“A long-lost petition promising secrecy, sealed with the blood of visionary Sakamoto Ryoma (1836-1867), has been found,” Asahi Shimbun reported on July 26, 2013.
The document is a pledge not to reveal the secrets of Western artillery instructor Tokuhiro Kozo of Tosa Han — whose students included Takechi Hanpeita and Okada Izo, both of whom also signed it. The Japanese version of the article says that Ryoma signed the document in the Ninth Month of Ansei 6 (1859), but does not mention when the other two signed. This is of particular interest to me because I am currently doing research on Hanpeita and Izo for my next book.
As far as I know, the only other extant object containing Ryoma’s blood is the folding screen that was in the room where he was assassinated in Kyoto; and, like the Tokuhiro pledge, its whereabouts had been unknown for over a century before it was discovered in a storage area in Kyoto National Museum in 1985.
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Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, the only biographical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma in English, is available on Amazon.com.
