Author Archives: Romlus Hillsborough

The Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma (4)

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This year marks the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma, which is the subject of Part III of my new book, Samurai Assassins.

Ryōma’s assassination is shrouded in mystery, and this book provides the first in-depth study of the tragic event in English, based mostly on primary sources. My most important primary sources for Part III include Ryōma’s letters; testimonies and writings by, and interviews of, his alleged assassins; and accounts from people who were either present at the assassination scene or who arrived shortly after the fact. These primary sources, described in Chapter 17, are published in Miyaji Saichirō’s monumental Sakamoto Ryōma Zenshū. (from the Preface)

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The Edo-Tokyo Encyclopaedia

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When I bought this wonderful reference book of Edo-Tokyo history and culture (Sanseido, 1987) at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Higashi-Shinjuku (Shinjuku Station, East), Tokyo, in 1988, I was writing my novel, Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai. At over 1,220 pages, it’s been a great reference for around three decades.

Assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma (3)

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The assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma on the eve of a peaceful revolution of his own design was a tragedy. Following is an excerpt (without footnotes) from Chapter 15 of Samurai Assassins:

Though Ryōma was the author of the plan for the peaceful restoration of Imperial rule, he was also a leading proponent of Tōbaku, “Down with the Bakufu.” These two seemingly contradictory stances underlie the tragedy of his assassination. In a letter to Ryōma dated Keiō 3/9/4 (1867), the Chōshū leader Katsura Kogorō, using the name Kido Junichirō, likened Tōbaku to a “Great Drama,” the final act of which was getting under way in Kyōto, as Satsuma and Chōshū, in collaboration with Court nobleman Iwakura Tomomi, prepared to destroy the Bakufu. With Ryōma’s assassination around two months later, on the eve of a peaceful revolution of his own design, that drama turned tragic.

Ryōma’s murder by multiple sword wounds to the body and a blow to the head from which his brains reportedly protruded even as he was still able to move around and speak, was as horrible as it was tragic. To fully understand the scale of Ryōma’s tragedy, we must realize that he was a visionary and a genius—if genius means to conceive of original ideas and to have the courage and audacity to bring them to fruition. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Ryōma’s contemporary, alluded to genius, I think, with the following statement: “When a human being resists his whole age and stops it at the gate to demand an accounting, this must have influence.” Based on his determined resistance to the social iniquities and restraints under the Tokugawa Bakufu and its archaic feudal system, Sakamoto Ryōma influenced “his whole age” through a series of unparalleled historical achievements: Japan’s first trading company, the Satsuma-Chōshū Alliance, and his great plan for peaceful restoration of Imperial rule.

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Bakumatsu/Meiji Restoration (幕末明治維新)

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Though I’ve read, researched, written about – and yes, even lived – this history and culture for 30+ years, the fact that I, an American, born and raised in the second half of the 20th century, have the audacity to publish books about it, boggles the mind (or at least my mind). But I do it because I need to – because if I don’t, who will?

I’m making steady progress with my new book about Shinsengumi. I’ll post updates periodically.

A heartfelt thanks to all my readers!

 

Ryōma: Ten Often Overlooked Facts (3)

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3) Concerned about things bigger than himself: During the last few years of his life, it seems that Sakamoto Ryōma, while clearly realizing that his life was in danger, was concerned about bigger things than just himself. Illustrating this is an excerpt from my new book, Samurai Assassins (without footnotes):

Ryōma had been staying in a secluded room at the house of a purveyor of soy called the Ōmiya, located in Kawaramachi just across the street from Tosa’s Kyōto headquarters. While apparently disregarding the danger to himself, he worried about the lives of his fellow patriots. To protect them, he planned to send as many as possible to Ezo (modern-day Hokkaidō) in the far north of the country to settle and exploit that mineral-rich wilderness and train them in the naval sciences. He was working on the plan with Hayashi Kenzō, a samurai from Hiroshima Han. In a letter to Hayashi …, Ryōma alluded to the great danger facing the nation under the Bakufu and urged his friend to be careful for his life. “Now is the time for us to act. Soon we must decide on our direction, whether it lead to pandemonium or paradise.” Early in the morning five days later, Hayashi, summoned by Ryōma from Ōsaka for “an urgent discussion” at the Ōmiya, encountered the aftermath of that pandemonium. Upon entering the building he saw “bloody footprints here and there”; then “dashing up the stairway to see if Sakamoto was okay,” he found Ryōma’s corpse, “his sword drawn, lying in a pool of blood.”