I have been studying Meiji Restoration history for more than thirty years, since I began research for my novel about Sakamoto Ryōma while living in Tokyo. In all of my books, I have explored the personalities of the leading actors in this history, presenting it as a human drama of epic proportion—thus bringing it to life. My most recent book is Samurai Assassins, published in 2017. As I wrote in the Preface, the book

is more than just a chronicle of “dark murder” [assassination] in the revolution [Meiji Restoration]. It is also an in-depth study of the ideology of the men behind the revolution, including bushidō, the code of the samurai, and the philosophy of Imperial Loyalism, which informed the revolution and would become the foundation of the Emperor-worship of World War II. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first book in English to correlate bushidō and Imperial Loyalism in their respective indispensible roles in the Meiji Restoration. My previous book, Samurai Revolution, is a comprehensive history of the Meiji Restoration and the first ten years of Imperial rule. Samurai Assassins provides an in-depth overview of the Meiji Restoration, while focusing on significant men and events, and ideology, not expatiated in my previous book.

[The assassination of Ii Naosuke is the subject of Part I of Samurai Assassins. One of Ii’s assassins, Arimura Jizaemon of Satsuma, who delivered the coup de grâce, is depicted on the cover of the book. The image is part of a series entitled Kinseigiyuden (“Biographies of Loyal and Courageous Men”) by Ichieisai Yoshitsuya (1822 – 1866), originally published in a magazine called “Nishikie.”]

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After languishing in prison for about a year, Takéchi Hanpeita, expert swordsman and leader of the insurgent Tosa Loyalist Party, was “the embodiment of bushido” for his stoicism in face of torture, according to his early biographers. Following is a slightly edited excerpt (without footnotes) from Samurai Assassins:

In his weakened state, Takéchi, suffering from chronic diarrhea and lumbago, sometimes doubted his ability to withstand torture. He wrote to a relative on the outside that no matter how much he ate he continued to get thinner. “I’m even shocked myself to see [how thin] my legs [have gotten].” And he even feared that he had developed pulmonary tuberculosis. Rather than risk the possibility of breaking under torture, he considered taking poison. But at his relative’s advice that he would be shamed in death if he were to behave so cowardly, he determined to nurse himself, restore his strength, and brave the pain. Then even if he were to die under torture, he could demonstrate his superior strength to the world by “subduing” his jailers. But two days later he changed his mind again. Though it might be easy for a man to claim that he would “die under torture” rather than talk, unfortunately the jailers would not kill a prisoner so easily, he wrote. Instead they would “break his arms and legs” and “make him suffer” until he finally talked. Only the toughest of men could withstand it. While claiming to be able to withstand torture “around four or five times,” he doubted his ability to withstand it for days on end. “I might have to bite off my tongue” to keep from talking. And so, he asked his relative to send along some poison after all. Whether or not Takéchi’s request was honored is unknown. But the Loyalist Party leader did not have to resort to poisoning himself because as it turned out he was not tortured. Instead, around eight months later, he was condemned to die by his own hand.

[Takechi Hanpeita is the focus of Part II of Samurai Assassins. His self-portrait, which he produced in his prison cell, appears in Samurai Assassins courtesy of Kochi Prefectural Museum of History.]

[How I wish I could have been present during their first meeting. Here is a slightly edited excerpt (without footnotes) from Samurai Revolution: Chapter 11 (The Commissioner and the Outlaw).]

Ryōma first visited Katsu Kaishū some time between the Tenth and Twelfth Months [of Bunkyū 2, Japanese year corresponding to 1862), though the date is unclear. In light of Ryōma’s Loyalist background and his antiforeign leanings, and the fact that he was outwardly anti-Bakufu, it is not unreasonable to assume that he might have visited Kaishū’s home with blood in his eyes. “Sakamoto Ryōma came to kill me,” Kaishū would say in a newspaper interview years later, on April 3, 1896. But Kaishū tended, on occasion, to exaggerate and embellish upon his past exploits—and, I contend, that tendency was at work during that particular newspaper interview. In fact, it is hard to believe that Ryōma intended to kill him. Ryōma, who hated bloodshed, is believed to have killed only once, and that in self-defense a few years later. Furthermore, with his naval aspirations, Ryōma stood to benefit through amicable relations with the man he would soon call “the greatest . . . in Japan.”

According to Kaishū, Ryōma was accompanied by Chiba Jūtarō on his first visit to Hikawa [Kaishū’s home]. Kaishū must have been forewarned by Shungaku. And it seems unlikely that the adept in Zen and kenjutsuwould have been taken off guard by the two younger and less experienced men. At any rate, Kaishū invited his visitors inside. Ryōma and Chiba would have had their two swords at their left hip. Ryōma, who according to a childhood friend “was of average height,” was much taller than Kaishū, who was only about five feet tall. And, of course, Kaishū would have been unarmed at home. “If you don’t like what I have to say, you should kill me,” he claimed to have told them. The two visitors, probably startled, followed Kaishū into the house. No doubt they were impressed by Kaishū’s pluck, although his tongue was certainly stuck in his cheek! According to Hirao, when the two swordsmen started to remove their swords as protocol demanded, Kaishū stopped them, perhaps to keep the upper hand. “It would be careless of you as samurai to take off your swords in these troubled times,” he reportedly said. Ryōma and Chiba were presently seated in the drawing room. “So, you’ve come to cut me down. Don’t try to hide it. I can see it in your eyes.”

Needless to say, Ryōma did not kill Kaishū. Instead, he listened closely as Kaishū discoursed on the state of the country and the world at large. Kaishū spoke of the futility of trying to defend against the foreign onslaught without a navy, for which Japan needed Western technology. He said that the navy must be a national effort, and not merely a force of the Tokugawa Bakufu. It must include capable young men from all the feudal domains, regardless of lineage, and not only the privileged sons of Tokugawa vassals. Such radical talk from the shōgun’s vice warship commissioner must have stunned the outlaw, who was captivated. Years later Kaishū wrote, “It was around midnight. After I had spoken incessantly about the reasons why we must have a [national] navy, [Ryōma], as if having understood, told me this: ‘I was resolved to kill you this evening, depending on what you had to say. But having heard you out, I am ashamed of myself.’” (It’s hard to believe that Ryōma actually spoke those words, and even if he did, that he meant them. But based on the fact that they were written down by Kaishū rather than reported in an interview, it is also hard to discount them. My only explanation is that Ryōma perhaps said those words to demonstrate to the Bakufu official, and even more importantly to his friend Chiba Jūtarō, his dedication to Imperial Loyalism.) “He told me that he wanted to become my student,” Kaishū wrote. Kaishū thought Ryōma to be “quite a man,” who “had a cool head, and a certain power about him that was hard to penetrate. He was a good man.” He readily accepted Ryōma’s request.