Arisugawa Taruhito
Prince Arisugawa Taruhito ( Japanese 有 栖 川 宮 熾 仁 親王 Arisugawa-no-miya Taruhito-shinnō ; born March 13, 1835 in Kyoto ; † January 15, 1895 in Kobe ) was since September 9, 1871 the 9th head of the Arisugawa no-miya line of heirs to the throne (有 栖 川 宮 家) of the Japanese Imperial Family and an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army .
Early life
Prince Arisugawa Taruhito was born in Kyoto in 1835 as the first son of Prince Arisugawa Takahito . His mother was Yūko, the eldest daughter of Saeki Yūjō. He was adopted by Tennō Ninkō , which qualified him as a potential heir to the throne and made him the adoptive brother of the later Tennō Kōmei . During their youth, the two princes developed a close relationship, which is why Prince Arisugawa later became a close adviser to both Kōmei and his adoptive nephew and later Tennō Meiji .
On August 8, 1851, Prince Arisugawa should marry the eighth daughter of Tennō Ninkō, Kazu no Miya Chikako. However, the marriage did not take place on the instructions of the Tokugawa shogunate so that the princess could marry the shogun Tokugawa Iemochi . This was supposed to further narrow the ties between the shogunate and the imperial court.
Instead, he married Sadako (1850–1872), the eleventh daughter of Tokugawa Nariaki , the daimyo of Mito-han . In his second marriage he was married to Tadako (1855-1923), a daughter of Count Mizoguchi Naohiros of Shibata-han . Both marriages remained childless.
Meiji restoration
In 1867 Tennō Meiji made Prince Arisugawa Sōsai , which is roughly comparable to a First Minister and thus head of government, and made him commander in chief of the Imperial Army in the Boshin War against the last supporters of the Shogunate. He fought in the battle of Toba-Fushimi and then traveled on the Tōkaidō to Edo to receive the surrender of Edo-jō there on May 3, 1868 . This was brought to him by his former fiancée Kazu.
In 1877 he was Commander in Chief of the Imperial Forces in the fight against Saigo Takamori during the Satsuma Rebellion . As a reward he received the honorary rank of general in 1878.
From 1870 until the introduction of the cabinet system in 1885, Prince Arisugawa served as Daijō Daijin , which roughly corresponds to the rank of Grand Chancellor. In 1871 he was also governor of Fukuoka Prefecture . From 1876 he was chairman of the Genrōin . In 1882 he traveled to Russia as ambassador and met there with Tsar Alexander III on behalf of Tennō Meijis .
From 1889 to 1895 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army and a member of the Supreme War Council.
In 1894 he became commander in chief of the troops in the First Sino-Japanese War and opened his headquarters in Hiroshima . However, he soon fell ill with typhus or malaria and returned to the family castle in Maiko near Kobe to recover. However, he died there on January 15, 1895 of the consequences of his illness. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Chrysanthemum by Tennō Meiji . On January 29th, he was buried with a state funeral in Tokyo.
His half-brother, Prince Arisugawa Takehito , succeeded him as the tenth head of the Arisugawa-no-miya line.
legacy
In honor of Prince Arisugawa, the Prince Arisugawa Memorial Park was built on the site of Tokyo's Arisugawa Palace (Minami-Azabu, Minato-ku, formerly the site of the Morioka-Han city residence) and the large gardens were made accessible to the public. In 1903 an equestrian statue was erected in his honor in front of the headquarters of the Imperial General Staff . It was moved from there to the Memorial Park in 1962. In 1973, the Tokyo Central Library was opened in the upper part of the park.
Remarks
- ^ Dupuy, Encyclopedia of Military Biography
literature
- Trevor N. Dupuy : Encyclopedia of Military Biography . IB Tauris & Co Ltd, 1992, ISBN 1-85043-569-3 .
- Marius B. Jansen: The Making of Modern Japan . Belknap Press, 2000, ISBN 0674009916 .
- Donald Keane: Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912 . Columbia University Press, 2005, ISBN 0231123418 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Arisugawa, Taruhito |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 有 栖 川 宮 熾 仁 親王 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | General of the Imperial Japanese Army, member of the Japanese Imperial House |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 13, 1835 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kyoto |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 15, 1895 |
| Place of death | Kobe |