Last Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu Twenty-one Years After Meiji Restoration

This photo of the Tokugawa family was taken in 1889, about twenty-one years after the fall of the Tokugawa Bakufu, at the home of Tokugawa Akitake (4th from the left), the last daimyo of Mito. Akitake’s elder brother, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (at age 52), the last shōgun, is on the far left. The photo, which includes Yoshinobu’s two sons, a daughter, his mother (a princess of the blood of the Arisugawa family) and other members of his extended family, is on display at the Kōdōkan in Mito. Seated next to Yoshinobu is Tokugawa Iesato, the 16th head of the Tokugawa family who succeeded him after he stepped down as shōgun and family head. Around three years after this photo was taken, Katsu Kaishū, the last shōgun’s “last samurai,” adopted a son of Yoshinobu, Kuwashi, as his heir.


Katsu Kaishū is the shōgun’s (i.e., Yoshinobu’s) “last samurai” in Samurai Revolution.

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