Sherlock Holmes

by Keisuke Matsuoka

  Ito’s spirits had sunk with each new statement, but here at last a smile escaped his lips. “You are wrong about one thing,” he murmured, his emotions conflicted. “Our funds were not that great. And it was not an agreeable journey. The moment we left our country, we knew we were committing a capital offense.”

  A look of shock appeared on the faces of both brothers. Sherlock stared at Ito, his eyes particularly wide. “A capital offense? You mean execution? Does Japan’s government prohibit people from travelling overseas? Since Professor Williamson agreed to lodge you, I assumed that some high-ranking official must have been involved…”

  “The Choshu Domain went to great lengths to sponsor us. We were given the equivalent of 350 pounds each, in Japanese money. But the Bakufu does not support us.”

  “Bakufu?” asked Sherlock, furrowing his brow. “Choshu?”

  “Japan is a complicated country.”

  Just then a man rushed into the establishment and approached them. He was dressed in a frock coat, identical to Ito’s. It was Monta Shiji, yet another of the Choshu Five.

  Monta seemed ruffled. He spoke to Ito in Japanese. “Here you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Ito, also in Japanese.

  In response Monta drew forth an English newspaper. It was the Times. “Look at this.”

  He glanced at the page, where Monta’s finger indicated a small article. Shock ran down Ito’s spine. According to the headline, Britain had entered into retaliations against the Choshu Domain.

  He read the article in disbelief. In May of last year, Choshu had blockaded the Bakan Strait1, and without warning was attacking American, French, and Dutch trading ships that attempted to pass through. A few weeks later American and French warships had attacked the Choshu fleet stationed in the straits, dealing a devastating blow to Choshu’s maritime capabilities. Choshu, however, continued the blockade, refortifying its remaining batteries and occupying a portion of the Kokura Domain on the opposite shore to build new ones. As a result, Britain, citing the economic loss it had sustained, had called on American, French and Dutch aid. The powers were now preparing for a joint strike against Choshu.

  Ito raised his head, dumbstruck. “What is this?”

  Monta scratched at his face. “Our time in London has blinded us. Choshu still clings to outdated notions of the domain above all. All they speak of is joui.2 They think it is a matter of samurai pride to meet the foreigners with force.”

  “They’ll never understand the overwhelming technology and logistics of the West unless they see it for themselves. At this rate, not just Choshu but all of Japan will be crushed.”

  Sherlock glanced at the paper. “History shows that it is often the fate of small countries, lacking in civilization, to underestimate their enemy’s strength and hasten their own destruction.”

  Monta understood English too. He glanced at Sherlock sharply, and stepped in close. “Even a child should know when to hold his tongue…”

  Ito interceded, speaking in Japanese. “Calmly! You think that was just childish impudence? Ask those adults over there, then. This is what all English people believe. They view us as a tiny Eastern country, impulsive and barbaric.”

  “But the only reason we’ve embraced joui is so we can undermine the foolish Bakufu, to weaken it and overthrow it.”

  “That’s not how it is seen overseas. They make no distinction between us and the Satsuma Clan, who carried out the Namamugi Incident. To them we are all Japanese, and all violent by nature.”

  Monta fell silent, anger brewing in his face. He sighed deeply, and then spoke more quietly. “I won’t allow Japan to follow this path toward destruction. I will return to Choshu and convince them that this is a war that cannot be won.”

  Despite his initial shock, Ito immediately found his own resolve. “I will go as well.”

  “Don’t be foolish. My presence alone will be adequate. Don’t forget, Lord Mori only agreed to send us here with the promise that we’d study this country’s technology and bring it back with us when we return. Yozo, Yakichi, and Endo will all stay behind in London as well. I hardly like going myself.”

  Ito raised his voice. “What good will learning technology do us if Japan is destroyed?” Silence descended. Ito stared at Monta. Monta stared back wordlessly.

  “We should go quickly, then,” he relented finally. His tone was subdued.

  “Yes.” Ito nodded. “We had better.”

  Monta turned on his heel, his face serious, and walked toward the door. Ito followed after.

  In response, Sherlock ran after Ito, stepping in front of him and blocking his path. “Wait. You’re making a mistake.”

  Though half-annoyed, Ito paused. “You don’t even know what we were talking about.”

  “That’s not true. I was able to discern enough based on the article and your expressions. You’re going to return to your country, aren’t you? You can’t do anything about the madness happening there. Please, consider your own safety.”

  “It’s not madness. It’s joui.”

  “Joi? Who is Joi?”

  “It’s not a person, it’s a philosophy. You wouldn’t understand. Now get out of my way.”

  A look of distress crossed Sherlock’s face. “You said that the moment you left Japan it was a capital offense. If you return to Japan, you’ll be killed!”

  The entire restaurant fell silent. Young Sherlock stared at Ito, his face pleading. He seemed so mature for his age, but here, at last, was an expression on his face that a child might make.

  He certainly is an intelligent boy, Ito thought. No one could deny that his observations, no matter how unasked for or even unwelcome, were correct. Behind that intelligence, however, he possessed a sensitivity that surpassed the norm. Ito was happy to catch a glimpse of the boy behind the mask, even if only for a moment.

  He sighed once, and then spoke quietly. “Listen, Sherlock. I’ve been prepared for death ever since I slipped out in the middle of the night and boarded that ship to England. Even at sea, or while here in London, I knew that the Bakufu’s men might catch up with me at any moment.”

  “You were never at your ease.”

  “Not so. The five of us slept soundly every night, because we were busy with our studies during the day. What more could we ask, than to give our lives for our country? We were too busy with that mission to worry about small things.”

  “But what good will that be if you’re killed?”

  “Nothing is certain. I will try to persuade them. I may not look it, but when I was younger my sensei used to tell me I was a natural politician.”

  Monta interrupted, speaking in Japanese. “What Shoin-sensei said, I believe, was that you were a hopeless student.”

  Ito checked Monta with a glance, and then turned back toward Sherlock. “I will tell the daimyo how advanced England is. I am sure he will understand.”

  “Then I’ll go with you,” said Sherlock, a desperate expression on his face.

  “Hoy,” said Mycroft, startled. “Enough silly talk.”

  Sherlock, however, didn’t even glance in his brother’s direction. “I could demonstrate the British Empire’s superiority through analytical reasoning,” he continued, pleading with Ito.

  Mycroft grabbed Sherlock by the arm. “Every time you run off you manage to get a little farther, but I’m sure Japan is a sight farther than any train ticket will take you. If you want to get a dig at Master Partridge so badly, you had better find another way.”

  “That isn’t my motive,” said Sherlock, flatly. “We owe Shunsuke our lives. It’s my duty to repay him.”

  “If you believe you owe Mr. Ito your life, then isn’t there something you ought to say to him?”

  Sherlock seemed suddenly reluctant. He stammered sheepishly, his eyes wet. “Shunsuke….I mean to say, thank you.”
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br />   Mycroft sighed. “My brother is horrendous at apologies and thank yous,” he said to Ito.

  “I understand.” Ito flashed a smile. “You are both much more observant and knowledgeable than one might expect from children. You also show deductive powers beyond your years. Adults must sometimes seem very foolish to you. But please, turn those exceptional talents to the good of your own country. Don’t let those minds go to waste by throwing them away now.”

  Mycroft nodded in response. “I plan to enter public service.”

  “That is excellent.”

  Sherlock sulked in response. “My brother only dislikes taking exercise. His main concern is the prospect of deskwork and a stable income.”

  As an only child, Ito was poorly equipped to intercede in sibling rivalry. He couldn’t help but feel slightly envious, though. It must take a mutual awareness of their similarities to vent one’s disappointments so openly to the other.

  He nevertheless tried to intervene between the brothers. “You see? The two of you are fighting, when you should be friends. That is exactly the sort of thing I am going back to Japan to stop. Do you understand now?”

  Sherlock and Mycroft glanced at each other uncomfortably, and then collapsed into shamefaced silence.

  “Shunsuke…?” offered Sherlock, hesitantly. “How did you manage to lay out those three men even though they were so much bigger than you?”

  “Bujutsu. The martial arts. I used jujitsu, karate, and kenjutsu.”

  “If I went with you could I learn too?”

  The waitress, Enola, snorted through her nose. “Are you still on about that? I wager the only way to learn that kind of stuff is by doing it. But I fancy they’d crack you in half like a walnut if you tried.”

  Ito shook his head, grimacing. “No warrior would strike unprovoked at a defenseless boy. Listen, Sherlock. If we meet again, I will teach you some of the basics, but you must not neglect your physical training. Please, take care.”

  Ito turned to leave with Monta. Before he could, Sherlock reached for his hand.

  “Be safe,” he said softly, gripping Ito’s hand in a strong handshake.

  His eyes, though glistening, were bright and unclouded. This was, without doubt, the pure expression of a ten-year-old boy. Sherlock was an enigmatic child, thought Ito. Governed entirely by reason, and yet possessing a depth of sensitivity that was greater than that of the common man.

  Ito nodded to him, turned his back, and began walking toward the door, following Monta outside. The stench that hung over the Thames had drifted even this far on the wind. The rows of stonework buildings, cloaked in fog, spread out before them. Soon, he would be saying farewell to all of it.

  “An unusual pair of brothers,” said Monta, as they walked. “Whose children were they?”

  “I haven’t a clue.” Ito matched the other man’s pace, hiding his own mawkish feelings with a smile. “It was my first time meeting them. I couldn’t tell you who they were or where they came from.”

  1 Now known as the Strait of Shimonoseki.

  2 Joui (攘夷) is a nationalist slogan from 19th century Japan meaning “expel the barbarians.”

  4

  Shunsuke Ito was born in 1841, the 30th year of the Tenpo era. At his birth, however, he was not called Shunsuke Ito, but Risuke Hayashi.

  He was born the son of a farmer in the Province of Suo. When he was twelve, his impoverished father, as was common at the time, was adopted into a samurai family, and the family name changed to Ito. Along with his father, Risuke Ito became a foot soldier for the Choshu Domain.

  Although his academics were poor, at age fifteen Risuke was made a student at Shoka Sonjuku, a private school run by Shoin Yoshida. He drew Shoin’s attention and received the name Shunsuke.

  In July of the following year, under Shoin’s recommendation, he accompanied the Choshu detachment to Kyoto for three months. When he returned, he studied in Nagasaki for close to a year. That autumn he moved to the Choshu Domain’s Edo Yashiki—the Choshu Daimyo’s compound in Edo—which was where he met Monta Shiji, with whom he would later travel to London.

  It was at this time, in 1858, that the Chief Minister of the Edo Bakufu, Naosuke Ii, signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States without obtaining imperial approval. The Bakufu fiercely quashed any of its opponents. As a result, Shoin Yoshida, a Bakufu dissenter, was imprisoned too.

  The news struck Ito with grief and anger. In contrast to the Tokugawa Bakufu and the Satsuma Domain, who had espoused the opening of Japan since the arrival of Perry’s black ships, the Choshu Domain strongly advocated for Japan to maintain its isolationism.

  Joui. Expel the barbarians. Drive them from our shores.

  Under this banner of joui the young retainers of the Choshu Domain dedicated themselves to war, seeking to overthrow the Bakufu. Though Ito would later speak of joui as an outdated notion to young Sherlock, at the time he too had been a soldier in its cause. He had participated in the burning of the British legation at Gotenyama, in Shinagawa. This was something he hadn’t been able to bring himself to reveal. At the time, the legation was under construction and therefore uninhabited—but Sherlock and Mycroft surely would still have been horrified.

  After becoming a Choshu retainer Ito changed his name once again. He still called himself “Shunsuke,” but with a character meaning “spring.”3 He aspired to become the type of person who would fill people with the hopeful warmth of spring. Ito had changed—he began to question joui itself. Burning the foreign legation only seemed to have spread chaos and weakened the country as a whole. If they continued on the path they were on, wouldn’t this only open the way for the West to invade?

  He began to wonder whether it might not be better for the Choshu Domain to temporarily join with the West and learn from their more advanced technology to overthrow the Bakufu.

  Then Monta Shiji concocted a plan to travel to England. Along with Shunsuke, they gathered three other likeminded individuals—Yozo Yamao, Yakichi Nomura, and Kinsuke Endo.

  The five of them were granted permission by the lord of the Choshu Domain, Takachika Mori, to travel to London and study in secret to learn Western technology and bring it back with them when they returned. Initially, however, they were unable to even ascertain their form of travel. There would be a considerable amount of funds required. And not least, if the Bakufu learned of their plans they would be sentenced to death.

  Eventually they were able to use the funds meant for purchasing guns as collateral to borrow 5,000 ryo from a merchant with ties to the Choshu Domain. A thousand ryo per head was certainly a large sum, but in terms of covering the five of them crossing the sea and living in London, it was far from extravagant.

  They slipped out by boat under cover of night. At Shanghai their party divided into two ships. Thereafter, Ito’s days were spent in hard, slave-like labor. The journey was long. The five were already long out to sea by the time their petition reached the daimyo in Edo.

  After a grueling four-and-a-half months, they finally reached London and the house of Professor Alexander Williamson. Yakichi Nomura taught the other four conversational English—of the five he was the only one who had learned English beforehand, from a legation clerk in Hakodate.

  The sights that awaited them in England were near-miraculous: the museums, the art galleries, the naval facilities, the banks, the factories. This proof of the astounding difference in strength between their nations hastened their party’s sense of urgency. They could hardly sit idly by as Choshu marched to war with Britain, America, France, and the Netherlands. So Ito undertook yet another three-month passage, and somehow was able to return to Yokohama with Monta. But they were too late to negotiate for peace. Then there was the Battle for Shimonoseki. After four months of shelling by naval forces allied against them, Choshu’s batteries were destroyed.

  After the war I
to continued to work for peace. It was a dangerous business. Even now Choshu retainers adhered to joui, and plotted sabotage and assassinations. A growing rift between those in the domain who believed in deferring to the Bakufu and those who believed in pursuing joui promised future tensions.

  When the Bakufu sent a force to subjugate Choshu, Choshu surrendered. Then Shinsaku Takasugi instigated a rebellion. Ito rushed to Takasugi’s side, leading private militias against the loyalists. Joined by irregular forces, they were able to defeat the loyalists and topple the Bakufu’s second Choshu expedition. With victory secured and the Bakufu’s forces routed on all sides, the shogunate’s influence was greatly weakened.

  Thereafter, the Choshu and Satsuma domains joined forces, with Ryoma Sakamoto of the Tosa Domain mediating. This alliance overwhelmed the Bakufu forces, and Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the fifteenth shogun, was forced to finally restore imperial rule.

  Finally the Edo Bakufu had fallen. The Choshu and Satsuma domains formed the core of the new Meiji government that would develop afterward.

  After the Meiji Restoration, pockets of adherence to joui remained, with frequent assaults on French sailors by retainers from Bizen, Tosa, and other domains. Ito was constantly travelling the country, putting out new fires. In recognition of his accomplishments, he found himself appointed to a succession of posts in the Meiji Government: among them the junior council for Foreign Affairs, the first governor of Hyogo Prefecture, and the first minister of Public Works, the last post in which he worked to promote industrialization. During his stint as junior assistant minister to both the Ministry of Treasury and of Popular Affairs, he changed his first name yet again, this time to Hirobumi.

  The English he had learned proved very useful. From November 1870 (3rd year of Meiji) to the following May, he travelled throughout the United States; upon returning, he helped establish Japan’s first coinage law. In November of that same year he travelled to the United States once more, that time to serve as vice-envoy to the Iwakura Mission, during which he delivered a speech in San Francisco. The following spring, he received an audience in Berlin with German Emperor Wilhelm I, during which he also made the acquaintance of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.