“Ryōma fans” at the annual gathering held in Tokyo last October visited Sakamoto Ryōma-related sites. Shinagawa was one of the destinations. Located there was Tosa’s residence at Samezu, where the retired daimyo of Tosa, Yamauchi Yōdō, had lived for a number of years; and where Ryōma and other Tosa samurai had been stationed.

Kiyoharu Omino, the distinguished writer and scholar of Bakumatsu history, gave talks at Yōdō’s alongside gravesite and at the reconstructed Hamakawa Battery of Tosa Han – whose eight guns would not have been able to hit Perry’s ships in Edo Bay in the summer of 19854 even if they had been fired. Ryōma, age twenty at the time, received gunnery training at the Hamakawa Battery as a student of Sakuma Shōzan, Mr. Omino wrote in the explanatory panel at the site.

_____________

Recently I have been focusing on my forthcoming Samurai Swordsmen: The Definitive History of the Shinsengumi (1863–1869), scheduled for publication in fall 2026 with Helion. I also provide consulting on Bakumatsu–Meiji Restoration history and culture to authors, editors, publishers, documentarians, producers, screenwriters, and other professionals who need expert guidance on the era.

To explore my books about Sakamoto Ryōma, Katsu Kaishū and others of the Meiji Restoration, see Books at a Glance.

Follow me on Facebook | Amazon Author page

The last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, upon returning to his native Mito on the day his castle was surrendered in spring 1868, secluded himself in this room at the Kōdōkan, the official school of Mito, to demonstrate his loyalty to the new Imperial government. The room, named Shizendō (至善堂), is an Important Cultural Property, designated by the Japanese government. Its name means something like “Hall of Ultimate Virtue.”

Also see .

Kyōto, Kōchi, Kagoshima, Hagi, Shimonoseki, major cities of the Meiji Restoration, contain some of the most interesting sites in Bakumatsu history. But the Kōdōkan, the sometimes overlooked official school of Mito Han, is particularly fascinating to me – because Mito is the cradle of Imperial Loyalism (Kinnō), which of course culminated in the Meiji Restoration. It was at the Kōdōkan where Mitogaku (“Mitoism”), the ultra-nationalistic school of thought, attained prominence. Mitogaku was the cornerstone of Imperial Loyalism.