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Japanese samurai

'''Takasugi Shinsaku''' (高杉 晋作) was a samurai from the Chōshū Domain of Japan who contributed significantly to the Meiji Restoration. He used several aliases to hide his activities from the Tokugawa shogunate.

Takasugi Shinsaku was born in the castle town Hagi, the capital of the Chōshū Domain (present day Yamaguchi Prefecture) as the first son of Takasugi Kochūta, a middle ranked samurai of the domain and his mother Michi (道). He would have three younger sisters by the name of Tomo (智), Sachi (幸) and Mei (明). He had smallpox at the age of ten, but fortunately he had recovered from it. Takasugi joined the Shōka Sonjuku, the famous private school of Yoshida Shōin. Takasugi devoted himself to the modernization of Chōshū's military, and became a favorite student of Yoshida. In 1858, he entered the Shōheikō (a military school under direct control of the shōgun at Edo). When his teacher was arrested during the Ansei Purge in 1859, Takasugi visited him in jail. Shōin was later executed on 21 November 1859. In December 1859 he returned home by the clan's command. In January 1860, Takasugi married 高杉雅子 (1845–1922), the second daughter of Yamaguchi retainer and magistrate Inoue Heiemon who was also the friend of his father. Masa was said to be the most beautiful lady in Suō and Nagato provinces. Their marriage was arranged by his parents, with hope that he would take his mind off of his teacher's death in 1859 and to settle down with his new bride. However, in April 1861, Takasugi would leave his home and undertake naval training on the clan's warship Heishinmaru, and travelled to Edo. Later in September he went to study at the Tōhoku region, and there he was associated with Sakuma Shōzan and Yokoi Shōnan.

Takasugi, in spite of his young age, was an influential factor within Chōshū as one of the most extreme advocates of a policy of seclusion and expelling the foreigners from Japan. In spite of Japan's policy of national isolation in the Edo period, in 1862 Takasugi was ordered by the domain to go secretly to Shanghai in Great Qing Empire to investigate the state of affairs and the strength of the Western powers. Takasugi's visit coincided with the Taiping Rebellion, and he was shocked by the effects of European imperialism even on the Chinese Empire. Takasugi returned to Japan convinced that Japan must strengthen itself to avoid being colonized by the western powers, or to suffer a similar fate as the Qing Empire. This coincided with the growing Sonnō Jōi ('expel the barbarians and revere the Emperor') movement, which attracted certain radical sections of Japan's warrior class and court nobility, and Takasugi's ideas found ready support in Chōshū and other parts of Japan. Takasugi was implicated in the 31 January 1863 attack on the British legation in Edo.

Takasugi originated the revolutionary idea of auxiliary irregular militia (shotai). Under the feudal system, only the samurai class was allowed to own weapons. Takasugi promoted the recruitment of commoners into new, socially mixed paramilitary units. In these units, neither recruitment nor promotion depended (at least in theory), on social status. Farmers, merchants, carpenters and even sumo wrestlers and Buddhist priests were enlisted, although samurai still formed the majority in most of the Shotai. Takasugi clearly saw that utilization of the financial wealth of the middle class merchants and farmers could increase the military strength of the domain, without weakening its finances. Since the leaders of Chōshū were unable and unwilling to change the social structure of the domain, limited use of peasants and commoners enabled them to form a new type of military without disturbing the traditional society. In June 1863, Takasugi himself founded a special Shotai unit under his direct command called the Kiheitai, which consisted of 300 soldiers (about half of whom were samurai). Later on, while hiding away from assassins, he encountered a shamisen playing geisha named O Uno (1843–1909) at a brothel Sakai ya in Akamaseki, Shimonoseki and went into a relationship with her.

After Chōshū fired upon Western warships in the Straits of Shimonoseki on 25 June 1863, British, French, Dutch and American naval forces bombarded Shimonoseki, the main port of the Chōshū domain the following summer in what was later called the Bombardment of Shimonoseki. Takasugi was put in charge of the defense of Shimonoseki. An anti Chōshū coup in Kyoto in the 18 August 1863 threatened to jeopardize Chōshū's leading role in national politics, and Chōshū was ousted by a coalition of the Satsuma and Aizu in the imperial court. Following the vertical align=sup on 16 August which involved a conflict between the Chōshū's forces Kiheitai and Senkitai (撰鋒隊) at the Kyohoji temple which left two people dead, Hikosuke Miyagi, who was an inspecting officer of the Kiheitai, was forced to commit seppuku at the temple on 27 August. Although Takasugi narrowly escaped the seppuku, he was held liable for the incident and was dismissed as the leader of the Kiheitai, only about two months after its formation. The Kiheitai was taken over by Kawakami Yaichi and Taki Yataro, followed by Akane Taketo and Yamagata Aritomo on October. In February 1864, Takasugi tried to dissuade Kijima Matabei from his plan to fight Satsuma and Aizu in Kyoto, but failed and then left the domain to hide in Kyoto himself. He was persuaded by Katsura Kogorō to return, but upon arrival he was put in Noyama Goku Prison for the charge of leaving the domain. He was later released in July and ordered to confine himself at home. In September 1864, a fleet of warships of British, French, Dutch and American naval forces attacked Shimonoseki again and occupied the gun battery there. This was followed by the landing of French marines. Their fighting against Chōshū units demonstrated the inferiority of traditional Japanese troops against a Western army, and convinced the leaders of the domain of the absolute necessity for a thorough military reform. Chōshū soon had no choice but to call on Takasugi again. Shinsaku was then forgiven and put in charge of peace negotiations. The Chōshū domain's administration called on Takasugi not only to carry out this reform as ‘Director of Military Affairs’, but he only 25 years of age was also entrusted with negotiating peace with the four Western powers. In view of the humiliation of Chōshū forces against the Western powers, Takasugi had come to the realization that direct confrontation with the foreigners was not an option. Instead, Japan had to learn military tactics, techniques and technologies from the West. Takasugi reorganized his Kiheitai militia into a rifle unit with the latest modern rifles, and introduced training in Western strategy and tactics. Moreover, Takasugi used his influence with the Sonnô Jôi movement to promote a more a conciliatory policy towards the West and thus, the ‘movement to expel the barbarians and revere the Emperor’ evolved into an anti Bakufu movement with the overthrow of the Tokugawa bakufu as a necessary means to strengthen Japan against the foreigners. Weakened by the punitive attack by the Western powers, Chōshū was unable to withstand the expedition mounted by the Bakufu in autumn 1864 in retaliation for previous Chōshū attempts to seize control of Kyoto. At first, conservative forces, which favored conciliation with the Bakufu in order to secure the domain, were dominant in Chōshū politics, and Takasugi and some of his compatriots had to leave the domain to avoid renewed imprisonment. Takasugi, with only about a dozen followers, including future political leaders Yamagata Aritomo, Itō Hirobumi and Inoue Kaoru, gathered in Kokura in Kyūshū and prepared an attack on the conservative forces in Chōshū. The subsequent Chōshū civil war began on 13 January 1865. Takasugi played a major role in this civil war and his former Kiheitai militia proved its superiority over old fashioned samurai forces. With a series of quick strikes and the support of Katsura Kogorō, Takasugi achieved victory by March 1865. He became one of the main arbiters of the Chōshū domain's policy and continued to act as the domain's expert on Western military science, devoting his efforts to importing arms and raising troops. These reforms proved to be successful when Chōshū was victorious on four fronts against the Bakufu's Second Chōshū expedition on 7 June 1866, with the Kiheitai itself securing victory on two fronts. Takasugi's efforts had made a small scale 'nation in arms' out of Chōshū, giving it a military strength out of proportion to its relatively small size. With its victory over the Tokugawa forces, the military power of the Bakufu was discredited, and traditionally rival domains decided to join forces with Chōshū in the subsequent battles which eventually led to the end of the Tokugawa bakufu and the start of the Meiji Restoration in 1868.