Therefore, the government once decided to postpone the dispatch, but 3,000 members of the expeditionary force (government army consisting of feudal retainers of Satsuma Domain) led by Saigo, who had been on standby in Nagasaki, disobeyed it and made a decision to depart for Taiwan.
そのため、政府は一旦は派兵の延期を決定するが、長崎に待機していた西郷率いる征討軍3000名（薩摩藩・藩士編成をした政府軍）はこれを無視して出兵を決断した。