was a Japanese

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

of the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

who was a retainer of the

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of th ...

Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princip ...

. He served as a ''

karō were top-ranking samurai officials and advisors in service to the ''daimyōs'' of feudal Japan. Overview In the Edo period, the policy of ''sankin-kōtai'' (alternate attendance) required each ''daimyō'' to place a ''karō'' in Edo and anoth ...

'' in the Aizu administration, and fought in the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

.Majima Isao, "Matsudaira Katamori kashindan jinmei jiten," in ''Matsudaira Katamori no subete,'' p. 197. Upon the entry of

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

forces into the

Tsuruga Castle , also known as Tsuruga Castle (鶴ヶ城 ''Tsuru-ga-jō'') is a concrete replica of a traditional Japanese castle in northern Japan, at the center of the city of Aizuwakamatsu, in Fukushima Prefecture. Background Aizu Wakamatsu Castle is locate ...

town, he led an effort to halt their advance. Upon defeat, he followed fellow ''

Jinbo Kuranosuke was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period who was a retainer of the Matsudaira clan of Aizu. He served in the Aizu administration as a ''karō''. He fought in the Boshin War, and led the defense of Wakamatsu against the Imperial Japanese Arm ...

into a nearby doctor's house, and 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 ...

References

*Tsunabuchi Kenjo (1984). ''Matsudaira Katamori no subete''. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha. *Nakamura Akihiko (2006). ''Byakkotai''. *Hoshi Ryōichi (2005). ''Onnatachi no Aizusensō''. *https://web.archive.org/web/20071218204343/http://bakumatu.727.net/aidu/aidu-jinbutu-tosa.htm Samurai 1820 births 1868 deaths People of the Boshin War Seppuku from Meiji period to present Karō People from Aizu Aizu-Matsudaira retainers Suicides by sharp instrument in Japan {{samurai-stub