Katsu Kaishu, “the shogun’s last samurai,” was not only an exceedingly interesting man but also one of the highest moral character – an attribute that seems to be sorely lacking among politicians and government officials today. By way of (partial) explanation, I offer the following edited excerpt from my Samurai Revolution:

In early 1868, Katsu Kaishu, as the commander of the forces of the fallen shogun’s regime, was prepared to take drastic measures rather than allow “millions of innocent people to die” in an imminent attack on the shogun’s capital of Edo, modern-day Tokyo, by the army of the new Imperial government. The drastic measures he had in mind were tied to the kenjutsu (Japanese swordsmanship) and Zen training of his youth. “Bushido is found in dying,” asserts the key line of the memorable first chapter of Hagakure, the classic text of samurai values. Death was preferable to disgrace—there was “nothing particularly difficult” about it. Kaishu had reached that critical boundary line to which, it seems, the author of Hagakure had alluded a century and a half earlier. As ever, he wanted nothing more than peace; but, as ever, he would not have peace at any cost. Only a coward would choose life over death without achieving his objective—and Katsu Kaishu, for all his modern sensibilities, was a samurai through and through. Though his objective might be unachievable, he would never accept disgrace—for himself or for the Tokugawa.

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Last week (December 10) marked the 152^nd anniversary of Sakamoto Ryoma’s assassination on the 15^th day of the Eleventh Month of the year on the old Japanese calendar corresponding to 1867. Ryoma and another Tosa man, Nakaoka Shintaro, were hit at the former’s hideout in Kyoto—the house of a purveyor of soy called the Omiya, located in Kawaramachi just across the street from Tosa’s Kyoto headquarters. The most likely suspects were KondoIsami, Hijikata Toshizo, et al of the Shinsengumi. But the actual killers were several men of the Mimawarigumi, another Bakufu police corps in Kyoto. One of them, Imai Nobuo, confessed to the authorities in 1870 that he and others had acted under orders from their commander, Sasaki Tadasaburo, who was also involved. But Imai claimed that he had not had a hand in the actual killings, since he and two others had been downstairs guarding the place while the others went upstairs, where they attacked Ryoma and Nakaoka. Ryoma’s assassination is the subject of Part III of Samurai Assassins. Following is a slightly edited excerpt (without footnotes):

The contents of Imai’s testimony to the government were not publicized until 1912. Therefore, for decades it was generally believed that Ryoma and Nakaoka had been killed by the Shinsengumi. That myth was dispelled in May 1900 with the publication of a magazine article entitled “Sakamoto Ryoma Satsugaisha” (“Sakamoto Ryoma’s Killers”), based on an interview with Imai. In the interview, Imai reiterated information from his testimony. But he also contradicted his testimony,with some clarifications, including the shocking opening statement: “It is generally believed that at the time of the Restoration Sakamoto Ryoma and Nakaoka Shintaro were killed by Kondo Isami and Hijikata Toshizo. History says so and that’s what most people thought at the time. But actually I did it.”

[The photo of Imai Nobu appears in Samurai Assassins, courtesy of Ryozen Museum of History.]

The artwork on the cover of Samurai Assassins depicts Arimura Jizaemon of Satsuma as he is about to deliver the coup de grâce to the shogun’s regent, Ii Naosuké, in the famous Incident Outside Sakurada Gate, at Edo Castle in the Third Month of the Japanese calendar year corresponding to 1860. Ii’s assassination, which kicked off the revolution, was the beginning of the end of the Tokugawa Bakufu.

Osaragi Jiro, in Tennō no Seiki (天皇の世紀), a masterpiece of Bakumatsu-Meiji Restoration history to which I referred in writing this scene, paints a different picture than the one shown on the cover. As I wrote in Samurai Assassins, after Naosuké had been stabbed twice while still in his sedan,

“Arimura tore open the door, grabbed Ii Naosuké by the back of the neck, and pulled him out. He struck the regent with his sword on the top of the head; and as Ii fell forward and tried to get up, Arimura beheaded him.”

Kondo tended to be “extremely modest,” “favoring swords in black sheathes with wax-colored scabbards,” recalled former Shinsengumi officer Shimada Kai in a short article about Kondo Isami published in 1890.

[The photo of Kondō Isami appears in Shinsengumi: The Shogun’s Last Samurai Corps, courtesy of the descendants of Satō Hikogorō and Hino-shi-Furusato Hakubutsukan.]