where
- Kagoshima
The rebellion began in late January 1877 after the government attempted to remove weapons from the Kagoshima arsenal, provoking open conflict among disaffected samurai.
Tensions between Satsuma and the Tokyo government escalated throughout 1876. In December 1876, the Meiji government sent a police officer named Nakahara Hisao to investigate reports of subversive activities. Rumors of assassination plots, fueled by a confession, ignited the rebellion. The crisis peaked in late January 1877 when the government attempted to remove weapons from the Kagoshima arsenal, provoking open conflict.
Sources
- Satsuma Rebellion Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25
- Saigō Takamori Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.