The most extravagant expectation of the ultra-conservatives was thus frustrated, but the conservative spirit in the nation, which was by no means to be swept away at all found its devotees among the class of the _samurai_. Though they were the real makers of the Revolution, yet the loss of their privileges and material interests which it entailed, touched them sorely. A very small fraction of them served the new government as officials and soldiers of high and low rank, and could enjoy life much more comfortably than they did in the pre-Meidji days. The greater part of the _samurai_, however, were obliged to betake themselves to some of the callings which they were accustomed to look down upon with disdain, for if they did not work, the compensation which they received from the government did not suffice to sustain them for long. Some of them preferred to become farmers, and those who persisted in that line generally fared well. Many others turned themselves into merchants, and mostly failed; being accustomed to the simplicities of the life and the code of soldiers, and utterly unversed in the complexities of the code commercial, and the trickeries of the life merchants; and the small capital obtained by selling their compensation-bonds was soon squandered. What wonder if they began to regret and whine for better days of the past? Discontentment became rampant among them; but the inducement to its disruption was provided by the diplomatic tension with Korea. I have no space here to dwell upon the intricate history of the differences between Korea and our country in the later seventies of the nineteenth century. Suffice it to say that the militaristic party in and out of the government favoured the war with Korea, while the opposing party was against it, considering it injurious to sound national progress, especially at a time when it was an immediate necessity for the welfare of the country to devote all its resources to internal reconstruction. The war party with Takamori Saigo at its head seceded from the government. Saigo had been a great figure since the Revolution, as the representative _samurai_ of the Satsuma, and had a great many worshippers, so that even after his retirement his influence over the territory of Satsuma was immense. At last he was forced by his adorers, whose ill-feeling against the government now knew no bounds, to take up arms in order to purge the government, which seemed to them too effeminate and too radical. Not only the warlike and conservative _samurai_ of Satsuma, but all the _samurai_ in the other provinces of Kyushu, who sympathised with them, rose up and joined them. Siege was laid by them to the castle of Kumamoto, the site of regimental barracks.