Katsu Kaishu
Katsu Kaishū ( Japanese 勝 海舟 , * March 12, 1823 , † January 21, 1899 ) was a Japanese statesman and shipbuilding engineer in the late Edo period and the restoration period of the Meiji period . Katsu Kaishū is known as the admiral and naval officer of the last shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty and for his role in the surrender of Edo (today's Tokyo ), which marked the end of the shogunate.
He took the name Kaishū from the calligraphy Kaishū Shooku ( 海舟 書屋 ) by Sakuma Shōzan . His birth name was Rintarō ( 麟 太郎 ), in adulthood he was called Yoshikuni ( 義 邦 ). During the Edo period he was often called Awa , due to his title, Awa no kami ( 安 房 守 ). With the Meiji Restoration , he changed his name to Yasuyoshi ( 安 芳 ).
biography
Adolescent years
Katsu Kaishū was born in Edo as the son of a lower-ranking vassal of the Tokugawa shogunate . His father, Katsu Kokichi, who also appears in the autobiography Musui's Story , was a difficult man and head of a lower-ranking samurai family until he was forced to hand over the head of the family to his 15-year-old son Rintarō / Kaishū. Katsu devoted his youth to studying the Dutch language ( Rangaku ) and European military science and initially became a translator and interpreter when negotiations with foreigners became necessary with the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1853 . During this time Kaishū made a name for himself as an expert in Western military affairs. Between 1855 and 1859 he therefore served under the supervision of Dutch experts as an instructor for naval recruits at the Nagasaki Naval Center together with Nagai Naoyuki .
military service
In 1860, because of his expertise, Kaishū was appointed commander of the first western-style warship, which was purchased by the Netherlands in 1855. With the assistance of the American naval officer Lt. John Mercer Brooke brought Kaishū with the Kanrin-maru in 1860, the first Japanese delegation to the USA. Via San Francisco it went to Washington to ratify the Harris Treaty (Japanese-American friendship and trade treaty) and to signal to the world that Japan was on the way to modernization.
Kaishu stayed in San Francisco for about two months and kept a close eye on American life. Upon his return to Japan, Katsu held a number of high-ranking military posts in the shogunate's navy. He sat thereby u. a. advocated that Japan needed a united navy to be led by professionally trained officers, and thus opposed the customary practice of assigning offices according to inheritance law. During his time as director of the Kobe Naval School from 1863 to 1864, it became a center of critical and progressive thought.
For several years there had been disagreement between the Bakufu (the government of the Tokugawa) and the reformist Sonnō-jōi movement, which wanted to overthrow the Shōgun and bring the emperor to power. In 1866, Katsu Kaishū became the main negotiator between the Bakufu and the rebellious fiefs ( Han ) of Chōshū and Satsuma . In November 1867, Emperor Meiji had granted the Satsuma and Chōshū the right to overthrow the Bakufu. The ruling shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu , however, anticipated this by resigning from his office (but not his power) the next day. Events came to a head on January 3, 1868, when the emperor declared the restoration of his own power. Seven days later, the Boshin War began when Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declared this declaration illegal and attacked Kyoto, the emperor's seat. Although Katsu Kaishū himself sympathized with the opponents of the Tokugawa, he remained loyal to the government during the war. Despite a three-to-one superiority and training by French military advisers, the first major battle near Toba and Fushimi resulted in the complete defeat of the Shogun's 15,000-strong but poorly managed force. This forced Yoshinobu to flee to Edo. Katsu then played the central role in the handover of the capital to Saigō Takamori from Satsuma, who accepted Edo's unconditional surrender in May 1868 as a result of the negotiations. Katsu Kaishū followed the last Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, into exile in Shizuoka .
Meiji period
Katsu Kaishū returned to the civil service for a short time, in 1872 as Vice Minister of the Imperial Japanese Navy , from 1873 to 1878 as Minister of the Navy . He was one of the prominent Tokugawa vassals who found employment in the new government and, between 1869 and 1885, the only deputy with the rank of sangi ( 参議 ) who did not come from one of the four great fiefdoms, mainly for the case of the shogunate were responsible and occupied most of the posts in the Meiji government ( Satsuma , Chōshū , Tosa , Hizen ). Although Kaishu had little influence on the Navy, as officers from Satsuma also dominated here, he had a voice in the Council of Elders (also known as the Council of State) regarding national politics. For the next two decades he served on the State Council and wrote treatises on naval issues until he died in 1899.
In 1887 he was raised to the nobility and received the title of count ( hakushaku ).
Katsu recorded his memoirs in his book Hikawa Seiwa .
literature
- Jansen, Marius B. (1961). Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration. Princeton: Princeton University Press. OCLC 413111
- Katsu, Kokichi; translated by Teruko Craig. Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai University of Arizona Press, 1988.
- Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press . ISBN 0-674-01753-6 ; ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5 ; OCLC 58053128
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Katsu Kaishu |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 勝 海舟 (Japanese); Katsu Rintaro; Katsu Yasuyoshi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese nobleman, politician and shipbuilding engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 12, 1823 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Edo |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 21, 1899 |
| Place of death | Tokyo |