The Mysterious Death of a Japanese Emperor: Was It Deicide?

Posted on May 6, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

An alleged C.I.A. plot to assassinate the leader of North Korea, in collusion with the South Koreans, was reported today by the New York Times. The article recapitulates reports of assassinations and assassination attempts in both Koreas over the past several decades, bringing to mind the mysterious death of the Japanese Emperor in the waning days of 1866.

Twenty days before his sudden death, Emperor Komei had conferred upon Tokugawa Yoshinobu the title of shogun, placing him at the helm of the Bakufu, the teetering regime that had ruled Japan for over two and a half centuries. While the samurai clans of Satsuma and Choshu, in collusion with the radical faction at the Imperial Court, were determined to eliminate Yoshinobu, overthrow the Bakufu and restore Imperial rule, the Emperor had wanted nothing more than peace in his empire. But that peace had been threatened for over a decade by Western powers that had forced the formerly isolated country to conclude trade treaties against the Emperor’s wishes. The Imperial Court had not ruled in centuries, and so amid such dire straits the Emperor preferred to leave the governance of the country in the tried and true hands of the Bakufu. In fact, the Emperor was the greatest obstacle to Satsuma and Choshu in their drive to make him the ruler of Japan. Komei’s son and heir, who would become the Emperor Meiji, was just a child who Satsuma and Choshu expected would be more amenable to their plans to restore Imperial rule.

Komei was just thirty-six years old, robust, and in good health. In fact, the cause and circumstances of his death constitute a grim mystery of Japanese history—a mystery that has never been solved. But it seems certain that the cause of death was either smallpox or poisoning. Those who suspected assassination remained silent for nearly a century out of fear of imprisonment in pre-WWII Japan where the Emperor was worshipped as a god. Before WWII there was not even one document written in Japanese that openly stated that the great grandfather of the wartime Emperor Hirohito had been poisoned. I wrote in detail about the incident and the assassination theory in Samurai Revolution, Chapter 22: The Shōgun, the Emperor, and the Opposition at Court.

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Samurai Assassins Part II: Takéchi Hanpeita

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

Part II of my new book, Samurai Assassins, is the first in-depth biographical treatment in English of Takéchi Hanpeita, charismatic leader of the Tosa Loyalist Party and mastermind of “divine punishment,” which wreaked terror on the streets of Kyōtō. Takéchi’s important role in the “samurai revolution” is covered in detail, including his meteoric rise to power and his sudden arrest and imprisonment ending with his stunning seppuku (self-disembowelment). I referred to Takéchi’s journals, contained in an early biography published in 1912; and more heavily to his letters from jail to his wife and cohorts on the outside. To the best of my knowledge, Takéchi’s letters have rarely, if ever, been used by Western writers. (Takéchi Hanpeita’s self-portrait, painted in prison at Kōchi in 1864, is courtesy of Kochi Prefectural Museum of History.)

Sakamoto Ryoma’s Assassins

Posted on April 29, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Sakamoto Ryoma, the architect of the relatively peaceful overthrow of the Tokugawa Bakufu. To bolster itself against its formidable enemies – in retrospect a vain attempt to stem the tide of history – the Bakufu established the security force Mimawarigumi, literally “Patrolling Corps,” in the spring of 1864, less than four years before its final collapse. Like the Shinsengumi, its more famous rival within the Tokugawa hierarchy, the Mimawarigumi was established to restore law and order in the Imperial capital of Kyoto. This was just months after the Shinsengumi had distinguished itself in the notorious attack on the rebels at the Ikedaya inn in the Kawaramachi district of Kyoto, just seven short blocks north of the soy purveyor called the Omiya. One of the vice-commanders of the Mimawarigumi was Sasaki Tadasaburo, who around three and a half years later would lead a small group of swordsmen to the Omiya to kill Ryoma.

Ryoma’s assassination remains shrouded in mystery. I focused on Ryoma’s assassins, their motives, and the actual attack in Part III of my new book, Samurai Assassins.

The Motives Behind Sakamoto Ryōma’s Assassination

Posted on April 6, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

Based on his resistance to the social iniquities and restraints under the Tokugawa Bakufu – i.e., the shogun’s government – Sakamoto Ryōma changed history through a series of unparalleled historical achievements: the founding of Japan’s first trading company; the brokering of a military-political alliance between the Bakufu’s most formidable enemies; and his great plan for peaceful restoration of Imperial rule.

After the shōgun’s historical announcement at his castle in Kyōto to relinquish power to the Imperial Court based on Ryōma’s peace plan, the situation in Kyōto was dangerous and volatile, with samurai “thirsty for blood” gathered there from all over the country, recalled Watanabé Atsushi, a Bakufu samurai who later claimed to have killed Ryōma. “Since Sakamoto was no good for the Bakufu or the Imperial Court…, I thought we had to kill him,” said Imai Nobu, a cohort of Watanabe’s, decades later.

Read more about Ryoma’s assassins and their motives in my new book, Samurai Assassins.

The Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma (1)

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Romlus Hillsborough

The assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma on the eve of a revolution of his own design was probably the most tragic event of the Meiji Restoration. And certainly it was one of the most historically significant assassinations in what was thus far the most bloody and tumultuous period in Japanese history (1853-1868). In the Prologue of my novel, Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai (Ridgeback Press, 1999), I describe Ryōma as follows: “outlaw-samurai, pistol-bearing swordsman, freedom-fighter, pioneering naval commander, entrepreneur and statesman, a youth ahead of his time with an imagination as boundless as the Pacific Ocean–was a leader in the revolution to overthrow the shogunate and form a unified democracy in Japan.”

In my new book, Samurai Assassins, the printed edition of which was released today, I wrote, “To fully understand the scale of Ryōma’s tragedy, we must realize that he 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.”

Part III of Samurai Assassins, is titled “The Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma” His murder is shrouded in mystery. Samurai Assassins provides the first in-depth study of the tragic event in English, based mostly on primary sources.