It is almost certain that these two men, Imai Nobuo (left) and Watanabe Atsushi (right), had a direct hand in the assassination of Sakamoto Ryoma. Ryoma’s assassination is the subject of Part III of my forthcoming Samurai Assassins: “Dark Murder” and the Meiji Restoration, 1853-1868, to be published by McFarland in 2017.
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There are lots of books about Sakamoto Ryoma.* There are more than thirty volumes in one of the bookshelves in my personal library. And there are a lot more to be found in bookstores, and public and university libraries. During the thirty years that I’ve been researching and writing about Ryoma, my favorite books about him are the five mentioned below. I have chosen them for their originality, scholarship and overall readability, and also for their great value to me as a writer.
Shiba Ryotaro. Ryoma ga Yuku (vols 1-8). Tokyo: Bungei Shunshu, 1975. (竜馬がゆく) This masterpiece by a prolific historical novelist immortalized Sakamoto Ryoma in the psyche of the Japanese people. Originally published in serial form in the national newspaper Sankei Shimbun in 1962, this epic of the life and times of Sakamoto Ryoma comprises eight paperback volumes in its current printed form.
*Almost all books about Sakamoto Ryoma are in Japanese. The only two that I know of which are not are my novel, Ryoma Life of a Renaissance Samurai, and Marius B. Jansen’s biography, Sakamoto Ryōma and the Meiji Restoration. I should mention, however, that I have written extensively about Sakamoto Ryoma in other books as well, including Samurai Tales, Samurai Revolution, and my forthcoming Samurai Assassins (to be published by McFarland in 2017).
Sakamoto Ryoma & Katsu Kaishu
“A great man does not come along very often,” Katsu Kaishu said some thirty years after the Meiji Restoration. “It usually takes about a hundred years. And for a truly great man it will take two or three hundred years. But there are no great men now. All we have are narrow-minded little men whose only concern is to be recognized and praised by people now. They think that just because they’ve been decorated . . or have received . . . some kind of a title, and because snobs make such a big fuss over them, they’re the greatest man in Japan.” (Hikawa Seiwa (Katsu Kaishu Zenshu 21) Tokyo: Kodansha, 1973, pp. 47-48)
Kaishu’s words are particularly poignant now, when Americans are about to choose between two of the worst candidates in history for president of the United States. And Kaishu knew whereof he spoke, having had close relations with some of the greatest men in his country’s history. Among Kaishu’s “truly great men” was Sakamoto Ryoma. (Samurai Revolution, p. 571, note 4)
Read more about Ryoma and Kaishu, and their important roles in the Meiji Restoration, in Samurai Revolution.
Q: What did Sakamoto Ryoma have in common with George Armstrong Custer and “Wild Bill” Hickock?
A: Like Ryoma, both of the Americans owned a Smith & Wesson No. 2 Army revolver, according to the website of the NRA National Firearms Museum. “Wild Bill” Hickock was carrying one when he was killed in a poker game in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, the NRA Museum reports. Maybe Ryoma was a better shot than Wild Bill.
Smith & Wesson No. 2 Army revolver, same model carried by Sakamoto Ryoma
Shortly after overseeing the conclusion of the Satsuma-Choshu Alliance in early 1866, which would lead the overthrow of the shogun’s government less than two years later, Ryoma was attacked and nearly killed at the Teradaya Inn in Fushimi, just outside of Kyoto. He used his Smith & Wesson to defend himself, as he described in a letter to his family. I quoted the letter in Samurai Revolution, excerpted, in part, below:
Just then the woman I’ve told you about (her name is Ryō, and now she’s my wife), came running up to us from the kitchen and warned, “Look out! The enemy has suddenly attacked. Men with spears are coming up the stairs.” I jumped up and, meaning to put on my hakama [trousers], realized that I had left it in the next room. So I put on my swords, grabbed my six-shooter, and crouched down toward the back [of the room]. My companion Miyoshi Shinzō put on his hakama and swords—and with spear in hand, he also crouched down.
The next minute a man opened the screen a crack and looked inside. Seeing our swords he demanded, “Who’s there?” As he started to come in and saw that we were ready for him, he backed off. Soon there was a racket in the next room. I told Ryō to remove the sliding doors that opened to the next room and the room behind us—and saw a line of ten men armed with spears. . . . We glared at each other for while. . . .
One of us [presumably spear expert Miyoshi] stood holding his spear at mid-level, ready to fight. Thinking that the enemy was going to attack from the [left] side, I shifted my position to face left. Then I cocked my pistol and I fired a shot at [the man] on the far right of the line of ten enemy spearmen. But he moved back, so I shot at another one, but he also moved back. . . .
Now I shot at another man, but didn’t know if I hit him. One of the enemy came in from the shadow of the screen—and with a short sword he cut the base of my right thumb, split open the knuckle of my left thumb, and hacked my left index finger to the knuckle bone. These were only slight wounds—and I pointed my gun at him. But he quickly took cover in the shadow of the screen. Another of the enemy came at me, so I shot another round—but didn’t know if I hit him either. Though my pistol held six bullets, since I’d only loaded five I only had one shot left. I thought I ought to save it for later—and the battle died down a bit. Then a man in a black hood . . . advanced along the wall, standing with his spear at the ready. Seeing him, I cocked my pistol again. Miyoshi was standing there with his spear; I used his left shoulder as a gun mount—and taking aim at the man’s chest, I fired. It looked as though I’d hit him. He lay on his belly crawling forward, as if about to die.
Read the rest of Ryoma’s account of his narrow escape and more about his indispensible role in the Meiji Restoration in Samurai Revolution and in Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai.
故宮地佐一郎先生のご紹介で、私が坂本龍馬伝記小説「Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai」を執筆中だった１９８９年４月、新人物往来社の「Who’s Who Today」誌の坂本龍馬特集に「心の大きな自由主義者」というタイトルで記事を掲載されました。その中で 私にとって特に興味深い部分が田中良助という龍馬の友人のご子孫の田中正郎さんから直接聞いた話です。（下の写真は私の隣は田中さんで、 田中さの家へ案内し紹介してくださった 松岡司先生は一番右で、もう一人は私の日本語の先生です。）
I wrote this article for a special edition of “Who’s Who Today” magazine, published by Shinjinbutsu Oraisha in April 1989, while I was writing my novel Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai. Here I include my favorite part of the article, about my meeting with Masao Tanaka, a grandson of Ryoma’s childhood friend Tanaka Ryosuke, at his ancestral home in the mountains above Ryoma’s hometown of Kochi. The details are reported in the Preface of my book, copied below:
I will never forget my visit to the home of Masao Tanaka, a direct descendent of a boyhood friend of Ryoma’s, located in the mountains northwest of Kochi Castletown. The house was the same one that Ryoma often visited in his youth, and where he apparently stopped, in need of cash, on the outset of a subversive journey he made in 1861 as the envoy of a revolutionary party leader. “My family lent Ryoma money at that time,” the elderly Mr. Tanaka told me, as we stood atop a giant rock behind the house, looking out at the Pacific Ocean far in the distance. Mr. Tanaka informed me that Ryoma liked to sit atop this same rock when he visited the Tanaka family, and where he would indulge in wild talk of one day sailing across the ocean to foreign lands. “Ryoma never repaid the money, so I guess he still owes us,” Mr. Tanaka joked.
In front of the Tanaka house with Mr. Tanaka (far left); my Japanese teacher Mrs. Tae Moriyama, a Kochi native; and Mr. Matsuoka