Shūsuké and his heir occasionally taught. In addition to Satō, Kondō and Hijikata also maintained close relations with another member of the local squirearchy who shared their passion for kenjutsu. This was Kojima Shikanosuké, the leader of Onoji Village. Satō was six years older than Kondō; Kojima was three years Kondō’s senior. The two older men tutored their fencing master in literature, while Kondō taught kenjutsu at the private dōjō of Satō and in the front garden of the Kojima estate.
Master Shūsuké and son were beholden to their wealthy students. Kojima and Satō provided an important source of financial support to the humble Kondō household. The two village leaders continued this support after Kondō and Hijikata enlisted in the Rōshi Corps. In their fencing master’s absence, Satō taught the Tennen Rishin style at Hino, while Kojima performed this duty at Onoji. Both men sent provisions, including much-needed armor, to Kondō and Hijikata during the bloody years in Kyōto, and during the New Year holidays Kojima collected money from local kenjutsu students to send to their master in the west.
Satō’s private training hall proved a propitious venue to this history. It was at the Hino Dōjo that the future vice commander of the Shinsengumi honed his genius with an unsheathed sword in hand and where he befriended Kondō Isami. “He [Hijikata] was graceful in appearance and contemplative by nature, which compensated for the straightforwardness of Kondō,” wrote Michio Hirao,¶ to explain why the two men were “as close to one another as brothers.” To support himself while practicing kenjutsu, Hijikata traveled through the local countryside peddling a special herbal medicine produced by his family. This medicine healed a variety of ailments, including contusions such as those left by a hard wooden practice sword. So great was Hijikata’s passion for fencing that, along with his black wicker medicine chest, he always carried his fencing equipment, “stopping along the way,” wrote Kan Shimosawa, “at any dōjō of merit to politely request instruction. But back then he had a gentle face like a woman’s. Although in the future his attitude would become self-important, since he was still cleverly charming, everyone treated him with kindness.”*
“He had the slight air of a merchant,” recalled a fellow swordsman who occasionally practiced at the Shieikan. “He had drooping shoulders but was tall and slender, and one of the best-looking men of the bunch [at the Shieikan]. He was shrewd in his dealings with people, and what’s more he was a clever man. He tended to be a little disagreeable, and ... there were quite a few people whom he disliked. When sitting opposite someone, he would first of all look that person over slowly, from his knees up to his face. Then he would quietly begin speaking.”
Hijikata Toshizō did not officially enroll at Kondō’s dōjō until the spring of 1859, a number of years after the two had met. At the Shieikan, Hijikata wore his face guard tied with a pretty red cord, earning the quiet ridicule of certain of his fellow swordsmen—and the coveted menkyo rank. Several years later, people in Hijikata’s native village could hardly believe reports of the bloodletting in Kyōto at the hands of the vice commander of the Shinsengumi, because “he was such a gentle person.” But as Shimosawa aptly points out, “Toshizō was a different man with a drawn sword in hand.” Once when Hijikata returned home on a brief interlude from his duties in Kyōto, he reportedly told a gathering of family and friends that the steel blade of one of his swords had rotted from overexposure to human blood.
Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō left their homes in the east driven by an unyielding will to power. They saw the great turmoil in the west as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put their formidable fencing skills to the fight, to rise through the ranks of the Tokugawa hierarchy. That these sons of peasants could even dream of such accomplishments, unprecedented during Tokugawa history, was certainly due to their extraordinary sense of self-importance.
Accompanying them were six particularly skilled swordsmen, each of whom would be among the original Shinsengumi members. Child prodigy Okita Sōji was the eldest son of a samurai of Shirakawa Han, whose daimyō was a direct retainer of the shōgun. According to Okita family records, Okita was born at the Shirakawa residence in Edo in 1844. Having lost both parents as a young boy, at nine he was apprenticed at the Shieikan, where he grew up looking to Kondō Isami as an elder brother. At twelve, Okita was matched against the fencing instructor of the Lord of Shirakawa, and was victorious. By age fifteen, he was serving as assistant instructor of the Shieikan, teaching at the main dōjō in Edo and at villages around the local countryside. There were some who claimed that not even Kondō could beat Okita in a match. Naturally Okita received menkyo rank. When Kondō Isami became master of the Shieikan, Okita was appointed as head of the dōjō.
Nagakura Shinpachi idolized Kondō Isami, who was five years his senior. He was a rōnin of Matsumae Han, whose daimyō was an outside lord. Nagakura was born at the Matsumae residence in Edo in 1839, the only son of a well-situated samurai of that clan. The Nagakura family was related by marriage to the Lord of Matsumae. For generations the family patriarch had been permanently stationed in Edo as a liaison officer for the Matsumae domain, located on the island of Ezo in the far north. Nagakura began his kenjutsu career as a young boy. He originally studied under his father’s instructor, an acclaimed master of the Shintō Munen style. As one of the master’s top students, he achieved the level of mokuroku at the young age of seventeen. In his early twenties he put his fencing skills to the test, touring schools of other styles in the vicinity of the capital. After returning to Edo, he served as assistant instructor to a master of the prestigious Hokushin Ittō style. It was around this time that he began frequenting Kondō Isami’s dōjō. Although he never became an official member of the Shieikan, according to Nagakura’s oral recollections, it was he who urged Kondō and the others to enlist in the Rōshi Corps.
Yamanami Keisuké, one year older than Kondō Isami, was born in 1833. He was the second son of the chief fencing instructor of Sendai Han in northern Japan, also ruled by an outside lord. When Yamanami came to the Shieikan, he held menkyo rank in the Hokushin Ittō style. He challenged the sword master’s heir to a match. After Kondō defeated him, Yamanami joined the Shieikan as one of its most skilled swordsmen. He subsequently served with Hijikata and Okita as assistant instructor.
Inoué Genzaburō was born in Hino in 1829, the fourth son of a Tokugawa samurai. He was the eldest of the eight Shieikan swordsmen who enlisted in the Rōshi Corps. Genzaburō’s father, who served the shōgun as a petty police official, encouraged his sons to practice the martial arts. Genzaburō began practicing at the dōjō of Satō Hikogorō at a young age. Both he and his older brother, Matsugorō, received menkyo rank from Kondō Shūsuké.
Tōdō Heisuké was born in 1844. He claimed to be the illegitimate son of the outside Lord of Tsu Han, whose family name was Tōdō. The obscurity of his background notwithstanding, it is certain that Tōdō Heisuké was a rōnin when he earned mokuroku rank in the Hokushin Ittō style at the famed Chiba Dōjō. He was subsequently apprenticed at the Shieikan. Tōdō was the same age as Okita Sōji, just nineteen, when he enlisted in the Rōshi Corps.
Harada Sanosuké was born in Matsuyama Han in 1840. The Matsuyama daimyō ranked among the twenty Related Houses. His domain was located in the province of Iyo on Shikoku, the smallest of the four main Japanese islands. When Harada began frequenting Kondō’s dōjō, he brought with him his expertise in yarijutsu, the art of the spear. A failed attempt to commit suicide by his own sword left him with a scar on his abdomen—a single horizontal line. He adopted the mark as part of his family crest—a single horizontal line in a circle.
A seventh Shinsengumi corpsman with a particularly close connection to the Shieikan was Saitō Hajimé. The same age as Okita and Tōdō, Saitō, unusually tall at five feet eleven inches, shared with these two men the distinction of being the youngest of Kondō’s group and among its most gifted swordsmen. Saitō was born and raised in Edo as the son of a retainer of the Matsudaira of Akashi Han, also a Related House. Saitō had neither enlisted in Kiyokawa’s
