“I’ll only die when big changes finally come. . . .” 私が死日 (シヌルヒ) ハ天下大変にて生ておりてもやくにたゝず
Sakamoto Ryoma was truly a Renaissance man: outlaw-samurai, pistol-bearing swordsman, gifted writer,* freedom fighter, pioneering naval commander, founder of Japan’s first modern trading company, and leader in the “samurai revolution at the dawn of modern Japan.” And, as it turned out, he also foretold the future.
“I don’t expect that I’ll be around too long. But I’m not about to die like any average person either. I’ll only die when big changes finally come, when even if I continue to live I’ll no longer be of any use to the country. Though I was born a mere potato digger in Tosa, a nobody, I’m destined to bring about great changes in the country.”
The above is from a letter Ryoma wrote to his sister in the summer of 1863. Less than four and a half years later, in the fall of 1867, the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, announced his decision to abdicate and restore Imperial rule based on a peace plan from the “nobody” from Tosa. The next month, on his 32nd birthday, Ryoma was assassinated.
* [Shiba Ryotaro, the popular historical novelist who immortalized Sakamoto Ryoma in the psyche of the Japanese people, called Ryoma’s famous letter depicting the near fatal attack at the Teradaya inn, “the first piece of nonfiction literature” of the times. (Qtd. in Miyaji Saichiro. Ryoma Hyakuwa. Tokyo: Bungei Shunshu, 1997, p. 152)]
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Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, the only biographical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma in English, is available on Amazon.com.
