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Newly Selected Corps

Shinsengumi—literally Newly Selected Corps. Certainly the thirteen men who comprised the original membership were select. Under the supervision of the protector of Kyōto, the men of the Shinsengumi were commissioned to patrol the city day and night. They were not yet officially empowered with the authority to kill. But they shared a tacit understanding with their master that, added to their original purposes of expelling the barbarians and protecting the shōgun, was their more immediate task of restoring law and order by destroying the enemies of the Tokugawa.

The Shinsengumi were led by two extraordinarily strong-willed men. Kondō Isami and Serizawa Kamo were bitter rivals. Both had been chief instructors of their respective fencing schools, and both had brought with them into the corps their top swordsmen. Kondō Isami, born October 9, 1834, was the third and youngest son of a wealthy peasant family from the village of Kami’ishihara in the Tama region of the province of Musashi, a partial day’s journey westward from Edo along the Kōshū-kaidō Road. Cutting wide and deep through this fertile farm region of gentle hills flowed the Tamagawa River, a constant source of inner strength to the young men whose martial spirit flourished along its banks. Rising high above the mountains to the southwest of Tama was the ever-looming, sometimes snow-covered, always enigmatic conical symbol of Japan, Fujisan, chameleonic with the changing seasons.

Shinsengumi Commander Kondō Isami was a peasant by birth, a warrior by nature. He was a man of traditional values and a martial mind-set, whose black training robe was embroidered in white on the back with the image of a large human skull—a symbol of his resolve to die in battle whenever he entered the dōjō. He had enlisted in the Rōshi Corps with aspirations of becoming a samurai in the service of the shōgun. As leader of the shōgun’s most dreaded samurai corps, he secured a vehicle into the top strata of the Tokugawa hierarchy and indeed historic immortality.

While the entire face radiates raw power, the stern, penetrating eyes, complemented by the firm mouth and square, heavy jaw, are most striking. In his photograph, probably taken in February 1868, the then sole-surviving commander of the Shinsengumi is seated in the formal position, hands placed lightly on his thighs, prepared for battle at a moment’s warning. Behind him, within arm’s reach, is his long, lethal sword; and one wonders how many men he had cut down with its razor-sharp blade.

Kondō Isami’s name at birth was Miyagawa Katsugorō. He was a child of Tenpō—the era of Heaven’s Protection (1830–43)— certainly a misnomer, at least for the rural villages of eastern Japan, which were terrorized by marauding swordsmen during those years. The Tama region was a domain of the Tokugawa. The local people prided themselves as farmers of the shōgun. While peasants were generally forbidden by law to bear arms, the people of Tama were inclined toward the martial and literary arts. Their martial traditions dated back to the twelfth century, from the samurai who had served the military regime at Kamakura.* After the arrival of the foreigners in 1853, the martial arts again flourished in Tama.

Tama was an expansive region. The Tokugawa magistrates in charge of policing Tama did not have the resources to patrol the entire area, or to protect it against the marauding swordsmen. Village leaders were appointed by the magistrates to police their respective villages. The peasants working under the village leaders were required to study martial arts—partly to protect themselves against the marauders. Some of the wealthy peasants built training halls at their homes and hired local fencing masters to instruct them. Among these wealthy peasants was Katsugorō’s father, Miyagawa Hisajirō.

Katsugorō’s mother died while he was a young boy. His father was an avid reader of history. On rainy days Katsugorō’s father would call his three sons to the family hearth, where he would read to them chronicles of heroic deeds. From an early age the future Shinsengumi commander was taught an appreciation of literature and martial arts and participated in the training sessions at his family’s home dojō. When Katsugorō was fourteen, his father hired a local fencing instructor to teach his three sons. The instructor’s name was Kondō Shūsuké. He was the master of the Shieikan, a minor fencing school in Edo. Master Shūsuké taught the Tennen Rishin style. Katsugorō proved himself naturally inclined toward rigorous kenjutsu training. In the following year he was awarded mokuroku, the second of five ranks in the Tennen Rishin style.† Master Shūsuké was impressed with the boy’s ferocity, both on and off the practice floor. One night when their father was away on business, Katsugorō and his two brothers were awoken by the sound of robbers breaking into their house. Far from being frightened, the brothers saw this as a perfect chance to test the fencing techniques they had studied. The robbers were armed with knives. The brothers pursued them with drawn swords. The robbers attempted to flee with stolen property in their arms. Katsugorō yelled the word “stop!” with an ear-piercing guttural wail such as he had learned from his master. The robbers threw down their booty and fled for their lives.

Kondō Shūsuké was getting along in years. Perhaps it was Katsugorō’s innate courage that now convinced the master to petition Miyagawa Hisajirō for permission to adopt his fifteen-year-old son as his heir. Permission was presently granted, and soon it was determined that Katsugorō would become the fourth generational head of the Tennen Rishin style. The peasant’s son now became a samurai. He left his native village to live in Edo at the home of his fencing master, where he continued to devote himself to the study of kenjutsu.

Kondō Isami’s black training robe (original; courtesy of Masataka Kojima)

Kondō was married in his twenty-sixth year. Otsuné was three years younger than he was. Unlike her husband, she had been born into the warrior class. Her father was a retainer of the Shimizu family, a Tokugawa Branch House. Otsuné was homely and apparently had a harelip. But she was wellborn, well-bred, well-educated, and, perhaps most important, endowed with measures of propriety and pluck more prevalent in the daughter of a samurai than in a woman of the common classes. The sword master’s heir had encountered many other prospective brides, each more physically attractive than Otsuné. When asked why he had chosen Otsuné for his wife, he is said to have replied, “I had interviews with beautiful women. They were conceited about their good looks. But Otsuné was much more humble in her manner and very polite.” Perhaps this is indicative of a certain humanity in the future Shinsengumi commander, and certainly it had something to do with his immovable determination to adhere to the stoic mores of his adopted social class. They were married at the end of March 1860, as the capital reeled from the shock of Regent Ii Naosuké’s assassination. Soon after their marriage, Otsuné embroidered the likeness of a skull on the back of Kondō’s training robe—a token of her appreciation for her warrior-husband’s resolve to die.

In the following year the sword master’s heir was awarded shinan menkyo, the highest rank in the Tennen Rishin style. Kondō Shūsuké now retired, and his adopted son became the fourth master of that style. The Shieikan flourished under the young master. The names on the student roster exceeded three hundred, mostly men of peasant households in Tama. The young master traveled around the region to teach at local training halls. He was a large, muscular man. His feet were so big that the maid employed at the home of a friend was “stunned by the unusually large size of his wooden clogs,” which he removed before entering the house. So large was his mouth that he could fit his entire fist inside—an antic that drew hysterical laughter at drinking bouts during the bloody and tumultuous years he ruled the dangerous streets of the Imperial Capital. It was also around his twenty-seventh year that the peasant-turned-swordmaster changed his name to Kondō Isami‡—an appellation that would arouse feelings of derision, fear, and hate among his enemies; pride and love among the good people of his native Tama; gratitude and hope among the embattled powers that were in Edo; and awed respect among them all.

Kondō practiced the Tennen Rishin style for more than fourteen years. When the opportunity was presented him at age twenty-nine to put his sword to practical use, it was with his great courage, a burning desire to “vent [his] long-held indignation” toward the foreign intruders, and a determination to make a name for himself as a samurai in the service of the shōgun that he closed the doors of the Shieikan and, with seven of his top swordsmen, enlisted in the Rōshi Corps.

The Shinsengumi originally had three commanders. Ranking beside Kondō and Serizawa was a close ally of the latter named Shinmi Nishiki. But Shinmi was a nominal rather than actual commander. Exceedingly more important to this historical narrative, and to the history of Japan, was Hijikata Toshizō, one of two vice commanders of the Shinsengumi, whose warrior’s nature earned him the epithet “Demon Commander.” Hijikata was Kondō’s closest friend and confidant. Like Kondō, he was also the youngest son of a wealthy Tama peasant. He was a handsome man just over five feet seven inches tall.§ He had a light complexion and almost classical features, which made him stand out among his countrymen. His photograph, taken after the fall of the Bakufu, at the end of 1868, shows Vice Commander of the Army Hijikata Toshizō seated on a wooden chair in Western-style clothing with knee-high military boots and a sword at his left side. The cropped black hair, no longer in a topknot, is combed straight back. Most striking are the eyes, betraying an unyielding yet calm resolve to die—almost a longing for death—which he would bring with him to his last battle.

Hijikata was one year younger than Kondō. Having lost both parents by the time he was five years old, Hijikata was raised by his elder brother and sister-in-law at his family’s home in Ishida Village, beneath the shadow of the ancient and solemn Takahata Fudō Temple. At eleven he was briefly apprenticed at the giant mercantile enterprise Matsuzaka’ya in Edo. Upon returning to his native countryside, the boy divided his time between his family’s home and the nearby residence of his elder sister and her husband at Hino, a post town along the Kōshū-kaidō. When Hijikata was sixteen, he planted arrow bamboo behind his house and vowed to himself, as preposterously as prophetically, “to become a samurai.” Arrow bamboo consists of short, straight shafts no thicker than a person’s finger—ideal for making arrows. Planting arrow bamboo was considered an act of discretion—preparation for war becoming of a samurai. Similarly samurai-like were the manly arts of calligraphy and poetry (both Chinese and Japanese), which Hijikata pursued with a passion. He was particularly fond of haiku. Under the pen name Hōgyoku, he left behind in Hino a collection of haiku before setting out for Kyōto.

Hijikata’s brother-in-law, Satō Hikogorō, earned menkyo rank under Kondō Shūsuké, entitling him to teach the Tennen Rishin style. Before that, Satō had inherited from his father an expansive and gated country estate and a lofty position as official leader of Hino Village. Although he belonged to the peasant class, Satō would be more aptly called a country squire than a farmer. Shortly before Hijikata’s prophetic vow, Satō had built a kenjutsu dōjō at his home, where Master Shūsuké and his heir occasionally taught. In addition to Satō, Kondō and Hijikata also maintained close relations with another member of the local squirearchy who shared their passion for kenjutsu. This was Kojima Shikanosuké, the leader of Onoji Village. Satō was six years older than Kondō; Kojima was three years Kondō’s senior. The two older men tutored their fencing master in literature, while Kondō taught kenjutsu at the private dōjō of Satō and in the front garden of the Kojima estate.

Master Shūsuké and son were beholden to their wealthy students. Kojima and Satō provided an important source of financial support to the humble Kondō household. The two village leaders continued this support after Kondō and Hijikata enlisted in the Rōshi Corps. In their fencing master’s absence, Satō taught the Tennen Rishin style at Hino, while Kojima performed this duty at Onoji. Both men sent provisions, including much-needed armor, to Kondō and Hijikata during the bloody years in Kyōto, and during the New Year holidays Kojima collected money from local kenjutsu students to send to their master in the west.

Satō’s private training hall proved a propitious venue to this history. It was at the Hino Dōjo that the future vice commander of the Shinsengumi honed his genius with an unsheathed sword in hand and where he befriended Kondō Isami. “He [Hijikata] was graceful in appearance and contemplative by nature, which compensated for the straightforwardness of Kondō,” wrote Michio Hirao,¶ to explain why the two men were “as close to one another as brothers.” To support himself while practicing kenjutsu, Hijikata traveled through the local countryside peddling a special herbal medicine produced by his family. This medicine healed a variety of ailments, including contusions such as those left by a hard wooden practice sword. So great was Hijikata’s passion for fencing that, along with his black wicker medicine chest, he always carried his fencing equipment, “stopping along the way,” wrote Kan Shimosawa, “at any dōjō of merit to politely request instruction. But back then he had a gentle face like a woman’s. Although in the future his attitude would become self-important, since he was still cleverly charming, everyone treated him with kindness.”*

“He had the slight air of a merchant,” recalled a fellow swordsman who occasionally practiced at the Shieikan. “He had drooping shoulders but was tall and slender, and one of the best-looking men of the bunch [at the Shieikan]. He was shrewd in his dealings with people, and what’s more he was a clever man. He tended to be a little disagreeable, and ... there were quite a few people whom he disliked. When sitting opposite someone, he would first of all look that person over slowly, from his knees up to his face. Then he would quietly begin speaking.”

Hijikata Toshizō did not officially enroll at Kondō’s dōjō until the spring of 1859, a number of years after the two had met. At the Shieikan, Hijikata wore his face guard tied with a pretty red cord, earning the quiet ridicule of certain of his fellow swordsmen—and the coveted menkyo rank. Several years later, people in Hijikata’s native village could hardly believe reports of the bloodletting in Kyōto at the hands of the vice commander of the Shinsengumi, because “he was such a gentle person.” But as Shimosawa aptly points out, “Toshizō was a different man with a drawn sword in hand.” Once when Hijikata returned home on a brief interlude from his duties in Kyōto, he reportedly told a gathering of family and friends that the steel blade of one of his swords had rotted from overexposure to human blood.

Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō left their homes in the east driven by an unyielding will to power. They saw the great turmoil in the west as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put their formidable fencing skills to the fight, to rise through the ranks of the Tokugawa hierarchy. That these sons of peasants could even dream of such accomplishments, unprecedented during Tokugawa history, was certainly due to their extraordinary sense of self-importance.

Accompanying them were six particularly skilled swordsmen, each of whom would be among the original Shinsengumi members. Child prodigy Okita Sōji was the eldest son of a samurai of Shirakawa Han, whose daimyō was a direct retainer of the shōgun. According to Okita family records, Okita was born at the Shirakawa residence in Edo in 1844. Having lost both parents as a young boy, at nine he was apprenticed at the Shieikan, where he grew up looking to Kondō Isami as an elder brother. At twelve, Okita was matched against the fencing instructor of the Lord of Shirakawa, and was victorious. By age fifteen, he was serving as assistant instructor of the Shieikan, teaching at the main dōjō in Edo and at villages around the local countryside. There were some who claimed that not even Kondō could beat Okita in a match. Naturally Okita received menkyo rank. When Kondō Isami became master of the Shieikan, Okita was appointed as head of the dōjō.

Nagakura Shinpachi idolized Kondō Isami, who was five years his senior. He was a rōnin of Matsumae Han, whose daimyō was an outside lord. Nagakura was born at the Matsumae residence in Edo in 1839, the only son of a well-situated samurai of that clan. The Nagakura family was related by marriage to the Lord of Matsumae. For generations the family patriarch had been permanently stationed in Edo as a liaison officer for the Matsumae domain, located on the island of Ezo in the far north. Nagakura began his kenjutsu career as a young boy. He originally studied under his father’s instructor, an acclaimed master of the Shintō Munen style. As one of the master’s top students, he achieved the level of mokuroku at the young age of seventeen. In his early twenties he put his fencing skills to the test, touring schools of other styles in the vicinity of the capital. After returning to Edo, he served as assistant instructor to a master of the prestigious Hokushin Ittō style. It was around this time that he began frequenting Kondō Isami’s dōjō. Although he never became an official member of the Shieikan, according to Nagakura’s oral recollections, it was he who urged Kondō and the others to enlist in the Rōshi Corps.

Yamanami Keisuké, one year older than Kondō Isami, was born in 1833. He was the second son of the chief fencing instructor of Sendai Han in northern Japan, also ruled by an outside lord. When Yamanami came to the Shieikan, he held menkyo rank in the Hokushin Ittō style. He challenged the sword master’s heir to a match. After Kondō defeated him, Yamanami joined the Shieikan as one of its most skilled swordsmen. He subsequently served with Hijikata and Okita as assistant instructor.

Inoué Genzaburō was born in Hino in 1829, the fourth son of a Tokugawa samurai. He was the eldest of the eight Shieikan swordsmen who enlisted in the Rōshi Corps. Genzaburō’s father, who served the shōgun as a petty police official, encouraged his sons to practice the martial arts. Genzaburō began practicing at the dōjō of Satō Hikogorō at a young age. Both he and his older brother, Matsugorō, received menkyo rank from Kondō Shūsuké.

Tōdō Heisuké was born in 1844. He claimed to be the illegitimate son of the outside Lord of Tsu Han, whose family name was Tōdō. The obscurity of his background notwithstanding, it is certain that Tōdō Heisuké was a rōnin when he earned mokuroku rank in the Hokushin Ittō style at the famed Chiba Dōjō. He was subsequently apprenticed at the Shieikan. Tōdō was the same age as Okita Sōji, just nineteen, when he enlisted in the Rōshi Corps.

Harada Sanosuké was born in Matsuyama Han in 1840. The Matsuyama daimyō ranked among the twenty Related Houses. His domain was located in the province of Iyo on Shikoku, the smallest of the four main Japanese islands. When Harada began frequenting Kondō’s dōjō, he brought with him his expertise in yarijutsu, the art of the spear. A failed attempt to commit suicide by his own sword left him with a scar on his abdomen—a single horizontal line. He adopted the mark as part of his family crest—a single horizontal line in a circle.

A seventh Shinsengumi corpsman with a particularly close connection to the Shieikan was Saitō Hajimé. The same age as Okita and Tōdō, Saitō, unusually tall at five feet eleven inches, shared with these two men the distinction of being the youngest of Kondō’s group and among its most gifted swordsmen. Saitō was born and raised in Edo as the son of a retainer of the Matsudaira of Akashi Han, also a Related House. Saitō had neither enlisted in Kiyokawa’s Rōshi Corps nor traveled to Kyōto with the others. He had reportedly killed a samurai of the shōgun’s camp in Edo shortly before fleeing to Kyōto and joining his friends.

Serizawa Kamo was born in the first year of Tenpō—1830—four years before his rival Kondō Isami. He was the pampered youngest son of a wealthy, low-ranking samurai family of Mito Han. An expert swordsman of the Shintō Munen style, he stood tall and erect—an excessively proud man, well built and endowed with extraordinary physical strength. As if to flaunt his strength, he carried a heavy iron-ribbed fan, with which he threatened to pummel men who got in his way. Engraved on his weapon-fan were eight Chinese characters which read, “Serizawa Kamo, loyal and patriotic samurai.”

The “loyal and patriotic samurai” was a handsome man, with a light complexion and small dark eyes that penetrated the defenses of his many adversaries. He was as gallant as he was brutal, as courageous as cruel. He was a reckless man of fine breeding, a pathological drinker who, when in his cups, was known to draw his sword upon the slightest provocation. Before joining the Rōshi Corps, he had served as a captain in the rabidly xenophobic and pro-imperial Tengu Party in Mito Han, the birthplace of Sonnō-Jōi. Serizawa was in command of some three hundred men of the Tengu Party. It was rumored that he had punished several wrongdoers among them by severing their fingers, hands, noses, or ears. He was eventually imprisoned and sentenced to death in Edo for the cold-blooded murder of three subordinates who had aroused his ire over some petty offense. In jail he refused food. The leaden winter sky, barely visible through the small window of his cold, dank cell, recalled to him the snowy landscape outside. He likened his lot to that of the snow-laden plum blossom. He bit open his small finger, and with the blood composed his intended death poem.

Amidst the desolation of snow and frost,

the plum is the first to bloom in brilliant color.

The blossoms keep their fragrance,

even after they have scattered.

Before his execution could be carried out, he was released in the general amnesty proclaimed by the Bakufu to recruit men for the Rōshi Corps. Now, in the spring of 1863, he was in command of not a rebel group but a legitimate corps of swordsmen in the service of the shōgun.

Serizawa’s notoriety preceded him to the Imperial Capital. When the Rōshi Corps reached Kyōto in February, it is said that the townspeople shook with fear of the “demon Serizawa.” A dominating personality with a voracious sexual appetite, the “demon” was reputed to have his way with other men’s wives. In his youth he had reportedly raped and impregnated three maids at his family’s home. As commander of the Shinsengumi, it was his duty to protect the Imperial Court. But this did not deter him from making advances upon the lover of Anénokoji Kintomo, a court noble and leader of the Sonnō-Jōi faction surrounding the emperor. When the matter was brought to the attention of the protector of Kyōto, he ordered Serizawa, in no uncertain terms, to cease his transgressions among the court nobles.

Serizawa had allegedly raped the wife of a wealthy merchant in his native Mito. The wife was subsequently enraptured and begged Serizawa to keep her with him. It has been suggested that Serizawa’s pathological behavior was a result of syphilis, and that he had contracted the dread disease from this woman, a former geisha. Perhaps it was a combination of the disease and his anger at having been infected that incited a fit of violence toward the woman, during which he cut her body in two and hurled it into a nearby river.

“Officer Serizawa Kamo’s egoism along the way [to Kyōto from Edo] defied description,” wrote Shimosawa. While Kondō and Hijikata had joined the Rōshi Corps as mere rank and filers, Serizawa, a samurai by birth, demanded special treatment from the start. He had been recruited as one of twenty-three officers overseeing the corps. Meanwhile, Kondō had been assigned the indecorous duty of traveling just ahead of the others to arrange lodgings for the officers and men at stations along the way. On one occasion he forgot to procure a room for Serizawa, for which he apologized profusely. But Serizawa did not take the offense lightly, nor did he accept the apology. He nevertheless assured his fellow officers, in a tone of irony laden with malcontent, that he would make do without lodgings for the night. He would light a fire to keep himself warm, he told them. “But,” he added glibly, “don’t be too surprised if the fire is a trifle large.” He gathered firewood and stacked it near the center of the town, where he lit a huge bonfire after the sun went down. The flames rose high into the night sky, raining sparks upon the surrounding wooden buildings. People bearing buckets of water climbed to the rooftops to put out the fire, but the burning resentment that engulfed Serizawa’s soul would not so easily be extinguished.

At Kyōto, Serizawa gloried in his newfound power. When it was rumored that a tiger at a local circus was actually a man dressed in a tiger skin, Serizawa thought he would expose the imposter. The swordsman proceeded to the building where the tiger was kept. He swaggered directly up to the cage, drew his short sword, and thrust the blade between the bars. As the crowd around him held their breath, the supposed imposter released an earsplitting roar, glaring sharply into the dark eyes of the Shinsengumi commander. Serizawa now resheathed his sword and with a sardonic smile announced, “It’s a real tiger.”

* * * * *

The corps split into two factions, rallying around Serizawa and Kondō, respectively. Of the thirteen original members, eight belonged to Kondō’s faction, the others to Serizawa’s. They recruited more men. Soon their membership exceeded one hundred. The leaders initiated a system of command to facilitate control over the rank and file. Beneath Commanders Serizawa Kamo and Kondō Isami, nominal Commander Shinmi Nishiki, and Vice Commanders Hijikata Toshizō and Yamanami Keisuké were fourteen assistant vice commanders. These included Okita Sōji, Nagakura Shinpachi, Harada Sanosuké, Tōdō Heisuké, Saitō Hajimé, and a new recruit named Yamazaki Susumu. (Yamazaki, a rōnin from Ōsaka, was an expert with a hard wooden staff.) These six assistants, with Hijikata and Yamanami, formed a tight-knit group around Commander Kondō. Other assistant vice commanders included Hirayama Gorō and Hirama Jūsuké, both loyal to Commander Serizawa. Beneath these officers were three “observers,” including the giant Shimada Kai. Shimada was a rōnin from the pro-Tokugawa Ōgaki Han in the province of Mino. He had practiced the Shinkeitō style of kenjutsu at Edo, where he befriended Nagakura. At 330 pounds and nearly six feet tall, Shimada was by far the largest man in the Shinsengumi.

Most of the officers lived at the Yagi residence, one of numerous houses along the narrow roads and byways of Mibu Village. The master of the Yagi residence, Yagi Gennojō, a petty samurai, was the tenth generational patriarch of his family and a leader of Mibu Village. The imposing black-tiled roofs of the dark wooden front gate and two-storied main house, the quaint latticed windows, the sliding doors of the wide entranceway, the interior tatami-matted rooms overlooking the rear garden through a long wooden corridor—this house, and these rooms and this garden, so immaculately and meticulously kept, were now occupied by the leaders of the most notorious band of killers in Japanese history. Across the narrow street was the single-storied house of the Maekawa family, where the corps set up headquarters. Both houses, scenes of bloodshed to come, would serve the Shinsengumi well.

From his Mibu headquarters, Kondō Isami wrote letters to Satō and Kojima in Tama, requesting them to forward training equipment, for himself and the other men from the Shieikan. Both Kondō and Hijikata expected to see bloodshed soon. In separate letters they asked their friends to send along shirts of chain mail, in preparation for battle.

A uniform was adopted—a flashy light blue linen jacket with pointed white stripes at the base of the sleeves. The corps took as their symbol the Chinese character for “sincerity”—for their loyalty to the Tokugawa. Pronounced makoto, the Shinsengumi symbol was emblazoned on the corps’ banner, white against a red background. According to Shimosawa, the banner was approximately five feet long, nearly four feet wide. The corpsmen carried their distinguishing banner and wore their distinguishing uniforms on their daily patrols of the city. They questioned or arrested wayward rōnin, vagrants, and otherwise suspicious men in and around the Imperial Capital. Their fearsome spectacle on the streets of Kyōto became an everyday phenomenon. According to the reminiscences of a ranking retainer of the Lord of Aizu, “the men of the Shinsengumi tied their topknots into great clumps of hair. When they walked against the wind the bushy ends would flare out wider, evoking an even more imposing spectacle.” Before long there were few, if any, in Kyōto, the nearby mercantile center of Ōsaka, or the surrounding areas who did not readily recognize them as the Tokugawa’s select and terrible band of swordsmen.

* * * * *

There had always been rōnin throughout the Tokugawa era. Formerly rōnin were men of the samurai class who had, for one reason or another, intentionally or not, become separated from liege lord and clan. In short, they were “lordless samurai.” But the rōnin of the turbulent final years of Tokugawa rule—the biggest turning point in Japanese history—were a different breed altogether. They were far greater in number than their predecessors. And they did not necessarily derive from the samurai class. Many came from peasant households. Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō are two of history’s most celebrated examples of peasants-turned-rōnin. The great majority of these latter-day rōnin, however, hailed from the lowest samurai ranks of their respective clans—most notably Mito in the east, Chōshū and Tosa in the west, and Satsuma and Kumamoto in the south. During an age when the entire nation faced unprecedented dangerous straits, most of these lower samurai were prohibited from participating in government or even voicing their opinions in official matters. Depending on their han, they were nominal samurai—permitted to wear the two swords and take family crests and names, but otherwise treated as commoners. Serizawa Kamo is a famous example of a nominal samurai who became a rōnin. Another is Sakamoto Ryōma, who came from a wealthy merchant-samurai family in Tosa.† These rōnin, in essence, quit the service of their daimyō, forfeiting the financial security and physical protection provided by their feudal lords for the freedom to participate in the dangerous national movement, often at the cost of their own lives. Like the leaders of the Rōshi Corps, most, if not all, of them were ardent xenophobes, raring to fight the foreigners.

The rōnin phenomenon of this era has been likened to a movement for social equality in a suppressive society. Many rōnin had been motivated more by a desire to wear the two swords and look like samurai than by lofty political aspirations. They fulfilled this desire by becoming rōnin under the false pretext of “loyalty.”

* * * * *

As swordsmen, Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō were perhaps technically inferior to certain of their subordinates in the corps—most notably the fencing genius Okita Sōji. But what they lacked in technical finesse they compensated for with strength of mind, courage, and an unyielding will to power. Their will to power, certainly their most formidable weapon, would time and again prove indomitable on the bloody streets of Kyōto.

For all its worth, however, when the will to power is combined with the germ of self-importance—the conviction that one is of greater worth than his fellow human beings—it tends to transform into the stuff of tragedy, often lethal to the host. Although not a pathogen in the biological sense, self-importance is a germ nonetheless; throughout the history of mankind it has been commonly carried by unscrupulous men, more often than not possessed of an unyielding will to power. Among them have been dictators, despots, conquerors, gang bosses, mass murderers, cult leaders—tyrants, criminals, and thugs, one and all—with a propensity to kill unrivaled by the mass majority whose unfortunate lot it has been to share with them the same time and space of their brief existence on this earth. What distinguishes Kondō, Hijikata, and certain other of their countrymen, friends and foes alike, and even including scoundrels such as Serizawa, from the unscrupulous club of murderous villains who have been bound neither by national border, historical era, nor social nor ethical mores is the stringent and unwritten Code of the Samurai, Bushidō, which they valued above all, including life itself, and by which they faithfully lived and died—although their interpretation of the code occasionally differed. But these men of the sword in the mid-nineteenth century, both the good and the bad, were heir to a rapidly changing society, when the age of the samurai and their noble code were fast declining, only to be replaced by the modern materialism of the encroaching West.

* * * * *

In the spring of the third year of Bunkyū, 1863, the shōgun issued his long-awaited promise to the emperor to expel the foreigners by May 10. In April he traveled from Kyōto to Ōsaka, to board the Tokugawa warship Jundō Maru, commanded by Katsu Kaishū. It was Iémochi’s purpose to observe Ōsaka Bay from shipboard, with an eye to fortifying the coastal defenses in that vital region, so close to the sacred Imperial Capital. The Shinsengumi proceeded to Ōsaka to guard the shōgun.On May 9, the day before the promised deadline, Tokugawa authorities yielded to the demands of Great Britain for reparations to the victims of the Satsuma samurai at Namamugi. This, of course, gave the radicals at court and their samurai allies a perfect excuse to strike out against the Bakufu. The authorities, in turn, called for the shōgun to return to his capital in the east, not for their falsely expressed purpose of expelling the foreigners there, which was nothing but a ploy to appease the radicals in Kyōto, including the Son of Heaven himself, but to get Iémochi away from the dangerous situation in the west.

On May 10, to demonstrate their perfect loyalty to the emperor, and in preparation for the coming war against the Tokugawa, the Loyalists in Chōshū, that most radical of samurai clans, gathered at Shimonoseki, the southwesternmost point of their domain. The Strait of Shimonoseki separated the island of Kyūshū from the main island of Honshū. Foreign ships passed through this vital strait to travel from Yokohama to Nagasaki and on to Shanghai. On the evening of the tenth, two Chōshū warships fired upon an unsuspecting American merchant vessel in the strait. On the twenty-third of the same month, the Chōshū men shot at a French dispatch boat from their batteries along the Shimonoseki coast. Three days later they opened fire on a Dutch corvette in the same waters. While the Americans and the French had avoided casualties, the Dutch suffered four dead and five severely wounded.

Chōshū had taken it upon itself to enforce the shōgun’s xenophobic, and impossible, promise. By so doing, it usurped influence over the Imperial Court at the expense of Satsuma—and as a result further diminished Tokugawa authority in Kyōto. But retaliation was hard and fast. On June 1, an American warship out of Yokohama sank two Chōshū ships at Shimonoseki, damaged a third, and shelled a battery along the coast. Four days later two French warships entered the strait and destroyed several more batteries. To add insult to injury, some 250 French troops landed at Shimonoseki and temporarily occupied two of the remaining batteries. They destroyed more of the Chōshū guns, threw stores of gunpowder into the ocean, and looted swords, armor, helmets, and muskets, before reboarding their ships and departing the same day.

The swift and one-sided retaliation had taught the Chōshū men a hard lesson. Like samurai throughout Japan, they had always been confident that when it came to actual combat, the foreigners would be no match for their superior fighting spirit. This myth had been shattered in just five days by the superior military force of three foreign warships. These champions of Expel the Barbarians had once and for all realized that until they could eliminate the immense technological gap between themselves and the great foreign powers, their slogan was a pipe dream.

Serizawa and Kondō felt certain that they understood the situation in the Imperial Capital better than the authorities three hundred miles away at Edo Castle. On May 25, they petitioned the Bakufu to keep the shōgun in Kyōto. Their purpose was to avoid giving the radicals an excuse to attack the Bakufu as punishment for the shōgun’s returning to Edo without fulfilling his promise. But Serizawa and Kondō were mere war dogs of the Bakufu. Consequently, their petition was ignored. In mid-June, the shōgun sailed for Edo aboard the Jundō Maru.

It is an irony of history that the Shinsengumi and the Chōshū-led Loyalists shared the same great objective: expelling the foreigners for the sake of the emperor. However, the means by which they would achieve this objective made them bitter enemies. The Shinsengumi intended to fight the foreigners under the military authority of the Tokugawa Shōgun. The Chōshū-led Loyalists meant to destroy the Tokugawa Bakufu as the most dangerous impediment to their objective. After the Edo authorities agreed to pay reparations to Great Britain, Kondō Isami realized that the Bakufu was not yet ready to implement Jōi. Although he intended to eventually return to the east to wage war against the foreigners there, he nevertheless determined that his corps, the avowed protector of the shōgun, must for the time being remain in the turbulent west, even in Iémochi’s absence. His corps must suppress the anti-Tokugawa radicals who would use the shōgun’s inability to expel the foreigners as an excuse to strike out against him. For Kondō Isami, protecting the Tokugawa Shōgun now took precedence over everything.

The Shinsengumi’s mortal enemies basked in imperial grace during the sweltering and frenetic summer of the third year of Bunkyū. In Kyōto, the Chōshū Loyalists enjoyed the support of the extremists surrounding the emperor, led by court noble Sanjō Sanétomi. But Chōshū’s glory in Kyōto was as short-lived as its triumph at Shimonoseki had been. In mid-August, Aizu and Satsuma formed a military alliance, tipping the balance of power at the Imperial Court back into the hands of the Tokugawa. On August 18, under the cover of night, heavily armed Satsuma and Aizu troops seized the Nine Forbidden Gates of the palace, barring entrance by the Chōshū men. Fourteen hundred armed Loyalists, including one thousand rōnin, assembled at Sakaimachi Gate, which thus far had been Chōshū ’s to guard. The tense scene was described by a chief vassal of the outside Lord of Yonézawa, in a letter to his son:

The two sides faced each other, their cannon and rifles ready to fire.... Each man wore armor, and I wish you could have seen the imposing spectacle. Chōshū Han showed no fear in the face of [the dangerous situation]. Among their samurai were youths who looked to be around fifteen or sixteen years old. They wore white crepe jackets and white headbands, carried Western rifles in their hands and thought nothing of the huge army confronting them. Rather, they advanced to the front of the line, eager for the enemy to attack.

Their brave determination notwithstanding, the Chōshū warriors were no match for their heavily armed Satsuma and Aizu foes. Betrayed by the Imperial Court, these champions of Imperial Loyalism aimed their guns at the palace. But now they were presented with an imperial order to retreat immediately or be branded an “Imperial Enemy.” They had no choice but to obey. Chōshū was banished from Kyōto, along with seven radical court nobles led by Sanjō Sanétomi. Satsuma and Aizu were aided in the fight by men of the Shinsengumi, including Hijikata Toshizō. The Demon Commander’s valor was evident in the two enemy sword marks left on the iron head guard he wore at his forehead. He sent this head guard to his brother-in-law, Satō Hikogorō, in Hino. Accompanying the package was a letter, in which Hijikata glibly remarked, “In Kyōto, I have not yet been killed.”

The so-called Coup of 8/18 exacerbated the turmoil in the city. Chōshū samurai and their rōnin allies who managed to remain in Kyōto went into hiding. They renewed their vows of Heaven’s Revenge, and there were rumors that Chōshū was planning a countercoup in Kyōto. Panic spread through the general populace and the court. In the aftermath of the coup, the Shinsengumi received official orders from the protector of Kyōto to “patrol the city day and night.”

The Shinsengumi did their job well. The extraordinary sense of self-importance and the unyielding will to power of their leaders interacted with each other, and reacted with the unique historical era they had inherited, to produce in these particularly skilled swordsmen a propensity to kill unsurpassed even in these bloodiest of times. Soon a semblance of order was restored to the city. In the following month the Imperial Court rewarded each corpsmen with one gold ryō.‡

The protector of Kyōto was similarly happy with his Newly Selected Corps, which, in fact, were becoming his most powerful security force. The corps’ unprecedented strength was bolstered by their severe code of conduct, devised by Kondō and Hijikata. That both leaders hailed from peasant households certainly steeled their resolve to conduct themselves and their corps according to the most stoic traditions of the warrior class. Strictly prohibited were “violating the Code of the Samurai,” “quitting the corps,” “raising money for selfish purposes,” “taking it upon oneself to make accusations,” and “fighting for personal reasons.” Violation of any of these prohibitions was punishable by seppuku.§ Not all violators, however, were given the honor of dying like samurai. The less worthy ones were beheaded. Attached to the prohibitions was a particularly severe regulation that perhaps more than anything else accounted for the lethality of the Shinsengumi: “In case of a fight, if you do not kill your opponent you will be ordered to commit seppuku, just as if you had been wounded from behind.”¶

This sanguine code of conduct was, in fact, strictly enforced—although it would not be established as the official code of the Shinsengumi for nearly two years.* The number of corpsmen forced to commit seppuku, or who were beheaded or otherwise murdered, has been lost to history, though several incidents have been recorded. Ta’uchi Tomo of the province of Musashi made an unexpected visit to the home of his mistress in the southern outskirts of Kyōto. The table had been set with saké and some food, which aroused his suspicion. As he questioned the woman, he was suddenly attacked from behind by her secret lover. A fellow corpsman discovered Ta’uchi bleeding from his wounds. He helped him back to headquarters, where Kondō and Hijikata ordered him to commit seppuku—a propensity to kill. Another man was similarly punished for having an affair with a married woman—a propensity to kill. A fencing instructor in the corps who espoused radical Loyalist views was condemned to seppuku for “disrupting order in the corps”—a propensity to kill. One of the earliest members deserted after seeing fellow corpsmen condemned to death and countless of the enemy butchered in the streets of Kyōto. Having been with the corps for a long time, he was privy to confidential information, the divulgence of which was not to be tolerated. He was hunted down, captured, and hacked to death by several of his former comrades—a propensity to kill. Another corpsman was beheaded for attempting to extort money from a wealthy merchant—a propensity to kill. Two others, one of whom had been expelled from the Shinsengumi for cowardice, were murdered on the streets of Kyōto for attempting to use the corps’ name for their own profit—a propensity to kill. A man in charge of accounting for the Shinsengumi was ordered by Hijikata to commit seppuku for “the crime of miscalculation”—a propensity to kill.

Although quitting the corps was certainly a capital offense, it was by no means easy to apprehend a deserter. Tracking down a deserter could be a drawn-out and complicated process, as was the case for one Shibata Hikosaburō. Shibata enlisted in 1864. About a year and a half later, in June 1866, he deserted after extorting money for personal use. When Hijikata received word of Shibata’s whereabouts in Izushi Han, northwest of Kyōto, he sent four men after him. The pursuers carried a detailed description of Shibata, including his features, age, dress, alias, and the fact that he spoke with a Musashi dialect. He was handed over to his pursuers by Izushi officials, brought back to Shinsengumi headquarters in Kyōto, and forced to commit seppuku as an example to would-be deserters—a propensity to kill.

The most infamous instance of harshness by the Shinsengumi to one of their own is the unfortunate, if historically blurred, case of Vice Commander Yamanami Keisuké. According to Nagakura Shinpachi, Yamanami, “vehement in his Imperial Loyalism, was every bit as great as Kiyokawa Hachirō, Serizawa Kamo and Kondō Isami.” Even the protector of Kyōto was counted among Yamanami’s admirers. When Yamanami’s sword was severed in a battle in which he had killed a rōnin, the Aizu daimyō rewarded him with a new sword and eight ryō .

The trouble with Yamanami seems to have originated over a disagreement in philosophy, though Shimosawa also cites a bitter rivalry with the other vice commander, Hijikata Toshizō. Yamanami was apparently vexed over the lately inflated self-importance of Kondō and Hijikata. He felt that they had forgotten the original purpose for which the members of the Shieikan had enlisted in the “loyal and patriotic” corps. The unyielding will to power that had lately consumed his erstwhile friends had diminished their former patriotic ideals. According to most sources, Yamanami’s vexation was exacerbated sometime in early 1865, when Kondō and Hijikata, unhappy with their cramped headquarters at Mibu, decided to move to a more spacious location at Nishihonganji Temple in the southwest of the city. The temple priests were perplexed over the decision. Their attempts to rebuff the Shinsengumi were ignored by Kondō and Hijikata. Yamanami objected to what he considered coercion of Buddhist priests. “Certainly there are many other suitable places,” he admonished Kondō, and suggested that his commander reconsider. But his commander would not reconsider, and Yamanami resolved to pay the ultimate price. He composed a farewell letter explaining the reasons he could no longer, in good conscience, risk his life under Kondō ’s command. Then he defected.†

Yamanami fled to the town of Ōtsu, about seven miles east of Kyōto on Lake Biwa. Although sources differ in the details of subsequent events, according to both Nagakura and Shimosawa, Kondō sent Okita to retrieve Yamanami. This was no easy task. For all of Okita’s skill with a sword, Yamanami himself was an expert in the Hokushin Ittō style. He was also proficient in jūjutsu. That Okita apprehended him without a struggle seems to indicate that Yamanami was resigned to his fate. Upon his return to Mibu, he was summoned to an assembly of Shinsengumi leaders in the Maekawa house.

“Desertion,” Kondō said, breaking an austere silence, “is prohibited by Shinsengumi regulations.” Kondō spoke solemnly as he ordered Yamanami to commit seppuku—a propensity to kill. Yamanami calmly expressed his appreciation and happiness at being called upon to perform this most honorable task for a samurai. He then excused himself momentarily. When he returned to the room he had changed into formal attire. He placed a mat over the clean tatami floor so as not to soil it with his blood. He sat on the mat, assumed the formal position, and placed his short sword in front of himself. He thanked all present for their long-lasting fellowship. He exchanged ceremonious farewell cups of water with them and courteously delivered his farewell speech. He asked Okita Sōji to serve as his second, instructing the genius swordsman not to “lower your sword until I give the word.” Then he gently took up his short sword and plunged it into his lower abdomen. After slicing the blade across in one straight line, he fell forward with a final thrust of energy, earning, according to Nagakura, “Kondō’s praise for the splendidness” by which he performed this ultimate task.

The number of rank and filers who suffered a similar fate is unknown. The officers were no exception. Of the twenty-two most noted officers, only three survived those bloody times. At least six were assassinated, three committed seppuku, and two were executed. In 1876, eight years after the death of Kondō Isami and the final collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, in the Itabashi district of Tōkyō—the new Eastern Capital—at a spot on the earth just a stone’s throw from the execution grounds where Kondō had been beheaded, Nagakura erected a stone monument for the repose of the souls of his comrades who did not survive the revolution. Their names are engraved on the stone. Thirty-nine are listed as having died in battle, and seventy-one having met their end by disease, accident, seppuku, or execution.

The most severe treatment fell upon traitors and spies. Immediately following the coup in August, all Chōshū men and their rōnin allies were officially banned from the Imperial Capital. Some of them, however, managed to remain in the city for reconnaissance purposes, disguised as merchants or beggars. These outlaws were hunted by men of the Tokugawa camp, including Aizu and the Shinsengumi.

“The Shinsengumi became the object of hatred among shishi from Chōshū,” Nagakura recalled. “They concluded that as long as Kondō and his men dominated the Kyōto scene, it would be difficult for them to effect [another] uprising. And so Katsura Kogorō‡ chose four of his comrades ... as assassins” to infiltrate the Shinsengumi. On August 25, one week after the coup, several Chōshū men suddenly showed up at Mibu headquarters. They claimed to have left the service of their han due to a falling-out with their clansmen. They requested permission to join the Shinsengumi. Kondō accepted them into the corps, intending to use them as spies to “find and kill the malcontents from Chōshū hiding in Kyōto.” He ordered his new recruits to stay at the Maekawa residence, and gave them 100 ryō to pay for uniforms and other expenses. Having concluded his meeting with the four Chōshū men, “Kondō [had] a strange flicker in his eyes ... and after some time summoned Nagakura§ and three others” and told them to “be on guard” regarding the four new recruits.

Near the end of September, Kondō discovered the truth about his four new recruits. “We can’t let them get away,” Kondō said, and ordered Nagakura, Okita, and others to “kill them immediately.” Nagakura and two others found two of the Chōshū men sunning themselves on the long wooden veranda at the Maekawa residence. With their swords they swiftly killed both men, stabbing them through from behind. Meanwhile, Okita and his fellow assistant vice commander, Tōdō Heisuké, burst into another room of the house in pursuit of two more of the enemy, who escaped through a window. An additional two corpsmen, also uncovered as Chōshū spies, attempted to flee. One was captured. The other escaped after being cut from behind. “We tried to bring the captured man ... to Commander Kondō [for questioning],” Nagakura recalled. When he refused to cooperate, Harada Sanosuké, known for his short temper, drew his long sword, and with one swift stroke beheaded him. “Not only were we commissioned to round up the vagrants who swaggered through the streets of Kyōto, but [now] we were also invested with the authority to kill them. Shishi hiding in Kyōto and Ōsaka feared the commander of the Shinsengumi as if he were a demon.”

___________________

* The Kamakura Bakufu ruled from 1192 to 1333.

† Rank in the Tennen Rishin style was awarded students in the following order of graduating proficiency: kirikami, mokuroku, chūgokui mokuroku, menkyo (a license to serve as assistant instructor) and shinan menkyo (a license to open a dōjō and teach one’s own students). It normally took a student five years of dedicated and rigorous training to attain the rank of menkyo.

‡ Isami is written with one Chinese character, which, quite appropriately, means “courage.”

§ This was taller than average during mid-nineteenth-century Japan.

¶ Meiji Restoration historian Michio Hirao’s groundbreaking Shinsengumi Shiroku (literally, Historical Record of the Shinsengumi) was first published in 1928, under the original title Shinsengumishi (literally, History of the Shinsengumi). Hirao was first and foremost an historian, more widely known for his writings about Sakamoto Ryōma than about the Shinsengumi. Shortly before completing the Shinsengumi manuscript, in 1928 Hirao interviewed Kondō Isami’s heir, Kondō Yūgorō (seventy-six years old at the time), at the latter’s home at Kami’ishihara, in the Tama region of Tōkyō. Others interviewed by Hirao include members of the Miyagawa family.

* Kan Shimosawa’s Shinsengumi Shimatsuki (literally, Narrative of the Shinsengumi) has long been considered the definitive history of the Shinsengumi. Published in 1928 just before Hirao’s book, Shimosawa’s narrative is partially based on interviews with former corpsmen and other people who had direct contact with the Shinsengumi. Shimosawa, however, was primarily a novelist. He began the preface of his book by stating, “It is not my intention to write history.” Some of his information has been repudiated by more recent studies, whose authors have enjoyed the benefit of over three-quarters of a century of subsequent scholarship unavailable to Shimosawa. Accordingly, like other early historical narratives of the Shinsengumi, Shimosawa’s work is best taken for what it’s worth, and relished for its portrayal of the spirit of the men of Shinsengumi rather than as a faithful history. Nevertheless, as certain of his descriptions capture the essence of this spirit, I feel that they demand an English rendering in this narrative.

† See Appendix I (3).

‡ See Appendix I (4).

§ See Appendix I (5).

¶ See Appendix I (6).

* It is believed to have been established as the official code around the end of May 1865.

† It has been suggested that the Shinsengumi did not start talking to the temple priests until after Yamanami’s death. If this is true, then the matter of Nishihonganji was unrelated to Yamanami’s desertion.

‡ A leader of the Chōshū Loyalists.

§ In his oral recollections, dictated to a newspaper journalist over a two-year period beginning in 1911, Nagakura is referred to by name.