following three different routes, and the imperial army occupied the Hitoyoshi position on June 1. The Bungo body of insurgents, meanwhile, being hard pressed by the government forces, retired to a strong position at Nobeoka, in Hiuga, and opened communications with the other body, which had fortified itself at Miyazaki in the same province. Several battles and skirmishes ensued, and it was not till the end of July that Miyazaki was reduced, Nobeoka falling on August 14. The rebels now retreated northward to Enotake, where they were closely besieged by the imperial army, but on the 18th of the same month they succeeded, with extraordinary celerity and address, in effecting a retreat right through the besieging lines, and pushing rapidly on to Kagoshima, which place they suddenly attacked and took. The imperial forces were now concentrated about Kagoshima, and after a sanguinary engagement, lasting ten days, the rebels were driven to Shiroyama, where their last fight was fought on September 24. Saigō Takamori committed suicide, and Toshiaki and the other rebel chiefs fell on the field of battle, the rebellion being thus finally crushed. A provisional court was organized in Kiushū under the presidency of Kōno Tokama, a secretary of the senate, for the trial of those taken in the fighting, seventeen of whom were sentenced to death. In this sanguinary struggle the whole of the army and navy had been engaged, the old imperial bodyguard reorganized, a band of swordsmen volunteers enrolled, and a company of policemen, also for sword service, sent to the scene of the fighting. The Japanese sword was used by both armies with great skill and deadly effect. The total number of men engaged on the government side was 60,000, and the entire outlay involved was 416 million _yen_. At one time, indeed, the affair had threatened to assume almost uncontrollable dimensions, for in the early days of the rebels' valiant fighting ominous signs of disaffection made themselves apparent in the prefectures of Yamaguchi, Kōchi, Fukuoka, and elsewhere. Much as the trouble cost, however, in blood and treasure, its national uses were very great. By it the army and navy gained invaluable experience, and all the institutions of the central government were subjected to the test of severe practice, while the people learned, once for all, that armed efforts to disturb the new order of things were utterly hopeless, and that adverse opinion must be limited to the channels of speech and pen. The treasury, however, found itself seriously embarrassed. It had been obliged to borrow fifteen million _yen_ from the Fifteenth National Bank, and also, most reluctantly, to issue fiduciary notes aggregating 270,000,000 _yen_ in addition to those already issued for the purpose of redeeming the fiat paper of the _daijōkwan_, the _mimbushō_, and the former feudal barons. [Illustration: THE INSURRECTION IN THE ISLAND OF KIUSHŪ 1877]