Pathway to Japanese Literature

Tsuge Shirozaemon was my father.
(Who I am will become clear below.) Yet that name likely rings in people's ears as nothing but an empty proper noun.
This was only natural.
Even if they claimed he died without contributing anything to the world—rotted away like common weeds—I could not refute it.

Still, were I to append one phrase here, people might at least murmur, "Ah, so that's it."
That phrase runs thus:
"Tsuge Shirozaemon was the man who took Yokoi Shōnan's head."

Just as people knew nothing of my father, everyone knew Yokoi Shōnan.
Everyone knew Master Shōnan of Kumamoto.

From my perspective—whereas the Yokoi house stood graced with honor and auspiciousness—the Tsuge house remained marked by disgrace and calamity; I could not help but lament this.

How had this reversal of fortune arisen, with its accompanying obscurity and prominence?
I wanted to investigate it thoroughly and clear my father’s false charge.

During the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, public discourse had split into Revere the Emperor and Support the Shogunate.
All who valued moral principles aligned themselves with Revere the Emperor.
At that time, Revere the Emperor came inseparably paired with Expel the Barbarians, while Support the Shogunate was championed alongside Open the Country.
Neither pairing could be conceived of if separated into their individual components.

I would say they could not be conceived of separately.
This speaks from the perspective of group psychology.

From the grand course of history, opening the country was an unavoidable matter.
Expelling the barbarians was an impossibility.
Those with wisdom knew that.
They knew it and kept it secret.
For there was no better way to deal the final blow to the declining shogunate than to hold it accountable through the impossible task of Expelling the Barbarians.
This secret had not in the slightest penetrated the group psychology of the time.

Opening the country was an unavoidable matter.
The reason it was unavoidable was that the European countries and America—then regarded as foreign barbarians—possessed cultures superior to our own.
Those with wisdom knew that.
Yokoi Shōnan was one of the earliest to know that.
My father was one who never came to know that until the end of his life.

In Kōka 4 (1847), Yokoi's older brother fell ill.
Yokoi entrusted the treatment to a Dutch-style physician named Fukuma.
At the time, Yokoi—who associated with Motoda Nagazane and others while running a private academy teaching Cheng-Zhu studies—relied on European medical techniques when having his biological older brother's illness treated.
This occurred when Yokoi was thirty-nine years old.

In the fifth year of Kaei (1852), when Ikebe Keita taught Dutch gunnery in Kumamoto, Yokoi dispatched his disciples to receive training.
Ikebe was a disciple of Takashima Shūhan from Nagasaki—a man confined alongside him when Takashima fell under suspicion and was summoned to Edo.
Yokoi knew Europe surpassed Japan in both weapons and their operational techniques.
This occurred when Yokoi was forty-four years old.

The following year when Yokoi turned forty-five, Perry came to Yokohama.
Yokoi began to perceive the necessity of opening the country.
In the first year of Ansei (1854), at forty-six years old, he went to Nagasaki in an attempt to meet with the Russian envoy.
During his absence, Yoshida Shōin came to visit, left a letter, and departed.
A current of understanding gradually began to flow between one wise man and another.
The following year, when he was forty-seven years old, a disciple who had been dispatched to Nagasaki became acquainted with Katsu Yoshikuni, who had come to study naval matters, and Katsu and Yokoi began to communicate.
This too was an exchange of wise men.
In the second year of Keiō (1866), at fifty-eight years old, Yokoi dispatched his two nieces, Satahira and Taihei, to America.
It was to have them study naval matters.
All these travelers to the West were Yokoi’s brother’s children; later, the elder brother came to be called Ise Tarō, and the younger brother Numakawa Saburō.
Since Yokoi had initially inherited his older brother’s household, he relinquished that household to Ise Tarō (formerly Satahira).

Wise men existed both among the Revere the Emperor faction and within the Support the Shogunate faction.
However, the wise men of the Revere the Emperor faction strove to obscure the light of their wisdom.
Because obscuring it was advantageous in controlling the majority.
The reason the necessity of opening the country failed to permeate group psychology was that the secret of wisdom had been well preserved.
What presented the circumstances of this period like a drame, contemplatively refined and demonstrated, was the story of Iwakura Tomomi and Tamamatsu Misao—written by Inoue Kowashi within the Goin Zankō.
Since this has even been excerpted in textbooks, there is likely no need to repeat it here now.
Then how was that secret preserved?
How did the "hidden back door" of Iwakura Village's seclusion remain unnoticed by people's eyes and ears?
That was because the majority were foolish.

I must, regrettably, acknowledge that my father was foolish. Father was foolish. However, in defense of my father, I wish to present two facts. The first is that my father was a young man; the second is that his social standing was low.

When my father was born, the wise man Yokoi Shōnan was forty years old. He went to Edo for study at thirty-one and returned to Kumamoto at thirty-two. Returning from Edo at that time was the same as returning from foreign study today. When my father stabbed Yokoi, Yokoi was sixty-one years old and held the prominent position of Senior Councillor. Father was a twenty-two-year-old wandering youth.

Though Yokoi Shōnan came from a house with less than two hundred koku in stipend, he was nevertheless born into the Hosokawa family's magistrate lineage, while Father was born as the son of a village headman in Okayama.
When Iki Wakasa became Governor-General of Bitchū and Echizen Pacification, Father encountered much resistance even in attempting to join the ranks of the Yūsentai Brave Combat Unit.

Human wisdom develops with age. Even if Father was not a born wise man, the scant wisdom he did possess may have ended before it could develop. Moreover, human wisdom is supplemented through encounters. Even if Father was foolish, had he been able to associate with wise men, he might have devised something on his own. Even if Father lacked the makings of a prophet, that he ultimately could neither join the ranks of the consacrés nor glimpse the era's hidden truths—was this not due simply to his lowly station? People may say "Our family’s Buddha is most sacred," but I cannot refrain from entertaining such thoughts.

My family had served for generations as village headmen of Ukita Village in Kamidō District, Bizen Province.
Ukita Village was anciently called Numamura, and there lies the site of Ukita Naoie’s castle.
In the land where remnants of that castle moat still remained, the Tsuge family lived.
About three *ri* east of Okayama lay a rural area with not a single thing to catch one’s eye.

My grandfather was called Village Headman Tsuge Ichirōzaemon.
In accordance with the custom common among old families, he married a daughter from a branch family of the same surname.
My grandmother’s name was Chiyo.
Chiyo had connections to the Ikeda family, lords of Bizen, and was said to hold the privilege of arriving by palanquin at the palace in Okayama.
I imagine she may have been a wet nurse.
From this couple was born my father.

Father was born in the second year of Kaei (1849). His childhood name was Shikata. This too followed old family custom—Shikata had wed while still a young child, yielding to his parents' wishes. He exchanged nuptial cups with a daughter of the Shiomi family called Take. It was likely in the fourth year of Kaei (1851), when Shikata was four years old and Take one year his senior at five, I imagine.

Shikata grew up amidst rumors of the "Black Ships" in turbulent times.
If one listened to the conversations of guests who came to Ichirōzaemon’s home, their words would invariably include such-and-such a person being called "righteous" and another being labeled "obstinate."
Justice meant Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians; obstinacy meant Support the Shogunate, Open the Country.
Opening the country should have been a bold, progressive policy; yet it was called obstinate because they meant it signified submitting to foreign barbarians out of fear of their threats.
Behind this lay how Chinese history recorded those advocating peace with barbarians as treacherous ministers—this acted as réminiscence on a psychological level.
Behind the emotion of hating actual open-country advocates lurked hatred for historical figures like Qin Hui.
Shikata wished both to grow up quickly and to become a man of justice.

In the second year of Bunkyū (1862), at fifteen years old, Shikata underwent his genpuku coming-of-age ceremony and shaved off his forelock. A sturdy-framed, large-built youth appeared every inch the splendid adult with his hair tied in a chasenmage topknot. His common name became Shirozaemon; his formal adult name was declared as Masayoshi. That he was recorded merely as "Shirō" in official ledgers stemmed from deference—there already being someone called "Saemon" in the Ikeda family. Grandfather Ichirōzaemon too had been officially known simply as Ichirō in public records.

Shortly after his genpuku ceremony, Shikata and Take—who until then had been close to him like an elder sister—became true husband and wife. Around this time, Shikata entered as a live-in disciple under Abe Morie in Okayama to study swordsmanship. Abe was then renowned throughout Kansai as a master swordsman.

In the second month of Bunkyū 3, I was born.
Father Shirozaemon was sixteen years old, and Mother was seventeen.
I was called Shikata, inheriting Father’s childhood name.

In the winter of Keiō 3, the societal changes that had been brewing in recent years finally reached their culmination, and Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned the great governance and resigned from his position as shogun.

In Okayama, there was a loyalist named Iki Wakasa serving as senior retainer to the then domain lord Ikeda Echizen-no-kami Shigemasa, who had previously hosted such figures as Kōgawa Keizō of Mito, Kawada Sakuma of Inaba, and Katsura Kogorō of Nagato; thus, in the first month of Meiji 1 (1868), this Iki was appointed Governor-General of Bitchū and Echizen Pacification.

Iki had only three hundred soldiers at his disposal.
Since this was insufficient, Matsumoto Minosuke proposed a plan and first organized what was called the Yūsentai.
They recruited volunteers from among the samurai of Okayama Domain.
Shirozaemon immediately sought to join this effort, but as the son of a village headman of low status, he was rejected.

Before long, the Yūsentai had already been formed, and Norō Katsunoshin led it in setting out toward Matsuyama in Bitchū Province.
Not long after the unit had departed Okayama, when Norō happened to look ahead, he saw a man striding down the center of the road, slightly ahead of the unit’s vanguard.
He appeared to be leading the unit.
A large man with a sturdy frame, wearing an eboshi court cap on his head, clad in hitatare formal robes and sashinuki tied trousers, with a tachi long sword at his side.
Norō halted the unit’s march and had the man summoned.
The man announced himself as Abe Morie’s disciple Tsuge Shirozaemon, then addressed Norō as follows:
“I have long harbored the aspiration to revere the Emperor.
When the Yūsentai was formed this time, I earnestly wished to join its ranks and promptly volunteered, but they did not accept me on the grounds of being the son of a village headman.
However, seeing the unit’s gallant departure from afar, I could not bear to remain alone in Okayama. Thus I thought that if battle were to break out, I would offer my meager assistance, and so proceeded along the same highway.”
Norō, finding both his demeanor and speech intriguing, immediately requested Iki to enlist Shirozaemon into the ranks.
Shirozaemon was twenty-one years old at the time.

Though Matsuyama’s Itakura Iga-no-kami Katsushige held the position of Senior Councillor, he harbored no intention of defying the times or resisting the imperial forces; thus, Iki’s unit achieved their pacification objective without shedding blood.
Thereafter, the unit remained stationed in Matsuyama for approximately half a year until June, during which time Iki raised a second unit.
This was the Righteous Combat Unit commanded by Fujishima Seinosuke of Bitchū.

One day, it was decided that they would demonstrate their martial arts at a training ground outside the city, and the Bizen Group and Bitchū Group split off to compete in skills.
However, as skilled swordsmen were numerous in the Bitchū Group, the Bizen Group frequently suffered defeats.
At that time, Shirozaemon stepped forward and defeated several formidable opponents from the Bitchū Group.
Iki was pleased and presented Shirozaemon with the horse he had ridden there.
When the competition ended and they were returning, as Shirozaemon rode off on that horse, the people along the road mistook him for Iki and bowed in respect.

In June, Iki withdrew to Okayama with both the Brave Combat Unit and Righteous Combat Unit under his command.
Both units were quartered at Shōrinji Temple on Mount Sōzan in Kunitomi Village.
While performing his unit duties, Shirozaemon became a retainer to Iki Mokkou of the Iki branch family and instructed swordsmanship.

While serving in the Brave Combat Unit, Shirozaemon grew close with Ueda Tatsuo, who held duties akin to a staff officer under Fujishima Seinosuke of the Righteous Combat Unit.
Whenever they met, they would discuss Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians with fervor, perceiving traces of obstinacy in the court’s so-called “renewal of all things” measures and resenting foreigners’ undue reverence.
This stemmed from the Sanyo councilors’ ulterior motive toward opening the country that had gradually manifested in governance.

One day, the two men conferred together and resolved to renounce their domain affiliations and depart for Kyoto.
They would dwell together beneath the imperial canopy and closely scrutinize the government's institutions.
Within their hearts, an intent had already taken root at this early hour: should they trace misgovernment to its source and uncover traitors near the throne, they would swiftly purge them.

The two men arrived in Kyoto.
They now sought to determine which among the Sanyo councilors leaned toward Western barbarians.
What then appeared before their eyes as arch-traitor was Yokoi Heishirō - appointed chōshi official in March, arrived from Kumamoto, having served as System Bureau judge before ascending to Sanyo councilor.

Yokoi had long enjoyed the trust of Lord Matsudaira Yoshinaga of Echizen, advocated the Union of Court and Shogunate theory, and presented strategies for opening the country to Yoshinaga.
Additionally, through Ōkubo Kaname, a retainer of Osaka castellan Tsuchiya Umenosho Tadanao, he submitted a petition to Tokugawa Yoshinobu, and also through Fujita Seishin, submitted another petition to Mito Nariaki.
In society, his policy proposals were misrepresented—some claimed he had discussed deposing the emperor, while others alleged he had formed secret pacts with Western barbarians to publicly permit Christianity.

It was only natural that Yokoi, an advocate of the Union of Court and Shogunate theory, would appear gray in the eyes of pure loyalists; however, that he appeared pitch black had its own distinct origins. Yokoi was indeed a sage of his time, but his ideas were relatively simple—when presenting them, he neglected to take precautions to avoid public suspicion. From political history's perspective, Yokoi recognized republican governance's value and asserted it had existed centuries before Athens, as early as Yao and Shun's era.
"What is the ruler's heavenly duty?
Govern the people in Heaven's stead.
If one lacks heavenly virtue;
How can one satisfy Heaven’s mandate?
Thus Yao yielded to Shun.
This is truly the great sage."
This did not mean advocating republican governance's implementation in Japan.
Yokoi, having observed Christianity's remarkable effectiveness in unifying hearts across Europe and America, lamented the decline of Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
"In the West there exists true religion.
Its doctrine is founded upon God.
Precepts guide the people.
Encourage good and punish evil resolutely.
All people devoutly believe in it.
Establish laws and institutions based on its teachings.
Governance and teachings are inseparable.
Thus do people exert themselves."
This did not mean intending to spread Christianity in Japan.

The final stanza of this same poem also states: "Alas! The Way of Tang and Yu shines clear as morning skies after rain, yet we cast it aside unused, willingly becoming Western slaves." Yokoi was politically an imperial loyalist and ideologically a Confucian scholar. The heart that resented submitting to Western subjugation beat in perfect accord with *Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians* adherents. Yet loyalist advocates' ideology proved cruder still than Yokoi's own - this very simplicity bred their fatal misunderstanding.

That Yokoi had been branded traitor among activists predated these events. Six years earlier during Bunkyū 1 [1861], while serving as Edo caretaker official, assassins had stormed a Kofukuchō restaurant where he drank with Tsuzuki Shiro and Yoshida Heinosuke. Yoshida met the blades head-on - a deep shoulder wound claiming his life - while Yokoi slipped beneath assassins' sleeves to flee with Tsuzuki. Yoshida's son Imakuma later exacted vengeance by cutting down one assailant at Tsurusaki in Bungo Province. Upon returning to Kumamoto, Yokoi found his stipend revoked - official censure for that night's perceived cowardice.

Ueda Tatsuo and Shirozaemon resolved to bide their time and kill Yokoi.
However, Yokoi at that time was no longer just a domain samurai of six years prior.
He was now a high-ranking official of the imperial court, coming and going by palanquin.
Around him were disciples and attendants.
If they were to attack with just the two of them and fail, that would not do.
Therefore, they secretly searched among loyalist activists who had come to Kyoto and recruited four comrades.
One was Yanagida Tokuzō of Kōriyama Domain, another was Kashima Fukunojō of Owari Domain, and the remaining two were men from Totsukawa called Maeoka Rikio and Nakai Tonio.

Shirozaemon, under the alias Tsuchiya Nobuo, was hiding at the residence of Miyake Tensan in Tsutsumi-chō, south of Awata Shirakawa Bridge in Kyoto.
From time to time he met with seven comrades to discuss their so-called plans for eliminating traitors.
Yet Yokoi had injured his intestines and long ceased attending his duties.
When they prowled about the mansion to observe, they found only envoys from the Grand Council of State bearing large document boxes frequently coming and going.

The comrades even considered storming the mansion to attack.
However, Ueda, who controlled this secret society, refused.
For Yokoi knew full well he was despised by loyalist activists and had fortified his residence thoroughly.
Even with six men, breaching those defenses could not ensure success.

As year's end neared, Yokoi completely recovered and resumed daily official duties.
The comrades convened and resolved to act early the following year.
When plans were settled, Shirozaemon left for his hometown to make farewells.

Even after Shirozaemon went up to Kyoto, from the house in Ukita Village, Ichirōzaemon continually sent money via secret messengers.
The comrades’ meetings were deliberately held at teahouses in Gion Shinchi to deceive public attention, but it was mostly Shirozaemon who covered the expenses.
Fair-skinned, gentle and composed, Shirozaemon—who never compromised his decorum even when drinking sake—was said to be quite popular among the geisha and waitresses.

At a certain time, someone among the comrades said: “It’s pitiful to keep making Tsuge shoulder all the expenses like this. There are means to raise military funds. Why don’t we also try imitating others and threaten some misers?” At that moment, Shirozaemon sat up straight, looked around the group, and declared: “Our fellowship is one of justice. With lives that should be devoted to sovereign and country, we cannot engage in conduct befitting bandits. Even were I to perish without regard for my own flaws, I must not tarnish the name of my ancestors or bequeath shame to my descendants. I alone cannot consent,” he said.

It was a snowy night on New Year’s Eve.
From a certain Sugimoto—a relative of the Tsuge family who resided in the same Ukita Village—a messenger came to the Tsuge residence during their absence.
Because there was urgent business, he wished for all those present at home to gather and come secretly.
Ichirōzaemon and his wife wondered what this could mean, but to their daughter-in-law they simply instructed her to hurry and prepare.
While worrying that something might have befallen her husband, my twenty-two-year-old mother followed her grandparents and took me, then six years old, along with her.

The one waiting at the Sugimoto residence was Father Shirozaemon.
Because I was young, I could not even clearly recall what sort of countenance Father had.
I only faintly remember him saying, “There you are,” then smiling and patting my head.
To his parents and mother, he had reportedly said that because his stay had grown too long, he had returned briefly to meet them.
Father departed Ukita Village before daybreak and hurriedly returned to Kyoto.

It was the afternoon of January 5, Meiji 2 (1869).
The palanquin of Yokoi Shōnan, who had left the Grand Council of State, approached the area south of Goryo Shrine in Teramachi.
On both sides of the palanquin walked disciples Yokoyama Sukenojō and Shimotsu Shikanosuke.
The two retainers, Ueno Tomojirō and Matsumura Kansaburō, were accompanied by sandal bearers in their attendance.
Suddenly, a gunshot rumbled through the heavy air of the overcast day, and from the eaves of a certain townhouse, five or six samurai emerged with drawn swords.
They were Ueda and his comrades.
The pistol had been fired by Nakai into the air—intentionally—to intimidate the palanquin bearers and retainers.

The palanquin bearers abandoned the palanquin and fled.
Yokoi’s disciples Yokoyama and Shimotsu—having anticipated disturbances along the way—had selected men skilled in martial arts to accompany them; therefore, they drew their swords and confronted the attackers.
Yokoyama crossed blades with Kashima, while Shimotsu clashed with Yanagida.
Maeoka and Nakai held off the retainers, preventing them from closing in.

As Ueda and Shirozaemon stood back observing, Yokoi emerged from the palanquin.
An elderly man among samurai recruited from various domains, he had bound his thinning white hair into a topknot.
He was sixty-one years old that year.
Showing not a trace of panic, he gripped an unsheathed dagger in his right hand and coldly surveyed his assailants.
Yokoi had always relished swordsmanship.
Seven years prior in Shinagawa, he had fled assassins only when escape remained feasible.
Now judging flight impossible, he resolved to fight to the last.

Ueda said “There,” signaling Shirozaemon with a meaningful look.
Shirozaemon launched his attack aiming for a single decisive strike.
However, Yokoi did not allow him to close in easily; facing Shirozaemon—who prided himself on his swordsmanship—they exchanged fourteen or fifteen blows.
This dagger remains preserved in the Yokoi family to this day, its blade chipped into a shape resembling a bamboo rake.

While Yokoi was parrying Shirozaemon’s blade, Yokoyama slashed Kashima’s forehead with a single stroke.
Because blood flowed into his eyes, Kashima leaped back two or three steps.
As Yokoyama moved in to finish him off, Ueda saw this and launched a slashing attack from the side.
Because the momentum proved too ferocious, Yokoyama—despite having inflicted a minor wound on Ueda’s arm—drew back his blade and fled.
Ueda gave chase and, with a single stroke to Yokoyama’s occiput, withdrew.

Shirozaemon met unexpected resistance and erupted in rage; against his fiercely swung blade, Yokoi at last had his dagger struck down.
Shirozaemon swiftly closed in, pinned Yokoi down, seized his topknot, and severed his head.

Shirozaemon shouted “Withdraw!”, then dashed off clutching Yokoi’s head in his left hand.
The townspeople of Teramachi Street and passersby had been fearfully encircling the clashing group to watch, but when they saw Shirozaemon approaching with a bloodied sword and fresh-severed head, they instantly cleared the path.

At this moment, Yokoi’s disciple Shimotsu—though Yanagida had initially slashed his forehead with a single stroke—refused to yield; after a fierce struggle, he brought his blade down in one deep cut across Yanagida’s shoulder.
Yanagida, unable to endure the pain of his wounds, collapsed heavily to the ground.
Shimotsu, upon seeing Shirozaemon take his teacher’s head and flee, abandoned Yanagida and gave chase after Shirozaemon.

At the very moment Shimotsu began pursuing Shirozaemon, Ueno—one among the retainers being restrained by Maeoka and Nakai—broke free and dashed out alongside Shimotsu.

Ueno’s legs were faster than Shimotsu’s, so he nearly caught up to Shirozaemon. As he turned back, Shirozaemon hurled the head at Ueno. The head struck Ueno’s right arm with great force. In the moment Ueno faltered, Shirozaemon escaped.

In the wake of Ueno pursuing Shirozaemon, the retainers were cut down by Maeoka and Nakai, retreating step by step. Maeoka and Nakai, having seen Shirozaemon cut down Yokoi, changed direction and fled. Kashima, whose forehead had been slashed by Yokoyama, and Ueda too seized the opportunity to flee. Of the comrades, the sole one remaining at the scene was Yanagida—severely wounded.

As Ueno—who had picked up the head thrown by Shirozaemon—returned to his teacher's corpse alongside Shimotsu, Yokoyama also came back.
From within the surrounding crowd emerged other attendants who, assisting Shimotsu and the others, placed the corpse—its head separated from the body—into the palanquin.
It was at this moment that police officers maintaining citywide vigilance arrived in force, arrested Yanagida, and took him away.

Shirozaemon dashed through the city in one breath; upon reaching the rice field path, he washed his sword's blood in a roadside stream and sheathed it, then changed course toward Miyake Sakon's house in Saga.
Sakon was the swordsman Shirozaemon had befriended at Miyake Tensan's residence.
Behind Sakon's dwelling stood a small liquor shop.
There Shirozaemon purchased one shō of sake, grasped the flask in hand, and entered through a back gate hidden within bamboo thickets.
After Shirozaemon's capture and death, this flask would be wrapped in purple crepe silk and reverently stored at Sakon's home—or so the accounts tell.

Yanagida, having been captured, did not utter a single word, and the judges tasked with interrogating him did not attempt to press him harshly; thus, the names of their comrades remained unknown for some time. However, people who had associated with Yanagida were gradually summoned, and among them, some were imprisoned.

Shirozaemon went out into the city every day, wanting to learn whether Yanagida had survived or died and what people had been arrested; he made inquiries in all quarters. That Yanagida was suffering from severe wounds yet had not died, and that he had not revealed his comrades' names—these matters became topics of discussion throughout the city. Those who were summoned and detained at government offices or arrested and imprisoned were largely individuals renowned in society for advocating "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians." Among them, the most renowned was Nakazuiumsai of Izumi, who was imprisoned along with his first son Katsumi, second son Kanae, and third son Takeru. Izumo’s Kanemoto Kenzo, Totsukawa’s Masuda Jiro, Shimousa’s Koyasu Riheiji, and Echigo’s Okuma Kumaji were also imprisoned. Among Shirozaemon’s fellow townsmen, Kaishima Jūrōzaemon was summoned; after undergoing questioning, he was immediately released. Kaishima was a man who ran a traveler’s inn called Yoshidaya in Okayama Kamiyamachi and had a reputation for aiding loyalist activists.

The prevailing opinion in the city mostly sympathized with the comrades, instead showing a tendency to condemn the crimes of the slain Yokoi.
Yanagida’s silence was praised.
How well the comrades had guarded their secrets, how thoroughly they had concealed all traces—this was met with astonishment.
This was due in part to the influence of documents that had been posted at street corners two or three days after Yokoi’s killing.
As for whose hand had produced this document, even the comrades had no knowledge; yet upon examining its text, it appeared not to be some malicious prank like those satirical lampoons of old, but rather something intended wholly to protect their cause.
The police soon went around stripping off the posted notices, but there were no small number of copies that had been made and circulated throughout the city.
The document reads as follows.

“On the fifth day of this month, there appeared one who carried out the assassination of Senior Councillor Yokoi Shōnan in Teramachi—a deed done in broad daylight.
One has been bound, and the remaining conspirators are said to be under rigorous pursuit.
As for those who slay traitors—though I do not yet know their identities—I perceive their act to have arisen wholly from utmost patriotic sincerity.
That Yokoi Shōnan’s treachery is known throughout the realm.
Initially groveling before the old shogunate, he audaciously advocated the deposed emperor theory, seeking to endanger the heavenly sun’s unbroken lineage through ten thousand ages.
Moreover, he has framed and slandered loyal patriots to their deaths, colluded of late with foreign barbarians, and pledged to spread Christianity throughout the Divine Realm.
Moreover, he has sought to discard the military preparedness that the imperial court deems urgent.
As for the rest of his crimes, they are too numerous to enumerate one by one.
At this very hour when the Restoration of Imperial Rule has renewed all under heaven and drawn the gaze of all nations, this arch-traitor has entrenched himself at the vital crossroads of power: subverting the court’s laws, undermining the throne’s authority, throwing the imperial domain into disarray—seeking to reduce our august Divine Realm, in all its splendor, to a vassal state of unsightly barbarians no better than dogs and sheep.
Those men could not tolerate this with leniency; thus they had no choice but to resort to assassination.
Their heroic resolve and daring could be compared to the Sakuradamon Incident.
Therefore, there exists none possessed of even a shred of righteous spirit who would not proclaim this act joyous.
Such disturbances arise from the obstruction of the people’s sentiments.
Though orders were previously issued to open channels of public discourse, they remained but empty proclamations devoid of substance.
Those loyal and upright are dismissed as obstinate; arch-traitors like Shōnan who slander the imperial court are instead appointed; like attracts like, the polity crumbles, and foreign barbarians grow ever more rampant.
Although men of purpose, unable to bear their anxieties, have repeatedly presented upright arguments and forthright remonstrances, the fog and mist are dense; not a single proposal has been adopted.
They resolutely struck down the arch-traitor and compelled the imperial court to reflect.
This is precisely what is meant by arising from the obstruction of the people’s sentiments.
We earnestly entreat that the imperial court may take cognizance of these truths, issue an imperial edict to solicit forthright counsel from both government and populace, expel treacherous officials, appoint loyal and upright men, eradicate heterodox doctrines, and illuminate the great principles of governance.
As for those who slay traitors, their intentions should be praised; without disputing their deeds, infer their true purpose, do not question their names—they must be swiftly pardoned.

If this indeed comes to pass, not only will the national polity be preserved and foreign contempt eradicated, but scholars throughout the realm will submit in admiration of the imperial court’s swift rectification of errors, and acts of slaying traitors shall likewise cease. Otherwise, treacherous ministers will fill the court, imperial authority will unravel, internal troubles and foreign threats will converge, until the government becomes indistinguishable from that declining shogunate. Hereupon, patriotic men shall resolutely rise up, eradicate all traitors, and leave not a single remnant. This is not the path by which to maintain the imperial court’s prestige. May the Imperial Ancestors and Heavenly Deities bear witness on high. As for the merits and demerits of our argument—need we even debate them? Let those who side with us await our summons and assemble at Mount Hiei. Let us together deliberate upon this grand strategy to restore order. "Meiji 2, Spring, First Month of the King’s Reign, The Sorrowful Sons of Great Japan."

To this notice was further affixed a slip of paper bearing the inscription: "Having been ordered to display [this proclamation] for the aforementioned three days, any who presumptuously remove it shall be summarily executed."
This was something copied and preserved by Abe Morie—Shirozaemon’s swordsmanship instructor, who later served at the Board of Censors—from among official documents.

On the fourteenth day of the first month—nine days after killing Yokoi—Shirozaemon went to visit his acquaintance Kondo Jubei in Shinshu, who had become a government official, to inquire about rumors circulating in official circles. While he was there, police officers stormed in and arrested both host and guest.
This occurred because Ueda had been captured together with Kashima at the foot of Mount Koya, leading to the arrest of his close friend Shirozaemon.
When Kaishima was first summoned, the judges interrogated him about loyalist activists from Bizen, but Kaishima evaded questions to prevent suspicion from falling upon Ueda and the others.
However, once Ueda—bearing sword wounds on his arm—was arrested, Kaishima’s meticulous efforts proved futile.

After Shirozaemon was arrested, following an interval of one day, Yanagida died from his wounds on the sixteenth. As the prison still observed the lingering customs of the former shogunate, his corpse was preserved in salt. After Ueda and Shirozaemon were arrested, Matsumoto Minosuke—who had organized the Loyalist Brigade in Bizen—was imprisoned, and Saitō Naohiko, a retainer of chief councilor Tocura Sazan who had participated in this, underwent interrogation.

As for the courtroom proceedings of that time—there being no credible records and those involved having died—I do not know the details, but among the judges there were apparently those who sympathized with the comrades and refrained from harsh measures. I also heard there was a woman named Kaoruko who tried to secure Shirozaemon’s pardon through mediation. In my childhood imagination—having heard of a woman who tried to save my father who had been imprisoned for serving His Majesty—I pictured her as a court lady with bobbed hair wearing crimson hakama trousers. But in truth, I do not know what standing this woman actually held. Later, around Meiji 11 or 12, Kaoruko apparently came to Okayama where she gathered people to lecture on revering deities and honoring the emperor while composing poems for them—so I’ve heard—but by then I was no longer in Okayama.

I was told that my father Shirozaemon was executed by decapitation on October 10, 1870.
Out of deference to the authorities, no grave was erected.
For me, there exists no grave for my father to which I might offer incense and flowers.
I no longer remember now, but when I heard the news of my father’s death, I apparently asked how he had died.
Mother answered me that he had been executed.
If I were to be executed, there would be enemies; declaring that I would strike down those enemies thus, I leapt into the garden and broke a gardenia branch with my wooden sword.
Mother was apparently so startled by this that she thereafter ceased speaking of Father within my earshot.

After Father died, Grandfather lost his vigor and ceased overseeing the tenant farmers who managed our fields.
The harvest gradually diminished, the household grew poor, and in the end, Mother and I were left behind as a nearly destitute widow and orphan.
It was not merely that we were a widow and orphan.
We are the wife and children of an ex-convict.
We are social outcasts.

Mother raised me and, to send me—gradually growing up—to school, endured hardships that ground her to dust.

Thanks to my mother, I managed to enroll at Tokyo Imperial University, but due to various obstacles, I dropped out halfway through.
I do not wish to enumerate those obstacles now and make some feeble justification.
However, the one thing I must state is this fact: that from my earliest years, driven by a fervent desire to clear the false charges against my executed father, I found myself unable to devote myself wholeheartedly to scholarly pursuits.

Someone might perhaps say that devoting oneself to scholarship, achieving renown, and restoring our house would be the very means to clear my father’s name. But this is mere sophistry. Tormented day and night over my deceased father, I found myself unable to immerse my thoughts in academic pursuits. The cool power of reason proved far too feeble to suppress my blazing emotions.

Father killed a man. That is an evil deed. Yet had the slain been a villain—one condemned as such for all posterity—the killing might have been justified. Alas, the victim was no villain. Looking back now, none would call him evil. Then did Father slay an innocent? No—Father killed one he himself deemed villainous. Nor was this judgment his alone. One might say society at large then branded him thus. The measure of good and evil shifts with time and place. The father of that age slew the villain of that age. Why then must that father face execution? Why must his wife and child be cast into shadow? These endless chains of thought—tautological, viciously circular—twined about my spirit like spider’s threads, compelling me to shut half-read scrolls and abandon brushes mid-stroke.

After giving up my studies, I took my place among lower-ranking civil servants and obtained a salary barely sufficient to keep mother and child fed. From then on, as the duties I undertook were confined to mechanical mental toil, I resolved to devote all my strength to clearing my father’s false charges. However, this proved a task beyond all comparison in its difficulty.

I first endeavored to learn my father’s conduct in as much detail as possible.
This was because I firmly believed my father had been a good man, and I thought that the more precisely his conduct became known, the greater his honor would grow.
Every time I obtained leave, I traveled and traversed all lands marked by my father’s footsteps.
Whenever there were people who had known my father or heard of him—regardless of distance—I visited and listened to their stories.
Yet fifty years had already passed since my father’s death.
Though mountains and rivers remained unchanged, old roads had vanished, new roads opened, and fields transformed into residential districts.
People too were altered.
Of course those who knew my father were gone; those who had even heard of him were vanishingly rare, and the few who still survived could only lament their clouded memories and failing ears.

What I have recounted thus far are fragmentary facts collected in this manner and arbitrarily pieced together. There may be errors in transmission, mishearings in listening. Moreover, it cannot be denied that in my unwitting moments, my imagination may have asserted its authority, conjuring substance from void. However, broadly speaking, I believe I can affirm such things. My expectation did not deceive me. My expectation was not born of prejudice. My father is a good man. He was a man who valued moral integrity. He was a loyalist. He was a patriot. He was a man who possessed something more precious than life and property. He was an idealist.

I believed this and, in doing so, found a measure of solace.
Yet at the same time, I cannot help but acknowledge that Father was an unenlightened man who failed to discern the currents of his age—that he was a fool.
I cannot help but lament Father’s want of innate talent and mourn that there was none to enlighten him.
This stands as my final judgment.
This constitutes the critical commentary to accompany Father’s biography.

I extend my gratitude here to all those who told me about my father.
One of the principal figures was the widow Kaikan no Toji.
By virtue of a woman’s inherent disposition—her delicate nerves responding to minute stimuli—she preserved memories others had forgotten, and through this widow, I received numerous details about my father’s life history.
The other was Takehiko-kun, successor to Mr. Miyake, who recognized my father during his wandering exile and kept him hidden in his house for an extended period.
I shall next enumerate the names of two individuals who defended my father.
They are Mr. Niwa Hiroto and Mr. Suzuki Mui.
Mr. Niwa was a senior retainer of Bizen and a person who held a stipend of three thousand koku.
He said thus:
“To blame Shirozaemon as an unenlightened man is too harsh.
At that time, Japan was under national isolation, and Bizen was a realm of isolation within that isolation.
The people of Okayama could not set foot beyond their domain’s borders.
When the young men grew lonely for women, they would go to Miyauchi, located about one ri west of Okayama.
However, even when treated rudely by others, they could not reprimand them.
For to reprimand them would expose that they themselves had crossed into Bitchū Province.
It is unreasonable to blame those young men for not being versed in the world’s general trends.
When I was in Kyoto, there was a time I attempted to stab a certain person.
However, hindered by circumstances, I returned to Okayama without accomplishing it.
Since he was of relatively good standing, he was appointed as a minor official.
He then associated with influential figures and gradually came to hear about foreign affairs.
I do not presume to consider myself a wise man, but I maintain there should be no distinction between myself and Shirozaemon.”

Mr. Suzuki was a scholar versed in both classical and foreign texts, a man who had collaborated with Mr. Arao Sei and others on affairs of state.
He conveyed this message to me:
"I knew Shirozaemon."
"Shirozaemon was no unenlightened man."
"There existed just cause for striking down Yokoi," he had declared.
Yet before I could meet him, Mr. Suzuki passed away.
What arguments he might have possessed remain unknown to me, but I cannot escape this sense of profound loss.

I did not merely content myself with investigating Father's deeds.
To actively cleanse the mud smeared upon his name—to clear Father's wrongful charges—this had been my desire since childhood.
When young, I thought thus:
Father served His Majesty the Emperor.
They killed him for it.
I believed I must kill those who had killed him.

As I grew somewhat older, I learned that it was not a person but the law that had killed Father.
At that moment, I felt as though I had lost the target I had been aiming at.
I felt as though my own life had become meaningless.
I remember how this discovery tormented me for many months and years.

After enduring this internal struggle, I stood dazed for a time—but as equilibrium of thought was gradually restored, the proactive means for vindication I had long embraced now rose into my consciousness, entirely transformed in nature.
I resolved to somehow have my deceased father receive the imperial court’s grace.
When the Restoration of Imperial Rule came to pass, Father was among the first to rise and devote himself to imperial affairs.
He killed that man because their political opinions were incompatible.
The slain are sacrifices to political strife.
If we consider it thus—now that the era has shifted, now that both gratitude and enmity have perished—what harm could there be in these dry bones receiving imperial grace?
I thought this way, consulted with a senior from my home province, and appealed to high-ranking officials in power.
That was after I had abandoned my studies.

From Meiji 19 to 20 (1886–1887), the question of whether to confer posthumous rank upon Tsuge Shirozaemon apparently became a matter of consideration by the relevant authorities for a time.
However, in the end, it was concluded that one could not petition for posthumous rank to be conferred upon those who had died under sentence without receiving a special pardon.
I was disheartened and once again felt that my life had become meaningless.
To be sure, the anguish of this moment proved far lighter and briefer compared to when I had lost the object of my vengeance long ago.
Perhaps it was because I had grown old—or perhaps—it occurs to me—because my nerves had grown dull.

I had given up.
Through concession piled upon concession, my hopes—which had gradually diminished—now amounted to nothing more than this: to have someone write down this story and preserve it for posterity.

―――――――――――――――――――

The recorded account ends here.

The “I” mentioned in the text refers to Tsuge Shirozaemon Masayoshi’s son, a man whose name was Shikata.
That much is already evident within the text.
But that is not all.
The reader would have been able to infer roughly what sort of person Shikata was in character, what circumstances he found himself in, and what experiences he had.

As the éditeur of this recorded account, I do not feel the need to add many things.
I simply wish to state the circumstances by which this came to be made public through my hands.

It was when I had already graduated from university and was at my father’s side, while my younger brother Tokujirō was still at university.
I said to Tokujirō, “So, are there any remarkable individuals among your student friends?”
My brother immediately listed the names of two classmates.
One was called K, a bold and unrestrained man; the other was Tsuge Masataka, said to be an upright and uncompromising person.
My younger brother later came to idealize talented scholars, but at that time, he still held heroic figures as his ideal.
K and Mr. Tsuge were both introduced to me by my younger brother.
K was a man as obese as a sumo wrestler and was fond of jujutsu.
Regrettably, carried away by drunken revelry, he did something resembling robbery and had his student status revoked.
Tsuge-kun is none other than Shikata, the auteur of this recorded account.

Mr. Tsuge was a pale-complexioned, slender-faced young man who always knit his brows.
I thought your family’s misfortune, like the mark of Cain, was visible upon your countenance.
You were a man of few words, and I myself was not particularly talkative at the time, so our meeting seems to have concluded almost as a mutual glare.
However, even now thirty years after that, Mr. Tsuge has not neglected to correspond with me.
You pay no mind to my indolence in not replying.
After meeting me, Mr. Tsuge soon left the university and drifted from place to place.
Those letters have come from Hokkaidō.
They have also come from Korea.
In any case, I never once let you slip from my sight.

On October 13, 1913, Mr. Tsuge suddenly visited my home and spoke about his father Shirozaemon.
The recorded account remains nearly identical to his oral narrative.
You tried to have me rewrite it, but I—respecting the authority of words flowing from your innermost being—published it nearly as told.
I merely made two or three corrections after consulting gentlemen including Sugi Magoshichirō, Aoki Umisaburō, Nakaoka Mokushi, Tokutomi Inokichi, Shimizu Koichirō, and Yamanobe Takeo regarding the narrative’s chronology and locations.
When I saw Mr. Tsuge after long absence, he had become a man of rock-hewn build and clear complexion, not a shadow of old melancholy lingering upon him.

As I lay down my pen upon concluding this "Postscript," I reverently wish for your continued health.

――――――――――――――――――――

The initial draft published in the aforementioned Chūō Kōron served as an intermediary, through which I came to know many people. Among them were even those who had maintained friendly relations with Shirozaemon at that time. Based on these individuals' testimonies, correspondence, and documents in their possession, I made several revisions to the names appearing in the aforementioned text. I adopted those deemed relatively accurate. Furthermore, I came to learn the following additional matters.

The fact that Tsuge Shirozaemon’s features resembled those of his Mr. Masataka could be discerned from the main text.
However, Shirozaemon’s frame was apparently somewhat large and elongated, his face tending toward roundness.

The storehouse at Miyake Tensan’s Kyoto residence where Shirozaemon had hidden—though the main building was later rebuilt—still preserves its original form and can reportedly be viewed from the roadway.
A woman who once carried meals to that storehouse survives to this day in Shirayama Gotenmachi, though she desires no public disclosure of her name.

In the main text, I wrote that when Ueda Tatsuo and Shirozaemon left their hometown and entered Kyoto, they had already determined their plot to assassinate the traitor.
However, this would not necessarily have been so.
After entering Kyoto, the two men became involved in what was called the Imperial Guard matter and were active for a time.
A certain someone from a court noble family left their household, recruited masterless samurai and others, and plotted to protect the Imperial Court.
The reason they sought to fill their ranks with those masterless samurai was that they feared samurai from various domains might scheme for their respective lords.
I will refrain from writing the name of the court noble family here.
However, should historical materials from the Meiji Restoration ever be made public, this matter may no longer require secrecy.

Among the masterless samurai were many warriors from Totsukawa.
The rest came from various provinces.
Among the notable figures who entered the ranks of the Imperial Guard was first Nakazu Zuiumnsai.

The Nakazu clan was formerly known as Urigami and had been a distinguished family of Kawachi.
In Jōō 2 [1653], they relocated to Gomon in Kumatori Village, Izumi Province, and became renowned as provincial samurai.
Among the branch families of this Nakazu clan was the Negoro clan—a hatamoto residing in Honjo, Edo with an income of 3,600 koku.
Zuiumnsai was born as the third son of the Negoro clan, succeeded to the main family, and fathered three children.
The eldest was Katsumi, the second Kanae, and the youngest Ken.
Additionally, there was an adopted son named Kaoru.
Zuiumnsai early handed over the household to Katsumi, entered Kyoto, and associated with loyalist activists.
When Shirozaemon and others' imprisonment case arose, Zuiumnsai along with his three sons was arrested; Zuiumnsai died while being transported to Aomori Prefecture, Katsumi and Ken died in Kyoto's prison cells, and Kanae was pardoned after ten years of confinement.
During this time, there were three daughters in their hometown of Kumatori Village.
A certain manager arranged matters, welcomed Motohira Tatsunosuke—the second son of Motohira Bunpei from Kotani Village—and made him the husband of the eldest daughter, Sumi.
After being released from prison, since Kanae was not well-treated by Tatsunosuke and others, he changed his name to Ken’ichirō, moved to Sakai City to engage in commerce, exhausted his capital, and later became the chief priest of Homuda Shrine in Furuichi Village, Minamikawachi District, Osaka Prefecture.
Ken'ichirō's children were Kanae, Takeo, and Yukio; Kanae was a tax official, Takeo a technical assistant at the Taiwan Governor-General's Office, and Yukio a student engaged in historical studies.
One daughter married Miyake Tensan’s grandson Tetsuo.
I was able to learn of this genealogy through Mr. Yukio.

Among those who shared in the events with Zuiumnsai was Miyata Hashira from Totsukawa. At that time, he was called Ōki Mondo. Hashira was renowned for his mastery of the three fields of study: Japanese, Chinese, and Western. He was implicated in Shirozaemon and others' imprisonment case, exiled to Miyakejima, and was eventually pardoned and able to return. Mr. Ohmō, son of Hashira, resides at 19 Banchi, Kita-Iga-chō, Yotsuya Ward.

Kamihira Chikara (sometimes mistakenly written as Shimohira), a samurai from Totsukawa who was similarly implicated, was exiled to Niijima and was also able to return.

Ichinoe Tonomo, also a samurai from Totsukawa, was implicated, exiled to Hachijōjima, and later pardoned and returned.

The middle-tier Imperial Guard unit sought to be established but never came to fruition.
This was obstructed by Kanda Kōhei, Nakai Hiroshi, Yokoi Shōnan, and others.

At this juncture, an essay titled *Tendō Kakumei Ron* (On Heavenly Revolution) began circulating among loyalist activists.
According to the rumors of the time, the essay was purportedly composed by Yokoi Shōnan, emerged through a priest at Aso Shrine, and circulated via Koga Jūrō.
The text states:

"In the cosmos exist mountains and rivers, plants and trees, humankind and beasts—all akin to the four limbs and hundred bones of a human body.
Those who fail to comprehend cosmic principles differ not from beings unaware they possess limbs.
Thus all nations under heaven form a single body, where self and other hold no distinction.
One must elucidate the laws of intimacy and estrangement, rigorously confirming that inner and outer are one.
Since antiquity, wise rulers whose virtue permeates the cosmos—those who win all nations' allegiance—maintain magnanimity that rejects nothing and avoids no matter; their benevolent, nurturing hearts were no different from Heaven and Earth itself.
Such should be called Master of the World and Lord of All People.
Should one's vision remain narrow—failing to grasp the unity of all things—it would be like a paralyzed body clinging to some trivial island of pain...(omission)...rendering action impossible.
Their ruin becomes inevitable.
They must swiftly root out the grave evils of stubborn tradition and accumulated rot, ground themselves in heaven and earth's eternal truths, pierce through all prejudice, and strive to become the universe's foremost nation.
Pursue these principles to their end—will they not guide one to the realm of supreme enlightenment?
'Third Month, Keiō 3 [1867]. Casually composed beneath the southern window, Kōnan.'"

I excised two to three hundred unsparing words and set them down here.
Yet its essential form and phrasing may still be discerned.
Dingmao denotes Keiō 3 [1867].
The substance expands upon the five-character verse "What Heavenly Duty Has a Ruler?"
To ascribe this text to Yokoi's hand would be too artless by half.

Shirozaemon and his men read this and did not doubt it was Yokoi's work. Judging the situation grave, they abandoned their Imperial Guard project and resolved to assassinate Yokoi.

The site of the assassination was said to lie southward from Marutamachi-Teramachi crossing, past Goryō Shrine but not yet reaching Kōdō Hall. This account derives from Minami Jun'ichi's hearsay chronicle. Jun'ichi would later adopt the name Hisatoki.

The incident occurred on January 5th of Meiji 2 (1869).
On the following sixth day, an administrative proclamation was issued:
"The assassination of Councillor Yokoi Shōnan constitutes an egregious violation of imperial law and is wholly impermissible.
Fundamentally, acts such as assassination are entirely inadmissible for those registered in prefectural, domainal, or county registries.
Should obstruction of communications lead to engagement in such matters...
Since the Restoration, all channels of discourse have been opened; there exists no place beyond the reach of prefectures, domains, and counties.
If renegade warriors who have abandoned their domains should covertly control public judgment and subvert the Imperial Court's legal codes—by what means could we uphold order and sustain the Imperial Nation? Such has been the profound wrath incurred by His Majesty.
Not only in Kyoto, but thorough investigations shall be conducted across all prefectures, domains, and counties; furthermore, it has been commanded that unceasing vigilance in surveillance must be firmly established."

This text is what Mr. Osatake Takeshi recorded and preserved.
Mr. Osatake currently resides in Kasumigaoka-chō, Yotsuya Ward.

The master of the house where Shirozaemon hid before the incident, Miyake Tensan, and the master of the house he visited after the incident, Miyake Sakon, were both natives of Renjima in Bitchū Province. The document concerning Sakon—pertaining to Tensan, who bore the pseudonym Gazen, and his heir Mr. Takehiko—reads as follows: "Regarding the references to a liquor store and sake flask in the account of your late father—upon deliberation, there existed at that time an elderly man named Miyake Sakon, a fellow Renjima native who served as a retainer to the Saga Gosho. This man was an unmarried, childless elder with the bearing of a loyalist activist, residing in Saga, Kyoto." Indeed, behind that house lay a thicket and a liquor store. This Miyake Sakon encountered your late father at Tensan's residence (my own humble abode), and priding himself on his swordsmanship, he ultimately engaged in a match where he was soundly defeated; from that time onward, he revered [your father] and became like a disciple. I surmise your late father to have been the one who brought sake to Sakon's residence. "Sakon's true name was Sahei." The familial connection between Mr. Nakashi and Mr. Takehiko through marriage was previously noted above. Mr. Takehiko resides at 4 Banchō, Dote Sanbanchō, Kōjimachi Ward.

The woman Kaoruko, who is said to have defended Shirozaemon in the main text, was reportedly the daughter of Fushimi-no-miya Shodaibu Wakae Shuri no Tayū. The letter that Kaoruko addressed to Owari Domain’s Senior Councillor Arashawa Jinsaku was as follows: “Regarding the disposition of those who assassinated Yokoi Shōnan on the fifth day of this month—how has it been decided? Though this matter pertains to official duties and thus should not be subject to inquiry, the perpetrators of said assassination have submitted documents alleging a treacherous plot to spread Catholicism throughout the realm. Admittedly, if these documents alone were considered, one might suspect they are exploiting public discourse to vent personal grudges—yet since Yokoi’s treacherous schemes are matters known to all under heaven, it cannot be said they are merely borrowing public sentiment. The killing of an Imperial Senior Councillor is no trivial matter; naturally, they must face severe punishment. Yet in executing those whom the populace recognizes as bearing such charges, we must remember these are truly patriots acting with loyal hearts; thus I humbly request that even those who carried out this extraordinary measure have their death sentences reduced by one degree. Should this petition seem contradictory to my prior statements regarding divine punishment and invite Your Excellency’s doubts, I nevertheless believe that in the present circumstances, subjecting those men to harsh penalties would swiftly alienate public sentiment and risk inciting further disturbances as if gazing into a mirror. Moreover, I have heard that there are many who, though not among those who carried out the act, have submitted appeals declaring themselves comrades. I have heard that all of the aforementioned petitioners are individuals who bear the name of pure justice. I humbly believe that these individuals should be granted pardon through lenient judgment. Truly, righteous people are the very vitality of the nation; should even one be executed, it would damage that vitality itself. Those who damage their own vitality—their lives too shall inevitably be extinguished. Having thoroughly considered this principle, I most humbly beseech that through extraordinary measures of cosmic import, even the ringleaders may have their death penalty reduced by one degree, and those who call themselves comrades and have submitted petitions may all be uniformly pardoned. Although it constitutes a grave crime, I humbly consider those who are likened to imperial enemies to bear but a minor offense. If I make such statements, I humbly fear that Your Excellency may suspect I too am among those involved in the matter and thus speak thusly. If Your Excellency should harbor suspicions against me as well, since I shall offer no defense whatsoever, I humbly request that I alone be swiftly apprehended and executed, while all others without exception receive Your Excellency’s merciful pardon. If even the ringleaders and their comrades are subjected to severe punishment without distinction, I humbly believe that the righteous of the realm will swiftly grow resentful toward the Imperial Court, public sentiment will collapse, and we shall face a situation beyond remedy. Regarding how even those who were killed during the shogunate’s tyrannical rule last year have been ordered to receive memorial rites—if those already dead are enshrined while those still living are executed, I humbly believe this would be inconsistent with the principles of governance. In this regard, through Your Excellency’s insight and despite your illness, I most humbly beseech that measures be taken.” “January 21st. Kaoruko.” Arashawa Jinsaku, who obtained this letter, resigned from his position as Senior Councillor due to illness in March of Meiji 1 (1868), changed his name to Ozaki Ryōchi, and reportedly lived in Nagoya.

Kaoruko’s letter emerged from the hands of Tanaka Fujimaro or Niwa Juntarō—later known as an eminent scholar—passed through Matsuyama Yoshine, elder brother of former Navy Minister Yashiro and a member of Owari Domain’s Hōbaku-tai, came into the possession of Mr. Kurachi Izaemon at Owari-Komaki Post Office, and Mr. Kurachi donated it to Tsuge through me.
Mr. Kurachi believes it to be Kaoruko’s own handwriting.

According to one theory, it is said that the original copy of Kaoruko’s letter was kept by a man named Nishida Jirō, a priest at Funae Shrine in Funae, Shinshō Village, Funai District, Tanba Province.
This was what Mr. Miyake Takehiko related.

Kaoruko’s writings had already been published.
They were found in Issue No. 5 of the Onkin Newspaper, issued on April 10th of Meiji 2 (1869), within the volume titled “Tsuji (Shinji) and Gotō (Kenkichi)’s Edition from within the Precincts of Kaisei School.”
The newspaper was in the possession of Mr. Osatake.

The text presented above uses Kurachi’s manuscript as the base text and has been collated against a transcript from the Onkin Newspaper.
There are some discrepancies between the two versions.
The fact that the Kurachi manuscript constitutes an autograph remains somewhat doubtful.

According to what Mr. Maki Motokata relates, Kaoruko was unattractive in appearance but a woman of strong character. When Empress Dowager Shōken was at the Ichijō family residence, Kaoruko once lectured on the Confucian classics. I too attended Kaoruko’s lectures. She was ordered into confinement for speaking on matters of state and placed under the custody of Tanaka, a retainer of the Fushimi-no-miya family. Later, due to misconduct, she was shunned by scholarly circles and is said to have secluded herself in the Suma-Akashi area, where she passed away.

Kaoruko’s poems and verses were often circulated in society. Mr. Miyake Takehiko possesses tanzaku poem cards.

In June of Taisho 4 (1915), the Meiji Commemorative Exposition was held at Manpuku-ji in Nagoya.
Among the exhibits was Kaoruko’s poem scroll.
“In my secluded dwelling, each day grows more desolate.
Alone I sit rigid, intoning grief to the departing sun.
At my noon pillow, a clear breeze tells me summer’s heat retreats.
At the dawn window, lingering rain makes the night watch interminable.
Human praise and censure endure through the ages.
The vicissitudes of life are but a single dream.
Even were I to suffer repeated setbacks,
I remain unchanged in my old unconventional spirit.
Early Autumn Confinement.
Kaoruko.”

There was a single seal bearing the inscription "Sugawara clan." It appears the Wakae family had carried the Sugawara surname. This was among the documents Mr. Kurachi had transcribed and submitted. There exist those who claim to have witnessed Kaoruko penning the verse: "Tens of millions of men in this Divine Land—who shares my lament?"

――――――――――――――――――――

Regarding Wakae Shuri no Daibu's daughter Kaoruko, I had already supplemented the account above once before, but I later learned through Mr. Honda Tatsujirō that Lord Shuri no Daibu's name was Yoshinaga and that he had once served as Head of the Imperial Mausolea Office.
Therefore, I asked Mr. Shibakuzu Morimori to record these matters.
The text below is precisely this.

Kaoruko’s father, Wakae Yoshinaga, was chief retainer of the Fushimi-no-miya household and a man of court noble lineage.
This Wakae clan originated from the Sugawara clan, tracing its lineage to Arimasa—son of Sugawara Kinsuke, Acting Assistant Master of the Ministry of Ceremonial.
They first adopted the name Mibu Bōjō, later became known as Nakamikado, and ultimately changed their name to Wakae.
At the time of Nagachika—tenth in descent from Arimasa—the clan first entered service under the Fushimi-no-miya.
Nagachika was born on the twenty-ninth day of the third month of Kanbun 4 (1664), dying at fifty-seven on the ninth day of the seventh month of Kyōhō 5 (1720).
Yoshinaga was born on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month of Bunka 9 (1812) as son of Kōgi—fifth in descent from Nagachika. At fourteen, on the twenty-eighth day of the third month of Bunsei 8 (1825), he underwent his coming-of-age ceremony and was appointed Assistant Governor of Echigo. That same day saw him granted entry to the Retired Emperor’s chambers. He subsequently served as Minor Controller of the Right before attaining the position of Master of Repairs, with his promotion to Junior Fourth Rank, Upper Grade on the twenty-second day of the twelfth month of Tenpō 13 (1842) being recorded in chronicles of low-ranking court families.
Furthermore, Nomiya Sadanori’s diary notes that when revival of the Imperial Mausolea Office was ordered on February 24, 1864 (Genji 1), Yoshinaga received appointment as its Head.
Yet Yoshinaga appeared to lack specialized knowledge regarding imperial mausolea.
He had apparently delegated all matters concerning mausolea to two subordinates: Tanimori Tanematsu—Assistant Governor of Yamato—and Suzuka Shōgei—Governor of Chikuzen.

Now there was an intriguing matter concerning his daughter Kaoruko.
That Kaoruko—being a woman of formidable character versed in both Japanese and Chinese learning, with particular mastery of Chinese classics—had lectured on Confucian texts when Empress Dowager Shōken resided with the Ichijō family was noted in Mr. Maki Motokata’s account; however, an entry in what is referred to as Toda Tadashi’s biographical records states as follows:
"Concerning Her Majesty the Empress’s nuptial procession, from the year preceding the Restoration Lords Nijō and Nakayama among others had shown exceptional concern; while Toda Tadashi labored diligently under their lordships’ commission, Kaoru—daughter of Wakae Shuri no Daibu, who had previously been involved in mausoleum affairs—became aware of her own role in instructing the Ichijō princess-sisters in waka poetry and other arts. When she consulted Tadashi regarding matters of Her Majesty’s court, Kaoru informed him that the Ichijō household’s second daughter was destined for extraordinary status. Upon Tadashi submitting this matter confidentially to Lords Nijō and Nakayama, he received an imperial directive to conduct thorough inspections at court. After consulting with Kaoru, he accompanied her to the Ichijō residence where they paid respects to the sisters and reported on the second daughter’s suitability.
In these circumstances Lord Nijō was relieved of his post due to suspicion and appointed to oversee matrimonial affairs; all official matters pertaining to the marriage ceremony were executed without delay."
From this account it appears Kaoruko’s mediation substantially aided Empress Dowager Shōken’s entry into court.
In June of Keiō 3 (1867), when the formal decision regarding Her Majesty’s court entry was proclaimed and subsequent selections commenced for Senior and Middle Ladies-in-Waiting, Kaoruko too received renewed instructions to attend court for instructional purposes.
Lord Hashimoto Sanetsura’s diary entry for August 9th of that year notes: "Furthermore, considering Wakae Shuri no Daibu’s sister has long pursued scholarship and now enjoys renown for exceptional talent, discussions were held with His Lordship the Minister of Left regarding her potential suitability for court instruction; having deemed this appropriate I conveyed assent." Examination of the Ichijō family’s Documents of Required Affairs reveals that by September 3rd: "When Fushimi-no-miya’s envoy Noriakira arrived, he confirmed no objections existed to summoning Wakae Shuri no Daibu’s daughter O-Fumi for Her Majesty’s classical readings." By the 10th it records: "Request made for Lady O-Fumi to conduct lectures on foundational texts during Her Majesty’s co-residence." Finally on the 15th appears documentation of [O-Fumi] attending court via Bureau Entrance to lecture on the Classic of Filial Piety.
This likely constituted an official directive reaffirmed in connection with Her Majesty’s formal appointment; it scarcely marked her inaugural instructional session.
Yet why does Lord Sanetsura’s diary identify her as the Master of Repairs’ sister?
Moreover could this Ofumi have been Kaoruko’s former name?
No evidence survives confirming Kaoruko’s palace access following Her Majesty’s marriage.
Presumably her engagement in state affairs precluded imperial summons.
Regrettably subsequent misconduct denied her a dignified end.
Mr. Ueda Keiji’s History of Empress Dowager Shōken asserts: "Even post-nuptials Kaoruko received special favor; she died peacefully at Marugame in Sanuki during Meiji 14 (1881), her legacy enduring there still"—yet its evidentiary basis remains obscure.

I (Shiba), owing to Yoshinaga’s former position as Head of the Imperial Mausolea Office，attempted to inquire whether Mr.Tanimori Tateo—the second son of the late Tanimori Tanematsu (later Yoshitomi)，who had been an official of that office—had any knowledge or accounts regarding this matter.
(Yoshitomi was my maternal grandfather，and Mr.Tanimori Tateo my uncle.) What he stated is as follows.

In Kyoto’s Demizu area stood a small shrine called Wakae’s Tenjin, beside which the Wakae clan resided. I must have been around ten years old when my father took me to visit their residence one day. There I met two women said to be Yoshinaga’s daughters. The younger sister appeared an ordinary woman, her hair arranged in the smooth suberakashi style befitting a court noble’s daughter, while the elder presented an unusual figure—her complexion swarthy, face unadorned, hair carelessly bundled into a single knot. This masculine woman persistently challenged my father to debates, I recall. Father had often remarked how such women vexed him. This must have been Kaoruko. Though I later heard of her misconduct, given her family’s impoverished circumstances, one might rather sympathize with the temptations she faced than condemn her. While her death in Sanuki likely occurred as stated, I suspect it was no ordinary passing. I do not believe this woman was Yoshinaga’s sister. She had been presented to us as his daughter.