Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (26 page)

 The incident was one of many after the emperor’s earlier edict to
“ban all barbarians” from the Japanese homeland earlier that same year. And
after that was decreed, enemies did come from the sea, and from every
direction. Navies from France, the Netherlands and even the United States were
soon involved in conflicts with the Japanese, who responded with the battle cry,
“Revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians!” But the Barbarians were not so
easily cast out, just as the realities of the modern world Japan was now
entering could not be held at bay.

From that moment forward, Togo devoted himself to the study of
maritime matters and warfare at sea, for he knew the fate of Japan would rest
on her ability to defend its shores with a strong navy, just as Great Britain
had so ably demonstrated. After studying at home on the
Kasuga
, a 1290
ton wooden paddle-wheel warship purchased from Great Britain, Togo moved on to
the warship
Ryujo
as a midshipman, a ship that was also built by the
British. There he trained under a sub-lieutenant of the Royal Marines, invited
aboard as an advisor after sentiments towards foreigners had subsided.

Togo soon won a scholarship to travel to England and learn the art
of warfare at sea from those who were its undisputed masters for centuries, the
Royal Navy. He arrived at Southampton in July of 1871 and studied diligently
near the site where Admiral Nelson’s famous ship HMS
Victory
was moored,
often visiting the ship and coming to see Nelson as a kind of spiritual mentor,
a demigod of the high seas and strangely, as his own ancestor from a previous
life. During his years in England Togo had also learned that language, keeping
a journal in English wherein he once wrote that he was convinced he was the
reincarnation of the British Admiral.

He learned much of the culture of the West, which had both rawness
as well as refinement in his eyes. Though he never quite grew accustomed to the
food, the style of architecture or the massive burrows of cities like London,
he came to appreciate the iron at the heart of the British character, and the
artistry and skill they showed at the making of war. They once called their ships
men-of-war, and indeed they embodied that name in every action they undertook
on the world stage. In his eyes, Britain was truly great, and deserving of that
honorific title. Japan, he thought, must be great as well.

He was called “Johnny Chinaman,” by the British, a nickname given
more out of their own ignorance of Asia and inability to distinguish between
Japanese and Chinese in any significant way. Togo resented the label, and
fought more than one battle with his English schoolmates to lay it to rest.

The Japanese trainees were also in the UK awaiting the completion
of several battleships they had commissioned. In 1878 Togo was assigned to one
of these for the voyage home to Japan. He sailed in
Hiei
, along with
Fuso
and
Kongo.
These were not the ships of the same name that fought in
WWII, but their forerunners from the pre-dreadnaught era, the first real fighting
ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy. They were actually no more than armored
corvettes, using a combination of both sail and steam power for propulsion at a
sedate 14 knots and displacing no more than 3,700 tons. By 1908 they had
already been retired and decommissioned.

China had built bigger ships by the time Togo sailed home, and an
arms race was soon underway that saw Japan enlisting the aid of France to build
a fleet of armored cruisers, and the British for the design and construction of
a new idea, the torpedo boat, which became the forerunner of the destroyer
class ships of the future. These
Kotakas
, or ‘falcons’ of the sea would
play a big role in Japan’s victories over China between 1894 and 1895, and over
Russia in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05. At nearly 30 knots, the small 150
ton boats carried 14 inch torpedoes that would become the bane of the Russian
fleet.

Yet the English also gave Togo a sense of what the world was
really like beyond Japan, even allowing him to partake in a voyage to
circumnavigate the globe aboard the training ship
Hampshire
in 1875. He
contracted a disease on that voyage which nearly took his eyesight and would
have ended his career, but pulled through to regain his health after much
hardship. And Togo put those eyes to very good use, learning much by studying
the operations of the British and French at sea, and the French Army when it
fought the Chinese in Formosa.

In Japan’s war with China in 1894 the young man, then a Captain
aboard the cruiser
Naniwa
, demonstrated an uncanny ability to navigate
the treacherous waters of international relations when he sunk a British
freighter chartered by the Chinese to carry supplies. The incident might have
brought Great Britain into the war on China’s side, but jurists ruled that the
sinking was entirely appropriate under the rules of international law and
regulations of war. Chinese soldiers carried by the ship had taken control of
the vessels when threatened by Togo’s ship, and so they became legitimate
prizes of war.

Togo’s star rose and he was soon promoted to Rear Admiral and
commander of the Japanese Naval War College. When war with Russia called him to
action again in 1904 Japan had much more of a navy to rise to the challenge. The
Japanese Navy Minister personally requested that Admiral Togo be appointed
Commander-In-Chief of the Combined Fleet, and it was the wisest appointment the
Emperor ever made.

Thought to be a ‘man of good fortune,’ Togo’s luck and
considerable skill saw him achieve a stunning and decisive victory over Russia.
He handily defeated their First Pacific Squadron, investing Port Arthur,
besting them in the Yellow Sea and bottling up their armored cruisers in
Vladivostok. When the Russians sent their entire Baltic Fleet to restore order,
Togo soundly defeated them at the famous battle of Tsushima Strait. He was a
legend by 1908, his name nearly synonymous with the Japanese Imperial Fleet he
so ably served.

Togo’s victory at Tsushima sent real shockwaves around the world
and hastened the demise of the last Tsar of Russia. While that nation was soon
descending into the turmoil of revolution, Japan consolidated her position as
the rising preeminent power in the Pacific. All history had pivoted on that
single battle, which would eventually lead Japan into conflict against the
Chinese, and then the Americans in WWII. It would forever relegate Russia to
the role of a third rate naval power in the Pacific, with little influence
beyond the cold northern shores of the Kuriles and Sakhalin Island, and Japan
had even taken half of that from them in exchange for peace.

 The American President in 1908, Teddy Roosevelt, had helped to
broker that peace at Portsmouth to end Japan’s war with Russia, but he soon
realized that Japan was now a force to be reckoned with in Asia and the
Pacific. As much to demonstrate America’s ability to move from one ocean to
another, Roosevelt secured funds to have the entire US Navy battle fleet
circumnavigate the globe in 1908, the battleships all dressed out in clean
white paint.

On that day, just as the
Tatsu Maru
first set eyes on the
massively threatening silhouette of the battlecruiser
Kirov
off her port
bow, the “Great White Fleet” of the US Navy was approaching Hawaii, 16
battleships and other auxiliaries preparing to make a brief port of call there
and continue across the Pacific with planned stops in the Philippines, New
Zealand, Australia and eventually Japan.

Roosevelt would show Japan the entire might of the US Navy, and
perhaps smooth out the way for better relations with in the days ahead. It was
a clear application of one of his favorite maxims—to ‘speak softly and carry a
big stick.’ But the Great White Fleet was soon to find much more than a long
and arduous sea voyage as it continued west, just as Admiral Togo was soon to
find that the fires of war with Russia were not yet fully extinguished.

A new enemy was coming at Japan from the sea to throw down the gauntlet
of challenge. Another man of war was on the scene now, in a ship unlike any
other in the world. Karpov’s shot across the bow of the
Tatsu Maru
was
indeed the opening round of a new war, and one that would change the fate of
all nations with interests in the Pacific for centuries to come.

Chapter 23

The
sound of the distant horn call seemed to have an urgent edge to
it. Heihachiro Togo stopped, listening closely as he tied off the  brace of
pheasant he had been hunting, binding their legs with a small twine. He looked
to see a rider approaching, hastening up the hill as though pursued by demons.
This man is coming to find me, he knew. Something must have happened. But what?

 Togo was a man of quiet resolve, and one who rose to a position
of great authority after years of routine and diligent work in the Japanese
Navy. A strange feeling of alarm rose in him as he watch the rider come, but he
stilled his mind, imposing calm and order on his thinking.

 His given name meant “Peaceful son,” and his surname “Togo”
referred to the nation of the east. Thus this “peaceful man of the east” was
the Yin force at the heart of Japan’s energetic Yang when it came to war. He
was once heard to remark that “peace has its victories too, and more renowned
than those of war.” In fact, the Admiral’s own biography, to be written in
1909, would be entitled “Benevolence and Peace.” Yet when it did come time to
engage in battle, he did so with a single minded belief in the attainment of
victory.

A simple man, he took pleasure in the simple things of life,
loving his family, nature, hunting with his dogs, or work in his beloved
garden. In spite of his notoriety and fame, he shunned pomp and ceremony,
sought no medals or fanfare, and carried out his work with assiduous attention,
seeing to everything in his charge yet not interfering in the work of others.
To some it seemed he accomplished all his work with a seemingly effortless
efficiency, yet no man in the navy worked harder.

He was also a temperate man, with a level-headed disposition, and
never one to indulge in strong drink to the point of intoxication. Only a clear
mind could attend to all the many details his post required, and his was a mind
as placid and cool as a mountain pond of melted spring snow. He was frugal,
never wasting anything, yet generous to a fault. Modesty, honesty, and honor
were all watchwords to live by, and he embodied them all in the conduct of his
own life. In reporting to his superiors, of who there were few in the Naval
Department or Imperial Palace, he always made sure to verify the information he
related personally. As such, speculation never entered his mind, though he
asked and answered a thousand questions each day in the course of his many
duties.

A courteous man, he was keenly aware of the concept of “face” and
might often turn his head at a breach of conduct, relating his displeasure
quietly, behind the scenes, in an effort to allow the offender the means of
recovering face and doing what was correct. At other times all it ever took was
a turn of his head to take notice of an offense, and the men responsible would
soon be earnestly working to remedy their behavior.

When war came with Russia in 1904 Togo rose to the challenge with
the same quiet dignity and sense of purpose. He was keenly aware of the fact
that the responsibility for Japan’s entire navy rested upon his shoulders, one
that was built by long years of energetic work, with many ships acquired from
foreign manufacturers or taken as prizes of war when Japan fought China. It was,
to him, like an irreplaceable sword, beautiful and deadly, yet one that might
be broken if mishandled in combat, for he knew all too well the destructive
power of modern weapons and war in general.

When he trained his men and ships, he endeavored to infuse the
exercise with as much realism as possible, preferring live shot to dummy rounds
in any test of cannon. Time in battle was a brief, violent affair, but time to
prepare for battle was endless. When battle came, one had to be bold and
aggressive, but to move with predetermined calculation, and so he was given to
write long multi page battle orders assigning position, speed and formation for
each division of his fleet.

When war was declared it was his intention to become swift master
of the seas between Japan and the great European adversary that many thought
would prove an insurmountable foe. He would not let this enemy come from the
sea. It would be found at sea and opposed there, and once Japan had defeated
the Russian Pacific Fleet, then they could lie in wait should any
reinforcements be sent from the Baltic, which is exactly what happened.

Togo saw the capture of the first Russian ship in that war as a
fateful omen, and often mused on the hand divine providence might have played
in those events. The ship was, in fact, named
Russia
, and his crew
gleefully related that they had “taken
Russia
by storm” when they
secured the prize.

In his first action against the Russian fleet near Port Arthur,
Togo kept the range well open, at 8,000 yards, which was considered good range
for naval action at that time. The superior gunnery of his ships paid off well,
and he sustained very little damage from the enemy while inflicting far more
serious losses. His precious fleet had been protected, even as it was used to
good effect to win the battle.