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Kido Takayoshi
Kido Takayoshi (木戸 孝允; born Wada Kogorō (和田 小五郎); August 11, 1833 – May 26, 1877), formerly known as Katsura Kogorō (桂 小五郎), was a Japanese statesman, samurai and shishi who is considered one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration.
Born Wada Kogorō on August 11, 1833 in Hagi, Chōshū Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) as the son of a samurai physician Wada Masakage (和田 昌景) and his second wife Seiko (清子). In 1840, due to his brother-in-law already being the head of the Wada family, he was later adopted into the Katsura family at age seven and was known as Katsura Kogorō (桂 小五郎).
The Katsura family's stipend was originally 150 koku, but due to the late nature of his adoption which took place as his adoptive father Katsura Takako (桂 孝古) was already on his deathbed, who died ten days later, it was reduced to 90 koku. Katsura Kogorō thus became the head of the Katsura family. A year later in 1841, his adoptive mother also died, months later he was returned to his old home. In 1848, he lost his mother and elder half-sister Yaeko to illnesses.
Katsura was educated at Meirinkan, in which he later became increasingly unhappy with and defied his father in order to be educated at Shōka Sonjuku in 1849, the academy of Yoshida Shōin, from whom he adopted the philosophy of Imperial loyalism. In 1851, his father had died.
In 1852, Katsura went to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to study swordsmanship, established ties with radical samurai from the Mito Domain (present-day Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture), learned artillery techniques with Egawa Tarōzaemon, and (after observing the construction of foreign ships in Nagasaki and Shimoda), returned to Chōshū to supervise the construction of the domain's first western-style warship.
After 1858, Katsura Kogorō was based at the domain's Edo residence, where he served as a liaison between the domain bureaucracy and radical elements among the young, lower-echelon Chōshū samurai who supported the Sonnō jōi movement. Coming under suspicion by the shogunate for his ties with Mito loyalists after the attempted assassination of Andō Nobumasa, he was transferred to Kyōto. However, while in Kyōto, he was unable to prevent the 30 September 1863 coup d'état by the forces of the Aizu and Satsuma domains, who drove the Chōshū forces out of the city.
According to his personal diary regarding the Ikedaya incident, Katsura was at the loyalist meeting with the Ishin Shishi at the Ikedaya inn in the evening on July 8, 1864, he claimed that they had only met to discuss how to rescue Furutaka Shuntaro from the Shinsengumi. Katsura later left the inn earlier, before the attack by the Shinsengumi troops on that night.
However, there were rumors varied that Katsura was tipped off by his geisha lover Ikumatsu (幾松), that the Shinsengumi were coming for him and wisely chose not show up for the meeting, or that he climbed out the window of the upper floor of the inn during the attack by the Shinsengumi and escaped over the roofs.
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Kido Takayoshi
Kido Takayoshi (木戸 孝允; born Wada Kogorō (和田 小五郎); August 11, 1833 – May 26, 1877), formerly known as Katsura Kogorō (桂 小五郎), was a Japanese statesman, samurai and shishi who is considered one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration.
Born Wada Kogorō on August 11, 1833 in Hagi, Chōshū Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) as the son of a samurai physician Wada Masakage (和田 昌景) and his second wife Seiko (清子). In 1840, due to his brother-in-law already being the head of the Wada family, he was later adopted into the Katsura family at age seven and was known as Katsura Kogorō (桂 小五郎).
The Katsura family's stipend was originally 150 koku, but due to the late nature of his adoption which took place as his adoptive father Katsura Takako (桂 孝古) was already on his deathbed, who died ten days later, it was reduced to 90 koku. Katsura Kogorō thus became the head of the Katsura family. A year later in 1841, his adoptive mother also died, months later he was returned to his old home. In 1848, he lost his mother and elder half-sister Yaeko to illnesses.
Katsura was educated at Meirinkan, in which he later became increasingly unhappy with and defied his father in order to be educated at Shōka Sonjuku in 1849, the academy of Yoshida Shōin, from whom he adopted the philosophy of Imperial loyalism. In 1851, his father had died.
In 1852, Katsura went to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to study swordsmanship, established ties with radical samurai from the Mito Domain (present-day Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture), learned artillery techniques with Egawa Tarōzaemon, and (after observing the construction of foreign ships in Nagasaki and Shimoda), returned to Chōshū to supervise the construction of the domain's first western-style warship.
After 1858, Katsura Kogorō was based at the domain's Edo residence, where he served as a liaison between the domain bureaucracy and radical elements among the young, lower-echelon Chōshū samurai who supported the Sonnō jōi movement. Coming under suspicion by the shogunate for his ties with Mito loyalists after the attempted assassination of Andō Nobumasa, he was transferred to Kyōto. However, while in Kyōto, he was unable to prevent the 30 September 1863 coup d'état by the forces of the Aizu and Satsuma domains, who drove the Chōshū forces out of the city.
According to his personal diary regarding the Ikedaya incident, Katsura was at the loyalist meeting with the Ishin Shishi at the Ikedaya inn in the evening on July 8, 1864, he claimed that they had only met to discuss how to rescue Furutaka Shuntaro from the Shinsengumi. Katsura later left the inn earlier, before the attack by the Shinsengumi troops on that night.
However, there were rumors varied that Katsura was tipped off by his geisha lover Ikumatsu (幾松), that the Shinsengumi were coming for him and wisely chose not show up for the meeting, or that he climbed out the window of the upper floor of the inn during the attack by the Shinsengumi and escaped over the roofs.
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