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Saigô supported [[Seikanron|proposals to invade Korea]] in [[1873]], believing that only with China and Korea on her side could Japan hope to successfully resist the West; he expressed in a letter to [[Itagaki Taisuke]] in 1873 that he was willing to go so far as to travel to Korea as an ambassador and arrange for himself to be killed in order to manufacture a justification for invasion.<ref>Schirokauer, et al., 171.; Wm. Theodore de Bary, Tsunoda Ryûsaku, and Donald Keene, ''Sources of Japanese Tradition'', vol 1., Columbia University Press (1964), 147-149.</ref> The invasion was ardently opposed by his younger brother [[Saigo Tsugumichi|Saigô Tsugumichi]], however, among many others, and Saigô left the government. He died leading the [[Satsuma Rebellion]] against the government he helped to establish.
Saigô supported [[Seikanron|proposals to invade Korea]] in [[1873]], believing that only with China and Korea on her side could Japan hope to successfully resist the West; he expressed in a letter to [[Itagaki Taisuke]] in 1873 that he was willing to go so far as to travel to Korea as an ambassador and arrange for himself to be killed in order to manufacture a justification for invasion.<ref>Schirokauer, et al., 171.; Wm. Theodore de Bary, Tsunoda Ryûsaku, and Donald Keene, ''Sources of Japanese Tradition'', vol 1., Columbia University Press (1964), 147-149.</ref> The invasion was ardently opposed by his younger brother [[Saigo Tsugumichi|Saigô Tsugumichi]], however, among many others, and Saigô left the government. He died leading the [[Satsuma Rebellion]] against the government he helped to establish.
A statue of Saigô, designed by [[Takamura Koun|Takamura Kôun]] and erected in [[Ueno Park]] in [[1898]], faces towards the [[Tokyo Imperial Palace]], celebrating him as the leader of the armies which took [[Edo castle]] in 1868; it does not face away from the castle, least of all facing towards Kagoshima, which might suggest Saigô's betrayal of the Imperial state and loyalty to his Satsuma samurai roots.<ref>Takashi Fujitani, ''Splendid Monarchy'', University of California Press (1996), 91-92.</ref>
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