Hijikata’s Statue

Posted on August 12, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō were glorified as heroes upon their return to Tama in early 1868. In death they were apotheosized. On the expansive grounds of Takahata Fudō temple in Hino, the stone Monument of the Two Heroes was completed in 1888. Over a century later a bronze statue of Hijikata was erected near the monument. The left hand grips a sword. The right fist is clenched. The eyes… the eyes battle-ready, are ever prepared for death, “to meet Kondō underground.”

[closing paragraph of Shinsengumi: The Shogun’s Last Samurai Corps]

Bakumatsu/Meiji Restoration (幕末明治維新)

Posted on August 11, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

Though I’ve read, researched, written about – and yes, even lived – this history and culture for 30+ years, the fact that I, an American, born and raised in the second half of the 20^th century, have the audacity to publish books about it, boggles the mind (or at least my mind). But I do it because I need to – because if I don’t, who will?

I’m making steady progress with my new book about Shinsengumi. I’ll post updates periodically.

A heartfelt thanks to all my readers!

Ryōma: Ten Often Overlooked Facts (3)

Posted on June 4, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

3) Concerned about things bigger than himself: During the last few years of his life, it seems that Sakamoto Ryōma, while clearly realizing that his life was in danger, was concerned about bigger things than just himself. Illustrating this is an excerpt from my new book, Samurai Assassins (without footnotes):

Ryōma had been staying in a secluded room at the house of a purveyor of soy called the Ōmiya, located in Kawaramachi just across the street from Tosa’s Kyōto headquarters. While apparently disregarding the danger to himself, he worried about the lives of his fellow patriots. To protect them, he planned to send as many as possible to Ezo (modern-day Hokkaidō) in the far north of the country to settle and exploit that mineral-rich wilderness and train them in the naval sciences. He was working on the plan with Hayashi Kenzō, a samurai from Hiroshima Han. In a letter to Hayashi …, Ryōma alluded to the great danger facing the nation under the Bakufu and urged his friend to be careful for his life. “Now is the time for us to act. Soon we must decide on our direction, whether it lead to pandemonium or paradise.” Early in the morning five days later, Hayashi, summoned by Ryōma from Ōsaka for “an urgent discussion” at the Ōmiya, encountered the aftermath of that pandemonium. Upon entering the building he saw “bloody footprints here and there”; then “dashing up the stairway to see if Sakamoto was okay,” he found Ryōma’s corpse, “his sword drawn, lying in a pool of blood.”

Ryōma: Ten Often Overlooked Facts (2)

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

2) Gifted Writer of Prose: Sometime in the early hours of Keiō 2/1/24 (1866), two days after overseeing the conclusion of the Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance in Kyōto, Sakamoto Ryōma was attacked, wounded, and nearly killed by a Bakufu police squad at the Teradaya inn in Fushimi, just south of Kyōto. Ryōma described the attack and his narrow escape in a letter to his family, much of which is excerpted in my accounts of the incident in Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai and Samurai Revolution.

The attack at the Teradaya and the narrow escape (much to the credit of his girlfriend Oryō, who worked as a maid at the inn) have become legendary through literature and film. Similarly storied are the wedding ceremony between Ryōma and Oryō shortly thereafter, and their subsequent honeymoon (said to be the first in Japan) at the hot springs in the Kirishima mountains of Satsuma, where Ryōma recuperated from his wounds and took a much needed rest. Ryōma, whose myriad talents included a vivid, fluent writing style, described all of this and much more in two letters to his family, both dated Keiō 2/12/4 (1866). The first of these letters, in which Ryōma “took a hard look at a critical moment in his own existence, is a rarity in Bakumatsu history,” Miyaji Saichirō remarked. (Ryōma Hyakuwa, p. 150) Shiba Ryōtarō, whose popular novel Ryōma ga Yuku immortalized Sakamoto Ryōma in the psyche of the Japanese people, called the letter “the first piece of nonfiction literature of the Bakumatsu.” (Qtd. in Miyaji, Ryōma Hyakuwa, p. 152) Ryōma’s graphic account of the attack, I believe, captures the violence of the times as few surviving documents do.

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Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai

The classic biographical novel of Sakamoto Ryoma, the only one in the English language.

Ryōma: Ten Often Overlooked Facts (1)

Posted on May 27, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

Sakamoto Ryōma’s legacy is based on a series of unparalleled historical achievements during the last few years of his short life: Japan’s first trading company, the Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance, and his great plan for peaceful restoration of Imperial rule. I have discussed these in detail in my books, including Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, Samurai Revolution, and Samurai Assassins.

Here I present the first of ten often overlooked facts to take a closer look at Sakamoto Ryōma, the man.

1) Genius: As I mentioned in Samurai Assassins, Ryōma was a visionary and a genius—if genius means to conceive of original ideas and to have the courage and audacity to bring them to fruition. Nietzsche, Ryōma’s contemporary, alluded to genius with the following statement: “When a human being resists his whole age and stops it at the gate to demand an accounting, this must have influence.” Based on his determined resistance to the social iniquities and restraints under the Tokugawa Bakufu and its archaic feudal system, Ryōma influenced “his whole age” through the historical achievements mentioned above.