openly anti-Tokugawa views. The magistrate used the incident of the slaying as an excuse to order Kiyokawa’s arrest. But Kiyokawa would not be arrested. Instead, he traveled through western Japan to recruit shishi into the Loyalist fold and wielded significant influence among the radicals of Chōshū, Satsuma, and Tosa. Although the uprising in Fushimi had indeed been crushed, Kiyokawa would not abandon his ultimate objective of Imperial Loyalism and Down with the Bakufu.
The plan for the Rōshi Corps was nominally proposed by one Matsudaira Chikaranosuké,¶ chief fencing instructor at the Bakufu’s Military Academy in Edo and close relative of the shōgun. Matsudaira’s intentions included reining in the radical elements in and around Edo who threatened the Bakufu. Once these rōnin were in the Tokugawa fold, the Bakufu could more readily effect a Union of Court and Camp. The actual planners of the corps, however, had different ideas. One of them was Kiyokawa. The other was Yamaoka Tetsutarō,* a low-ranking Tokugawa samurai. Kiyokawa and Yamaoka were close friends. The two had studied kenjutsu (literally, sword techniques) at the Chiba Dōjo. Shortly after the commercial treaties had been concluded, they formed a subversive political party that advocated Imperial Reverence and Expel the Barbarians. Yamaoka served as assistant kenjutsu instructor at the Bakufu’s Military Academy. His loyalty to the Tokugawa was unquestioned; but he was nevertheless Kiyokawa’s equal in his reverence for the emperor and resentment of the foreign intruders. Around the same time that Yamaoka received orders from the Bakufu to oversee the Rōshi Corps, Kiyokawa was selected by Matsudaira as the ideal man to attract other rōnin to enlist. Kiyokawa was pardoned of his crime under the general amnesty. With Kiyokawa as the leading member of the corps, its slogan, “Loyalty and Patriotism,” became its byname and synonymous with Imperial Reverence and Expel the Barbarians. Kiyokawa recruited other “loyal and patriotic” men. Soon the ranks swelled to 250, as large as the armies of many of the feudal domains.
The first visit to Kyōto by a shōgun in over two centuries demonstrated Edo’s diminishing ability to dominate Japan. It served to further empower the radical elements at the Imperial Court and to embolden the Loyalists. On February 8, 1863, the third year of Bunkyū, the Rōshi Corps left Edo for Kyōto as an advance guard to the shōgun’s entourage.
For the time being, Kiyokawa’s corps outwardly obeyed the Bakufu’s original purpose of protecting the shōgun. They gathered at Denzūin Temple in Edo, the starting point of their three-hundred-mile overland trek. Two weeks later, nine days ahead of the shōgun, they crossed the wooden Sanjō Bridge over the Kamogawa River, which flowed through the eastern side of Kyōto. Few of these warriors from the east had ever laid eyes on the ancient Imperial Capital in the west. It was the height of spring.† The cherries were in full bloom in the green hills in the east of the city. The fallen blossoms covered the lowlands of the town like so much pink and white gossamer. In the distance, on the opposite side of the city, the corpsmen saw the five-tiered pagoda of Tōji Temple, a black monolith rising above the land in the southwest.
Telltale of these troubled times, on the night before the corps reached Kyōto, the heads of three wooden statues at a local Buddhist temple had been severed and displayed along the riverbank. These were images of three shōgun of the Ashikaga regime,‡ whose tenuous rule of Japan spanned fifteen generations. This symbolic act of Heaven’s Revenge was committed only days before Iémochi’s arrival at Kyōto, as a direct threat to the Tokugawa Bakufu.
The Rōshi Corps stopped in the western outskirts of the city, north of Tōji and two miles west of the Kamogawa. They set up headquarters at Shintokuji Temple in the village of Mibu, a rural area surrounded by farmland. They lodged at Shintokuji and other nearby temples and private homes. Most of the rōshi were destitute and shabbily dressed. Some did not display their family crests on their clothes, but instead wore striped cotton peasant jackets. But for the two swords at their left hip, they would not have been recognizable as samurai. The local townspeople, wary of the motley corps, assigned to them the unflattering epithet “Mibu Rōshi.” When some among the corps extorted money from wealthy merchants and otherwise intimidated or violated the local people, the more derogatory “Mibu Wolves” was applied.
No sooner had they arrived at Mibu than Kiyokawa assembled all 250 men into the cramped confines of the main building at their temple headquarters. The men seated themselves on the tatami-covered floor before the Buddhist altar, swords placed at their sides. Kiyokawa stood at the altar facing the assembly. Suddenly and in no uncertain terms he declared, eyes flashing, that men of high purpose must place their true loyalty with the emperor and not with the Tokugawa. The corps had been recruited for their loyalty and patriotism, he reminded them. Their actual purpose for coming to Kyōto had not been to protect the shōgun, but rather to help Iémochi fulfill his promise to expel the foreigners. Kiyokawa now presented his men with a letter addressed to the Imperial Court, expressing these views and offering up the “loyal and patriotic” corps as an army of Sonnō-Jōi. Every man signed the letter, because they did not have the will to oppose their self-imposed leader.
On the following day Kiyokawa submitted the letter to the court. It was well received by the radicals surrounding the emperor. The Tokugawa authorities were disturbed, to say the least. There were some among them who proposed assassinating Kiyokawa. But the possibility of repercussions among the court, renegade Loyalists, and even the Rōshi Corps persuaded the authorities to consider a less dangerous solution to the problem.
A less dangerous solution availed itself in connection with recent developments in Edo. During the previous August, a British subject had been cut down in cold blood by samurai of the Satsuma clan. The murdered man and three of his countrymen had unintentionally interrupted the entourage of the Lord of Satsuma as it passed through the small village of Namamugi near Edo.§
The British demanded reparations from Edo. The British fleet was now at Yokohama to await the outcome of talks between the two governments. Should the talks collapse, the British threatened to attack.
Kiyokawa proposed that his Rōshi Corps be allowed to return immediately to Edo to help expel the foreigners. The Tokugawa authorities accepted the proposal, but with an ulterior motive. The shōgun had been intentionally vague in his promise of Jōi. He would not be bound by an imperial edict that he knew he could not obey. But the Edo regime was no stranger to deceit. The Bakufu arranged for an order to be issued by an imperial advisor for the corps to return to Edo under the pretext that, in case of war, they would finally have their chance to fight the foreigners. But the true motive of the Tokugawa authorities was, of course, to rein in Kiyokawa and his followers before they could do any serious damage.
The imperial order notwithstanding, a small number of the corps defected and remained in Kyōto. Thirteen of these defectors, most of whom hailed from either Mito Han or the province of Musashi near Edo, bore a special loyalty to the shōgun. They had come to Kyōto under orders from the Bakufu, for the dual purpose of guarding the shōgun and expelling the foreigners. They would not obey an order to retreat issued by an imperial advisor who was swayed by a self-professed enemy of the Tokugawa. Rather, they resolved to quit the Rōshi Corps in order to achieve their “loyal and patriotic” objective under the authority of the shōgun. The thirteen defectors petitioned the protector of Kyōto for official permission to remain in the Imperial Capital to “guard the shōgun until he returns to Edo.” Their petition was readily accepted. These thirteen comprised the original membership of the dreaded Shinsengumi.
Kiyokawa Hachirō did not abandon his dissentious designs. Soon after returning to Edo he devised a plot to attack the foreign settlement at Yokohama. He recruited five hundred men to participate in the uprising, including Yamaoka Tetsutarō, who had returned with him. They intended to burn the town, and in the ensuing chaos slaughter as many
