Yamaoka Tesshu
Introduction
by Romulus Hillsborough
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A man who cared nothing for his life, reputation, official rank or money The peaceful surrender of Edo Castle has been called the most beautiful event in Japanese history. Representatives of the deposed shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, turned over his castle to the new imperial government in March 1868. Four months earlier the shogun had abdicated and restored the rule of the nation to the emperor. Despite Yoshinobu's good intentions for a bloodless revolution, two and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule would not end without a struggle. The shogun was opposed by his own vassals who resented his abdication. They were determined to defend what they felt was their rightful rule, just as the commanders of the imperial forces were determined to annihilate them to ensure that they would never rise again. Fortunately, in the dangerous aftermath of the shogun's fall was a small group of his most faithful and able vassals who represented both sides of the revolution. Those men repeatedly risked their lives, set aside their individual interests and assumed a common raison d'etre upon a higher moral ground to spare the Japanese capital from the flames of civil war, to save the lives and property of its one million inhabitants and to ensure the sovereignty of the newborn modern Japanese state. Prominent among them were Katsu Kaishu, whom I discussed in the previous issue, and Yamaoka Tesshu. Yamaoka Tesshu Back to Table of Contents -- Samurai History Papers # 3 Back to Samurai History Papers List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by Romulus Hillsborough. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com |