Satsuma Clan

One of the two major clans that was in opposition to the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Satsuma Clan, after the Meiji Restoration, supplanted their rival Chosu Clan in the Imperial Japanese Army; they were always dominant in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Their traditional stronghold was Kagoshima in the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. They were allied with the House of Fushimi, a branch of the imperial family from which Hirohito's Empress Nagako was descended.

In 1877, some Satsuma samurai, angry about the Emperor's edict that only members of the military sjould wear swords, Takamori Saigo led the Satsuma Rebellion. Although the 15,000 man army quickly took Kagoshima, the Western-trained new army defeated them. Until the late 1920s, this largely ended Satsuma power in the Army.