#sagara sozo

[calaliniarts-blog]

This fanart is about my fav character from Rurouni Kenshin, Captain Sagara Sôzô! what is he looking at? Ah! I just made a patreon to ulpoad my artwork too, honestly i don’t know how it works but some people advice me to have one, so i did it! it is: https://www.patreon.com/calalini

[hakuouki-history]

“If You Dance with the Devil, the Devil Don’t Change” - Part Two - The Downfall of Sagara Sozo

Monument to the memory of Sagara Sōzō and the Sekihōtai in Shimosuwa, Nagano Prefecture. (Courtesy of Shimosuwa’s tourism site)

Part One of this two-part series covered Sagara Sōzō’s actions stirring up a war in Edo. Now we come to his downfall as leader of the Sekihōtai, branded by the new Meiji government as a ‘False Government Army.’ This is another long post, but it’s a heck of a story. 

This account comes Anne Walthall’s book, The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration. (pp. 248-251)

From the end of 1867 through the early months of 1868, a number of would-be samurai organized militia in support of the court or the bakufu. Takamori sent Sōzō to Ōmi for that purpose with 100 ryō and a quantity of small arms. The men whom Sōzō recruited called themselves the Sekihōtai, "the brigade that offers the red heart of patriotism in service to the emperor." Just as the main body of the imperial army was placed under the nominal command of an imperial prince, so too was the brigade commanded by two minor court nobles.

So far so good. Satsuma commander Saigō Takamori had given Sagara his orders in Edo, and it seemed he was now continuing his patronage of Sagara and his new force. The two court nobles added an air of imperial legitimacy to the enterprise, even though in practice none of these nobles knew anything about the business of war.

On the ninth day of the first month, Sōzō returned to Kyoto to ask the court for formal recognition as a vanguard unit of the im­perial army. The court authorized the creation of the brigade after the fact, but refused to give Sōzō the brocade banner that would have bestowed official sanction. That would have to wait until the regular army marched east. Sōzō was further instructed to attach his brigade to the army taking the coastal road, the Tōkaidō.

This must have been galling. Instead of being offered a place at the front of the new army, Sagara and the Sekihōtai were being pushed towards an inferior position within the army. Sagara had wanted to move along the Nakasendō, the road to Edo through the mountains.  He had supporters along the way who would help him. Instead, he was being told to submerse his unit in the army which would eventually take the coastal road. 

The first month of 1868 was a period of transition and instability for the new government. Lines of command remained vague, irregular appointments were made, and political opportunism was the order of the day. While Sōzō was negotiating for official recognition in Kyoto, he may have well heard rumors that the court had decided to lower taxes in order to gain popular sup­port.

Sagara’s defenders would argue that he’d been told straight out in Kyoto that this was the government’s new policy, and they reneged on it. Very likely the new tax reductions were only meant for the lands that’d belonged to the shogunate. The Imperial government wasn’t abolishing the domains at this point, after all, but was trying to undermine the shogunate’s support.

It’s difficult to tell exactly what happened, but Sagara certainly believed the new government would be introducing tax reform throughout the lands. Sensing their chance for glory slipping away the Sekihōtai decided to seize the day for themselves. 

In the meantime, his brigade and the two court nobles convinced the domains lying in their path to give them arms. Flushed with success, they started moving up the Nakasendō, which is where Sōzō caught up with them. That first night and at every stop thereafter he erected a signboard announc­ing that the emperor had been restored to power, the land tax would be halved, and anyone who needed assistance would receive help from the court. This was to apply not only in bakufu lands but in domanial lands as well. Natu­rally enough, this announcement met with considerable dismay on the part of administrators (who considered the current tax rate far from adequate) and great rejoicing on the part of the peasants. The brigade's ranks swelled with each passing day.

In Rurouni Kenshin, Sagara meets two young peasant boys: Sanosuke and Katsuhiro, who join this triumphant procession. It must have really felt like a liberation to these two.

Still concerned that he had not received public authorization, Sōzō sent a messenger to Kyoto at the end of the first month asking that he be allowed to take the brigade up the Nakasendō where he knew the people and the land. His answer was an order to return to Kyoto. He and his followers feared that if they obeyed, the brigade would be disbanded and the leaders imprisoned. The two court nobles fled, and many members of the troop deserted. Determined to win the honor of being the first to enter the Kantō plain at the head of the imperial army, Sōzō pushed forward. He believed that if he could capture the important pass at Usui, his disobedience would be forgiven and forgotten in the flush of victory.

Sōzō spent his first night in the Ina Valley at a temple in Yamamoto. There he sent letters to the local notables and village officials asking for supplies and men. "We already know to what extent you have devoted your red hearts in loyal service to the emperor," he wrote in a letter addressed to Makoto.

Makoto was the oldest son of Sagara Sōzō‘s friend, Matsuo Taseko, a wealthy peasant woman who is the subject of Walthall’s biography.  Taseko, a fervent Imperialist, had brought her children up to be Imperialists as well. 

"At this great opportunity to restore the ancient imperial system of rule we ask for you to exhaust your strength once more in bringing this matter to a speedy conclusion. The two court nobles Ayanokoji and Shiganoi make this their sincere request as well, so please help us in raising troops." Makoto was in Kyoto, but his younger brother Mitsunaka in Yamamoto found some men later discovered to be gamblers and vagrants who were willing to join the brigade. Most of the men who provided provisions were Hirata disciples.

Hirata was a Shinto scholar with radical pro-Imperial ideas, popular among this group of Imperialists.

Sōzō set up camp at Lake Suwa on the sixth day of the second month. He sent messengers to nearby domains ordering them to submit to imperial authority, a command they cravenly obeyed. He reorganized and disciplined his troops, and he sent frequent reports on his activities to the headquarters of the regular imperial army. During this time, his friends in Kyoto wrote letters urging him to return. At one point he rushed frantically back down the Nakasendō, hoping to find someone to whom he could explain himself, but without success. In the meantime the troops encamped at Suwa learned that they had been branded a false imperial army. Other men whom Sōzō had sent to recruit soldiers knew nothing of this. They led their new troops against the guards at Usui pass and captured it in the name of the emperor. In a counterattack launched by the same domains that had earlier submitted to Sōzō but which were now embarrassed at having been duped, most of the new troops were killed or captured. When Sōzō returned to Suwa on the twenty-third, he appealed to Saigō Takamori to clarify his position. An exchange of letters settled nothing.

The end came swiftly. On the evening of first day of the third month Sōzō was summoned to meet with Iwakura Tomisada, the commander of the im­perial army for the Nakasendō . Thinking he was to join the regular army, he went gladly with one attendant, only to be arrested as soon as he entered the compound. The sixty men who had stood by him were likewise summoned by Tomisada in groups of two or three, stripped of their arms, and tied to the trees in the Suwa shrine precincts in a freezing rain to await the dawn. On the evening of the third, Sōzō and seven of his closest followers were be­headed without ever seeing or being seen by Tomisada and his staff, without any investigation or interrogation. In the announcement of the executions, Sōzō 's crimes were defined as having disobeyed orders and allowed men under his command to steal. The promise to halve taxes was carefully left unmentioned. The day after his execution, the military high command put Owari domain in charge of administering bakufu lands in Shinano and ordered it to collect the land tax in full.

Taseko was shocked. In a letter to her daughter-in-law she wrote, "worse things have happened than I ever expected."

Like the Mito warriors or the Hirata disciples who had beheaded the stat­ues of the Ashikaga shoguns, Sōzō assumed that zeal on behalf of the impe­rial court justified itself. Haga Noboru points out that the popular hero Saigō Takamori used Sōzō to rally popular support, then when the brigade made inconvenient promises and got in the way of the regular army, he betrayed and abandoned him. Samurai egoism may have come into play as well, in the form of jealousy over who was to be the vanguard, traditionally the most prestigious position. On the other hand, an old 1600 law had warned that if in battle any individual advanced in secret to put himself in the lead, he was to be executed. Sōzō's former comrades-in-arms Gonda Naosuke and Ochiai Naoaki blamed Iwakura Tomomi for his death. They planned to assassinate him, but he talked them out of it.

Iwakura Tomomi was a prominent figure in the new government, and the father of the teenage Tomisada who had Sagara Sōzō executed.

Later, when Naoaki was chief secretary for Ina prefecture in 1870, he, Makoto, Taseko's cousin Inao, and other local men petitioned the government for permission to raise a monument over Sōzō's grave and solicited contributions from nearby nativists. Among those who responded was Taseko. 

Sōzō’s fate constituted a warning to all grass-roots activists. Historians have long decried the lack of national consciousness among the commoners who remained largely apathetic to the conflict between court and bakufu that decided the future of their country The imperial cause in particular apparently attracted little popular allegiance. For the most part, however, the samurai commanders from the southwestern domains who led the troops that overthrew the bakufu disdained commoners' offers of anything but money. Kido Takayoshi even accused the militias of harming the state. Given their vulnerability to use and abuse by samurai strategists, the only option for dedicated loyalists was to play a subordinate role to the new imperial armies. This was the path taken by Taseko's son Makoto.

And that is the tragic story of Sagara Sōzō. What are we to make of it? Like so many Bakumatsu figures, he could be seen as a villain or a hero. He was either unjustly martyred or he got what was coming to him. Either way, he was cruelly betrayed by the people who had used him. 

I’ve posted before Michael Wert’s observation that it was this same vicious army that executed Kondou Isami and the shogunal retainer, Oguri Tadamasa. None of these three got any proper judicial process. 

Sagara’s story has become over the years the perfect symbol of how the Meiji government betrayed its promises, acting for its own selfish benefit instead of the people’s.That’s how Watsuki uses the incident in Rurouni Kenshin. I’ll finish off with what Watsuki had to say about the historical Sagara and his characterization in Rurouni Kenshin.

[hakuouki-history]

“If You Dance with The Devil, the Devil Don't Change”: The Sagara Sōzō Story - Part One

This is going to be a long post, the first of two, but I hope it'll be worth it. I'm finally tackling the strange fate of Sagara Sōzō and the Sekihōtai, "the false government army".

Most fans will know Sagara Sōzō as portrayed in Rurouni Kenshin (above). As a young boy taken under his wing, Sanosuke idealizes him and the anime doesn’t really challenge that idealized narrative. Watsuki’s original manga, on the other hand, suggests there’s more to the story than an innocent man tragically betrayed by his superiors.

Sagara Sōzō’s original name was Kojima Shirō and ironically, given his later bad reputation there, he was from Edo. His family were wealthy non-samurai.

The most complete account in English of Sagara Sōzō's rise and fall can be found in Anne Walthall's "The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration." I’ve mentioned the book a few times before. It’s an amazing biography of a peasant woman in her fifties who came to Kyoto as a Sonnou Joui activist in the 1860s. Matsuo Taseko was a friend of Sagara Sōzō in life and a defender of his legacy in death.

Walthall introduces Sagara Sōzō in her narrative soon after the battle of Toba-Fushimi. The Imperial army was being hastily glued together out of different domains’ forces. Eager militias wanted to be part of the action. The new government had huge problems with funding a war, so the armies start raising funds from the people of Kyoto and the surrounding areas. 

Not until early in the third month did the vanguard of the new imperial army actually leave the Kyoto area. In the meantime, court nobles anxious to prove themselves worthy of the emperor's favor had joined militia commanders who promised them the honor of being first to pacify the east. Among them was a man known to Taseko as Sagara Sōzō. Sōzō had already tried fomenting disorder in Edo at the end of 1867 at the behest of Saigō Takamori, the Satsuma military commander. (pg. 247)

We’ll come back in a minute to exactly what Sagara did in Edo. Continuing with Walthall’s account 

Sōzō had no long-standing connection with Takamori; in fact he was not a samurai at all. As with so many of Taseko's friends, he came from a wealthy rural family with samurai pretensions. 

By the time Sōzō was twenty in 1858, his leadership qualities had already attracted almost a hundred men to accept his instruction in nativism and the martial arts. For a time he joined the Mito radicals fortified on Mt. Tsukuba, though he left before they had begun their doomed journey westward through the mountains. 

The Mito/Tengu Rebellion is, in my opinion, the bit of the Bakumatsu puzzle Western fans are most likely to have overlooked. It’s not part of the Shinsengumi’s story, and it’s only peripheral to the Choshu/Satsuma/Tosa narratives. Let’s say here that the rebellion, its suppression, and the later reprisals for the suppression in Mito were absolutely horrific. 

Sagara Sōzō slipped away from the Mito rebels, and didn’t share their fate. 

He ended up in Kyoto in 1866 where he managed to meet a number of prominent Satsuma samurai,including Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi.  At some point he also met Taseko.

Matsuo Taseko would prove to be a true friend. His Satsuma contacts? Well, they were ready to use him. In late 1867, Sagara Sōzō went to Edo to carry out the Satsuma plan to prod the Shogun into declaring war. William Steele gives an account of what happened next in Edo. 

.. a rash of murders, robberies, and acts of terror buffeted the residents of Edo. Beginning in the late tenth month and continuing well into spring of 1868, gangs of hoodlums roamed the streets, destroying, as far as commoners were concerned, any semblance of law and order. While the Edo poor did some of the looting, much of it can be attributed to Satsuma men, some of whom, it was said, had been sent by Saigō Takamori himself. Masterless samurai from Satsuma, calling themselves the Satsuma Advance Guard of the Imperial Army (Kangun Sempō Sasshū-han) were clearly responsible for setting fires and instigating riots. On the one hand they urged the people to rebel against the evil Tokugawa authorities, on the other they gave warnings to flee in order to escape injury in the upcoming civil war.

One of their handbills declared: 

In recent years evil officials of the bakufu have ignored court authorities, made pacts with Western barbarians, slighted the court, and destroyed the propriety between lord and vassal. Therefore the great lords of the western domains are cooperating in order to eradicate the evil bakufu officials. Although the shogun has returned political authority to the throne and is now simply one of the lords, evil officials in the Kantō ignore this. They secretly plot how to grasp authority once again. Therefore we propose the great plan that all determined men in the nation gather together on 11.4 and form a 'heavenly army' [tempei] to burn Edo Castle and set fires throughout Edo city and punish the evil officials. The only thing that we are afraid of is that the people may suffer because of this. You should quickly move your belongings and change your residence to avoid harm. We do not intend to harm the people, only to save them. 

- William Steele, pp. 65-66, Edo in 1868, the View from Below 

“We’re not here to hurt you, just to burn down your houses, so you’d better leave.”

Mark Ravina’s biography of Saigō Takamori has more details. Keiki mentioned here is the personal name of the last shogun, Yoshinobu. Shimazu is the surname of the Satsuma daimyo.

The stalemate was broken on 12/28 when Keiki received news from Edo. Five days earlier, after weeks of rumors that Satsuma agents were planning to attack Edo Castle, a suspicious fire had broken out and destroyed the castle women’s quarters.That same evening someone had shot at the Edo villa of Shōnai domain, a close shogunal ally. When men from Shōnai gave chase, the assailants had fled through the city to the Satsuma villa. These events came on the heels of weeks of brigandage attributed to Satsuma-led rōnin. Edo officials were outraged, indignant, and ready to fight. On 12/25 they attacked and burned the Shimazu villa, killing several men. In Edo, if not in Kyoto, war had broken out. The crisis in Edo was Saigō’s handiwork, the result of his orders to Sagara Sōzō, and the plan had finally pushed Keiki into a corner. Keiki was willing, if not eager, to step down as shogun and to surrender responsibility for the quagmire of foreign affairs.But the attack on Edo Castle and the Shōnai villa challenged Keiki’s dignity as a warrior. He could not ignore such an affront and still command the respect of his men. Keiki had consistently outwitted Saigō and Ōkubo in negotiations, so Saigō had brought talking to an end. Now, to retain his authority, Keiki would have to fight. 

- Mark Ravina,  pg. 148, the Last Samurai: the Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori

The Satsuma compound was burned to the ground with some resisting Satsuma retainers inside. 

Destruction of the Palace of Satsuma, in Edo, on January 19th 1868. L'Illustration, No. 1308, March 21, 1868.

But Sagara Sōzō slipped out of Edo’s harbour in the confusion. He’d now successfully carried out his Satsuma masters’ orders. His side had the upper hand in the ensuing Boshin War. He must have gone back to Kyoto hoping he’d be rewarded for his work with a command in the new Imperial Army. 

But if you know your Rurouni Kenshin, you already know how well that worked out. Next post will examine the downfall of Sagara Sōzō, and discuss his complicated legacy. 

[sagarasozo]

Chapter 2: Dimensions

“It's hard, isn't it?” A voice called out as Sagaa Sozo returned from the courtyard. Tilted his head, saw a ghost standing behind him. “Who are you?” Sozo asked. “Are ghosts here also like to mind other people’s affairs?” The ghost chuckled. “Forgive me for not introducing myself properly Captain Sagara, I'm one of the officers here, in charge of ghosts admittance and reincarnations, my name is Kitkat, it's my honor finally meeting you.” The man called Kitkat bowed slightly. “Kitkat?” Sozo frowned slightly hearing his name. “What kind of name is that? Are you not Japanese? Your clothing does look very different from mine.” Kitkat simply smiled at him, then pulled out a red plastic package from his pocket, on the packet it says “Kitkat”. “Wait….don't tell me…” he blinked. He wanted to ask more but he found himself hard to, he has already been rude enough with his behaviour earlier. “It's chocolate from foreign country,” Kitkat kindly explained. “You see, when you die you come to a place that is like a Common Ground, in here you not only see ghosts of all living things and from all times as well, that's why it needs officers like me to help keep track and regulate order and peace, or it would be chaos. In this Common Ground, ghosts can meet from all times and places, and that's why when they were to reborn into next life, they are required to drink a special soup, that will erase all the memories away. And well, it also depends on how good their memories are, some forgotten themselves faster than others, and sometimes it's just a trickery of minds.” He paused and looked at silent Sozo, who has been wearing a blank expression once he started explanation. “Would you like to try? It's quite good actually. There is a shop, but since it's from the future, it is kinda far and a pain to travel.” He opened the package and tore him a piece, “here, try it.” Sozo stared at it for a moment before taking it off from Kitkat’s hand, “thank you,” he popped to his mouth. “It's sweet, but it's good.” “See? I told you so!” Kitkat beamed at Sozo’s response. “Anyway, you must be wondering why I'm here, I'm actually looking for you. I think the Boss here likes you, he knows and understands you well, and he's asking if you want to be reborn, starting a new life. He finds a pity you died so young, and your life before….who you were, what you did, they are all buried by the new Meiji government, it's like they wiped out your existence, hardly anyone will remember you or Sekihotai group, let alone show any appreciation. So,” he paused and looked at Saizo, “what do you say? You are an exception, usually one has to wait for hundreds of years for this to come, and yet you've only been here for five months. So?” Sozo looked at the man in front of him, a long silence is shared. “Why?” He finally asked, in a soft spoken voice. “I'm sure there are many like me, like my comrades, for example. Would my men get this opportunity as well? You have to give me more than that. And besides,” he paused and turned his back, raised his head to look at the dark gloomy sky, “I don't think I'm ready, not ready to reborn, not in this mental state….I'm mad at Kyo, but I had faults too, I wasn't a good husband, nor was I a good husband.” An arm placed on his shoulder, “that's exactly the reason why you should take up this offer, not as a reborn, but as a relive, as yourself, Sagara Sozo.” “How? When I'm dead? What's the meaning to relive there as a ghost when no one know me or cannot even see me? And relive under the new government….sorry I would like to pass…” “No,” Kitkat shook his head, “not in that era. And there is one other reason you are an exception, you have been called.” “Called? By who?” “Tell me, have you had any dreams recently?” Hearing this, Sozo turned to face him again, “many nights, the last scene of my life played over and over again. I tried not to think but I can't help but to think, it feels like it's sending me a message but what? Perhaps it serves me as a reminder for myself of what a fool I was.” “The message is there, but it's the opposite.” Kitkat changed his light-hearted tone to a serious one. “I will take you somewhere and show you something, the Dream Space. That space has no boundaries of Heavens, Hell, or Earth, nor time or space. You are been called by someone, who is like a clairvoyant, but she's actually a space-walker, she can travel in between dimensions though she might not know it herself. Sagara Sozo, she walked into your dream. I'll watch your dream with you, you shall go find her. Through her, you might find a chance.” Sozo did not respond. “You better decide fast, while her ability is strongest at this time, once it's passed it’s passed. Aren't you curious who that someone might be? What kind of person she is yet she called to you? I mean, she doesn't even know you.” “So how do I know which one is her? There were many onlookers in my dream.” “You will know….that's how it works, trust your instincts. But oh yes before we go we go buy some apple cider and drink it first. She likes the drink. It kinda serves a connection to her dream without she knowing that she's been watched.”

[sagarasozo]

1 At the Gate of Hell

Sozo found himself standing at a unfamiliar place. It is almost completely dark with only few flowing red and green fires floating around. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the darkness around him, he began able to trace the surroundings slowly. Before him stood an ancient stone bridge, with trees and bushes on the sides and a river flowing underneath. This is a new unfamiliar place to him, he's sure he haven't been here before. So how did he get here? The last thing he remembered was at the market square before he went unconscious. Closed his eyes and his memories flooded back to him. Some scenes were just too clear to him. “If this is Hell, then I guess I'm dead.” He sighed and shook his head, and looked again to he bridge in front of him, and watched some other ghosts passing by. Well there's no use standing here, he followed the others. Perhaps he will find his comrades for a reunion, hell why not? ❀❀❀ ❀❀❀ ❀❀❀ ❀❀❀ Sozo adjusted to his new life in this new place very quickly. As it turned out, this might be thought as Hell for its darkness but that basically just means a common ground for all men who died. Once one arrived one will be asked to attend to the Great Hall and be judged and sorted to which kind of life one will get during one’s stay here. The period of a ghost staying depends on one’s past life and behaviour during the stay. But if one chose to end one’s own life, then it will be marked to some degree of sin, depending on the reason behind it. And Sozo did later find out sadly, his wife took their son and threw themselves to river after his death. He asked and was granted for a permit to visit them. The place of those with sins are held at is very different to his: dark and cold, and labor work is required to pay off the sins committed. Face to face with his wife, sadness came over him. He left her and their son for the ideal he was fighting for, thought it was the right thing to do. Though they did not marry out of love, he still felt regret for the pain he might have caused them. But still, taking her own life? And their son’s too? “Kyo….why?” As much as he tried to stay calm, but he found it hard looking at her ashen face, white lips and cold eyes. She was nothing like how he remembered, at least, not those eyes. His lips trembled and voice shaken as he asked. “Is it….because of me? Because of my death? I never imagined for you to following me….not like this, no…I apologize, for the pain I've caused, and for my absence in your life.” “Following you sir?” She answered him back with a cold eerie voice. She chuckled lightly, but her eyes were not laughing at all. “Don't make me laugh mister!” She snapped, “perhaps you are stil thinking too highly of yourself, Captain Sagara of False Government Army.” Hearing her cold spoken words, he looked at her, shocked. “After you were executed, everyday I was laughed by neighbors by the people in town. I let you go and believed you would do good for the country, and yet you went and defied the government. I felt so ashamed, you have no idea. I regret for being your wife. I regret for let you come into my life.” He couldn't help himself anymore and placed his hands on her shoulders, “Kyo….are those your honest feelings? You trust in what they are saying?” She didn't answer, she simply flinched and stepped back to shake free from his hold. “Please,” he let her go, voice a bit gentler, “Kyo, answer me?” She nodded. “Yes, I believe in the government, I believe with my own eyes. And don't call me by my name again, I don't like it Sagara Sozo.” Looking at her, he slowly withdrew his held out arms. Some time of silence passed. Then he quietly asked, “then answer my last question, where's our son? Is he well?” She nodded. “The officers here took him as an exception and let someone took care of him, for he is innocent in this matter…excuse me, I do need to go back to work, I've wasted too much time here.” She turned and walked into darkness and he could only watch her go. He couldn't find any words to say back to her last comment. He stood alone in the courtyard, paid no attention to the workers nearby. “Of course,” he mumbled to himself, “because our son is innocent, because he's innocent…haha…” He laughed quietly, tears streaming down on cheeks. Perhaps there's a reason the officers didn't send his son to his care, nor even bothered to tell him the reason. Perhaps it was for his son’s good, or for his own good, or for both. He doesn't expect his young son to understand the truth, but it's better to let his son hates him like his mother does rather than hates the mother, for he was majorly absence in his life. To his son, the mother is the one he loved and trusted the most. And he doesn't want that bond between them broken now because of him. “So I don't have a family now, the only ones I have, are my men, my brothers, for eternity.” He looked up to the dark sky, “my dear son, wherever you are, I wish you happiness and safe growing-up in here. Perhaps we can meet again in next life, I will do my best to make up to you.” Slowly he turned himself and picked up his feet, the courtyard is now left to original. The world he does not belong.

[thefighterforhire-blog]

Rurouni Kenshin- Episode 23

[hakuouki-history]

The Executions of Kondo Isami and Sagara Sozo

Michael Wert’s book “Meiji Restoration Losers: Memory and Tokugawa Supporters in Modern Japan ” is interesting on a number of fronts. It focuses on the life and posthumous memory of an important Bakufu official, Oguri Tadamasa, who was executed by the Imperial Army in 1868. But he also addresses the reputation of the Shinsengumi, the defenders of Aizu, and other “fandom-relevant” people. 

I’m sharing this excerpt from the book because.it gives a context to the executions of two fandom favourites. One is Kondou Isami, Head of the Shinsengumi. The other is Sagara Sozo, Head of the Sekihotai ie. the soldier who is Sano’s childhood mentor in Rurouni Kenshin.

From page 37 of Wert’s book.

The executions of Oguri and his retainers were not part of imperial government policy. The Tōsandō army's leadership was weak, led by a teenager who depended on the advice of Itagaki Taisuke, a maverick often dismissive of orders sent by Saigō Takamori, the leader of the emperor's forces." And they were quite vicious, executing Sagara Sozō (leader of the "fake army" fighting in the emperor's name) on 3/3 and Kondō Isami (captain of the pro-shogunate police group called the "Shinseng­umi") on 4/25.

The teenager in question was Iwakura Tomosada: a sixteen-year-old whose qualifications for the job were that his dad was an important court noble/power player in the Meiji Restoration.

Itagaki Taisuke, on the other hand, was a Tosa samurai, and you may remember that Kondou was executed for supposedly ordering the execution of Sakamoto Ryoma of Tosa.  The Tosa men were hardly likely to be sympathetic to Kondou.

Putting all three separate executions in one context is illuminating. All were victims of the same zealous army. 

The same paragraph continues with an insight into the mental framework of the soldiers:

Panic might have also played a role in Oguri's haphazard execution. In the early twentieth century, the monk from the Fumon'in interviewed Hara Yasutare, one of the men in charge of Oguri's arrest. Hara stated that they feared Oguri and needed to deal with him quickly because riots had broken out in other parts of Kōzuke, a reference to up­risings in nearby Utsunomiya and Mikuni Pass."' Hara, twenty-two at the time, and his sixteen-year-old co-leader, Toyonaga, were simply follow­ing Tomosada's orders. Apparently Tomosada also feared Oguri, especially his possession of cannon. Hara regretted taking part in Oguri's death and explained, "In those days people thought winning meant doing what­ever one could to kill the other guy first. There was no idea of imperial army versus rebel army; that notion was a Meiji period invention. Each side believed it was the emperor's army." (Bolding mine - Niente)

[meercacchi]