Rivals Join Hands Day

What Is Rivals Join Hands Day?

Every January 21st is "Rivals Join Hands Day" (ライバルが手を結ぶ日) in Japan. On the 21st day of the first month of Keiō 2 in the old lunar calendar (March 7, 1866, in the Western calendar), the Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance (薩長同盟, Satchō Dōmei) was secretly concluded through the mediation of Ryōma Sakamoto (坂本龍馬) and Shintarō Nakaoka (中岡慎太郎) — uniting two powerful domains that had long been bitter rivals, and creating the political and military alliance that would directly lead to the Meiji Restoration two years later.

The Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance

The Satsuma (薩摩, modern Kagoshima) and Chōshū (長州, modern Yamaguchi) domains were the two most powerful anti-shogunate forces in 1860s Japan, yet they had been bitter enemies — fighting on opposite sides in the 1864 Kinmon Incident (Hamaguri Gate Rebellion) in Kyoto. The genius of the 1866 alliance was recognizing that their shared opposition to the Tokugawa Shogunate outweighed their rivalry. The alliance, secretly negotiated at the Kyoto residence of Satsuma's Komatsu Tatewaki between Saigō Takamori, Komatsu, and Chōshū's Kido Takayoshi, with Ryōma Sakamoto playing the crucial broker role, consisted of six articles in which Satsuma pledged to support Chōshū. (Some accounts date the agreement to the 18th or 22nd.)

Ryōma Sakamoto: The Visionary Broker

Ryōma Sakamoto (1836–1867) is one of the most beloved figures in Japanese history — a lower-ranking samurai from Tosa domain (modern Kōchi) who transcended his station through sheer force of vision and personality to become the indispensable mediator of the Restoration era. His ability to see past the factional hatreds that divided the anti-shogunate forces and to forge the Satsuma-Chōshū alliance represents one of the great acts of political statesmanship in Japanese history — made even more poignant by his assassination just one year later, in 1867, before he could see the restoration he had helped make possible.

The Alliance's Consequences

The Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance proved decisive. In 1866, Chōshū defeated the Shogunate's second punitive expedition, while Satsuma refused to send troops against it. In 1868, Satsuma and Chōshū forces spearheaded the Boshin War that overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate and restored imperial rule — the Meiji Restoration. The alliance demonstrated that in politics, as in much else, former rivals joining forces can reshape history.

Fun Facts

• Ryōma's assassination: Ryōma Sakamoto was assassinated on November 15, 1867 — his own birthday — at the Ōmiya Inn in Kyoto, just weeks before the Shogunate returned power to the Emperor. The identity of his assassins remains historically debated.
• Kōchi's pride: Kōchi Prefecture (formerly Tosa) celebrates Ryōma with extraordinary enthusiasm — his image is everywhere in the city, and the Ryōma Memorial Museum in Kōchi City is one of the prefecture's most visited attractions.