was one of the

Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

, elite samurai, active in Japan during the

late Tokugawa shogunate was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government. ...

in the 1860s.

Biography

The Hitokiri Shinbei worked under the command of

Takechi Hanpeita , (October 24, 1829 – July 3, 1865), also known as , was a samurai of Tosa Domain during the Bakumatsu period in Japan. Influenced by the effects of the Perry Expedition, Takechi formed the Tosa Kinnō-tō (土佐勤王党, Tosa Imp ...

, the leader of the Kinnō-tō, who sought to overthrow the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

and restore the

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his positio ...

to power. Hanpeita ordered Shinbei and the other hitokiri to enact "Heaven's punishment" (天誅, Tenchū) against supporters of the Shogunate and supporters of foreign access to Japan. A hitokiri from the Satsuma District, Shinbei came from a peasant background. After his first high-level assassination, he was elevated to samurai status despite the traditional samurai disdain towards peasants. Shinbei was involved in the assassination of

Ii Naosuke was ''daimyō'' of Hikone (1850–1860) and also Tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan, a position he held from April 23, 1858, until his death, assassinated in the Sakuradamon Incident on March 24, 1860. He is most famous for signing the Ha ...

, the head of the

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

Council of Elders who was the head of administration for the Tokugawa shogunate in 1860. This assassination sparked years of violence in Japan especially in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

where assassinations became commonplace. Of all the Hitokiris, Shinbei killed the most people. Besides Naosuke, his victims included politicians such as Shimada Sakon, Ukyo Omokuni and Homma Seiichiro. He was also suspected of murdering a young woman named Komichi. Because of this, Tanakaba was titled ''"ansatsu taicho"'' (captain of assassins).Turnbull , Stephen. ''The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War''. Tuttle Publishing; 1 edition (August 5, 2014). p. 182. The

Shinsengumi The was a special police force organized by the (military government) during Japan's Bakumatsu period (late Tokugawa shogunate) in 1863. It was active until 1869. It was founded to protect the shogunate representatives in Kyoto at a time when ...

was formed in 1863 to suppress the hitokiri and Tosa loyalists and restore law and order. Shinbei's sword was found at the scene of the assassination of a senior official Anegakōji Kintomo. He was taken for questioning in Kyoto and asked to see the sword. He committed

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

when he was given the sword.

References

Suicides by seppuku Samurai Japanese assassins 1832 births 1863 deaths 1860s suicides {{Samurai-stub