was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

from

Mito Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Mito Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.Tokugawa Nariaki Tokugawa Nariaki (徳川斉昭, April 4, 1800 – September 29, 1860) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' who ruled the Mito Domain (now Ibaraki Prefecture) and contributed to the rise of nationalism and the Meiji Restoration. Biography Clan leader ...

, in

Bakumatsu period were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunat ...

Japan. He became the leader of the

Mito Rebellion The , also called the Kantō Insurrection or the , was a civil war that occurred in the area of Mito Domain in Japan from May 2, 1864 to January 14, 1865. It involved an uprising and terrorist actions against the central power of the Shogunate in ...

and was executed by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

with a large number of his followers shortly before the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

Biography

Although Takeda Kōunsai claimed descent from the famous

Takeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century. The clan was historically based in Kai Province in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture. The clan reached its greatest influence under the rule of Taked ...

of Kai Province, his immediate ancestor was a Takeda retainer named

Atobe Katsusuke was a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku period, who served the Takeda clan. Due to the expansion of the Kai Takeda clan's daimyo territory during the rule of Takeda Shingen and Takeda Katsuyori's periods, the head of the family had fewer permane ...

, and his claimed connection with the Takeda clan is somewhat tenuous. In 1817, when he inherited his father's 300 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'' fief, he changed his surname from Atobe Hikokurō (跡部彦九郎) to Takeda Masaki (武田正生). As a senior advisor to Tokugawa Nariaki, he helped formulate the reforms to the administration and policies of the

that Nariaki was attempting to promote. These included strengthening the shogunate's military forces and to take aggressive action against the foreign warships encroaching on Japan's territorial waters and threatening its policy of national isolation. However, Nariaki was forced to retire in 1844 by the ''

Tairō ''Tairō'' (, "great elder") was a high-ranking official position in the Tokugawa shogunate government of Japan, roughly comparable to the office of prime minister. The ''tairō'' presided over the governing '' rōjū'' council in the event of an ...

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

. Following Ii's assassination in 1860, Nariaki returned to national politics, where he railed against the weak response the shogunate made in response to the

Perry Expedition ] The Perry Expedition (, , "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition in two separate voyages (1852–1853 and 1854–1855) to the Tokugawa shogunate () by warships of the United States Navy. The goals of this expedit ...

of 1853 and the subsequent signing of the

Convention of Kanagawa The Convention of Kanagawa, also known as the or the , was a treaty signed between the United States and the Tokugawa Shogunate on March 31, 1854. Unequal treaty#Japan, Signed under threat of force, it effectively meant the end of Japan's 220-ye ...

and the

Harris Treaty Harris may refer to: Places Canada * Harris, Ontario * Northland Pyrite Mine (also known as Harris Mine) * Harris, Saskatchewan * Rural Municipality of Harris No. 316, Saskatchewan Scotland * Harris, Outer Hebrides (sometimes called the Isle o ...

over the objections of

Emperor Kōmei Osahito (22 July 1831 – 30 January 1867), posthumously honored as Emperor Kōmei, was the 121st emperor of Japan, according to the List of Emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession.Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')孝明天皇 ...

. Takeda Kōunsai emerged during this period as a leader of the increasingly radical pro-''

sonnō jōi was a '' yojijukugo'' (four-character compound) phrase used as the rallying cry and slogan of a political movement in Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Bakumatsu period. Based on Neo-Confucianism and Japanese nativism, the movement sou ...

'' faction within Mito Domain, which started a campaign of terrorist attacks on foreigners residing in Japan and assassination of Japanese officials supporting the shogunate. Events came to a head from May 1864 to early 1865 with the

, where a force of some 700 Mito ''samurai'' armed with firearms and cannon and 1300 partisan insurgents battled an shogunal army of 3000 troops on the slopes of

Mount Tsukuba is an mountain located at the northern-end of Tsukuba, Japan. It is one of the most famous mountains in Japan, particularly well known for its double peaks, and . Many people climb the so-called "purple mountain" every year for the panorami ...

, Nakaminato and other locations in eastern Japan. Takeda Kōunsai attempted to march directly on

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

to appeal to the imperial court, but was captured in

Tsuruga is a city located in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 66,123 in 28,604 households and the population density of 260 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Geography Tsuruga is located in central ...

with his 823 remaining followers. The rebels were held by the shogunate in 16

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

storehouses by Tsuruga port under very poor conditions in the middle of winter, and many died. The following year, the 353 survivors, including Kōunsai, were taken to the nearby Buddhist temple of Raikō-ji and were executed en masse. Shogunal authorities later arrested and executed his widow, two sons and three grandchildren. When Takeda's 3-year-old son was to be decapitated, he began crying and clung to his mother. The executioner hesitated and was unable to wield his sword. At that point, the

yoriki were members of the ''samurai'' class of feudal Japan. ''Yoriki'' literally means ''helper'' or ''assistant''. Description and history ''Yoriki'' assisted ''daimyō'' (feudal lords) or their designated commanders during military campaigns in the ...

offered to assume responsibility, and, holding Kaneyoshi between his knees, stabbed the boy to death with a short sword.

Grave of Takeda Kōunsai

Following the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, the temple of Raikō-ji became a

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

, Matsubara Jinja, wherein the 411 members of the Mito Rebellion who died in Tsuruga (including those who died in prison) are commemorated as ''

kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...

''. The mass graves of Takeda Kōunsai and his 353 followers were in five mounds within the precincts of the former temple, and the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

amalgamated the mounds into a single 30 x 4 meter mound, upon which 15 gravestones made from stone from Mito were arranged in a "U"-shape in 1868. In 1954, in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Mito Rebellion, one of the herring storehouses was moved to the grounds of Matsubara Jinja and became the . The is designated as a National Historic Site in 1976.

Notes

External links

Tsuruga Tourist Association

{{DEFAULTSORT:Takeda, Kounsai 1803 births 1865 deaths Samurai Mito Domain People of Bakumatsu Executed Japanese people People executed by Japan by decapitation Historic Sites of Japan