It is believed that this wooden practice sword (bokken or bokuto) belonged to Ryoma. It is housed at the Gokoku Shrine (literally national defense shrine) in Ryoma’s hometown of Kochi, established to enshrine the souls of samurai who died in the Boshin Civil War of 1868-69, following the Meiji Restoration.
Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai (Ridgeback Press 1999) is the only biographical novel of Sakamoto Ryoma in English.
With the recent Spanish translation, my Shinsengumi has now been published in six foreign languages, including Japanese.
Japanese (2007), Polish (2007), Romanian (2007), Indonesian (2009), Czech (2011; not included in photo), Spanish (2019)
In 1858 the Tokugawa Bakufu, the shogun’s government, concluded its first trade treaties with Western nations including Great Britain, France, Holland and the United States, igniting the “samurai revolution” that would bring about fall of the Bakufu and the modernization of Japan. The trade treaties were opposed by samurai throughout Japan, led by a few powerful feudal domains, including Choshu [present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture]. In the summer of 1864, Choshu, in violation of the trade treaties, militarily blocked the passage of foreign ships through the strait of Shimonoseki, along the vital trade route at the western tip of the Choshu domain, on the main Japanese island of Honshu. In reaction, England, France, America, and Holland dispatched an allied squadron to bombard Shimonoseki – with the tacit approval of the Bakufu. The bombardment began on the 4th day of the Eighth Month of the Japanese calendrical year corresponding to 1864, with the Choshu forces routed in just four days. Following is a slightly edited excerpt from my Samurai Revolution:
Katsu Kaishu had heard a rumor from Sakamoto Ryoma that Kokura Han, a pro-Bakufu domain located just across the Shimonoseki Strait, had welcomed the allied squadron’s arrival at Shimonoseki, assuring the foreigners that they would not have any trouble from its people. Did the foreign ships attack Shimonoseki at the request of the Bakufu? Kaishu wondered. “Even if Choshu is guilty of crimes,” he noted in his journal, “employing foreign assistance to punish our own countrymen” would itself be criminal. Since “such a crime . . . would be a national disgrace,” the matter must be investigated. [emphasis added; end excerpt]
The president of the United States was recently acquitted for a similar crime by his accomplices in the Senate.
[The photograph of Edo Castle at the end of Tokugawa era appears in Samurai Revolution, p. 488, courtesy of Yokohama Archives of History. Katsu Kaishu is “the shogun’s last samurai” of Samurai Revolution.]
Not to be confused with the Shinsengumi book I’m currently working on, this reprinting is scheduled for release September 2020. (I don’t anticipate finishing the next one for at least a couple more years.)
To go along with the revised title and new cover design, I have written a new Introduction, which features the following information not included in the first printing:
The monument to the Japanese warship Kanrin Maru is at Lincoln Park in San Francisco – a beautiful spot, just behind the Legion of Honor museum of fine arts, overlooking the Golden Gate. The Kanrin sailed through the Golden Gate on St. Patrick’s Day of 1860 – 160 years ago next month – as meticulously recorded by the ship’s captain, Katsu Rintaro (aka Katsu Kaishu), in his journal-like account, published in his history of the Japanese navy, Kaigun Rekishi (海軍歴史).
[The famous photo of Katsu Kaishu was taken during his stay in San Francisco. Kaishu is the “shogun’s last samurai” of my Samurai Revolution, a biographical account of his indispensable role in the Meiji Restoration. The photo is used in the book courtesy of Ishiguro Keisho.]
Or purchase Samurai Revolution from an independent bookstore in your community:
