Translation: Katsura Kogoro: Chapter 1, Part 4

Hagi Stories: Katsura Kogoro. By: Issaki, Taro. This book was given to me by Osaki Yoko, a kind lady at Hagi Museum.

Chapter 1: From Hagi to Kyoto

Page 11-12

Studying the West

Kogoro, having experienced the disturbance caused by the black ships, was in shock. The feeling of crisis pierced him through and through. Although he regarded and hated the West as an enemy, Kogoro decided against vainly trumpeting the exclusion of foriegners. First, he went in search of a teacher.

Egawa Taro of Nirayama was the top-ranked official in Western gunnery. Kogoro became his disciple, and at one point, the two went to inspect the defenses along the coasts of Musashi, Izu, and Sagami—all near Edo. In addition, Kogoro studied ship-building under Nakashima Saburonosuke, an officer of the old Uraga police station. In both thought and action, Kogoro was rapidly becoming a man of the times.

Another man who studied the West all the while he resented their tyrannical attitude was Kogoro’s old friend, Yoshida Shoin.



Shoin confided his secret plans to board a Russian warship at Nagasaki to Kogoro and gained his approval. Eventually, Shoin would attempt to board an American warship at Izu Shimoda in March 1854—and failed. He was shipped back to Hagi and imprisoned for trying to break the law against foreign travel. Although still under house arrest, Shoin built and presided over the famed Shoka Sonjuku School, where he guided the ideas of many young men in the neighborhood.

But due to his loud criticism of the Shoguate’s “open country” policy, Shoin became a victim of the Ansei Purge* He was kept in Tenmacho Prison, and on October 27, 1859 he was executed. He was 30 years old.

Kogoro, along with another one of Shoin’s disciples, Ito Shunsuke (later to become Ito Hirobumi, Japan’s first prime minister), brought back Shoin’s remains and buried him at Senju Kotsuka Field.

* Ansei Purge: So named for the year of Ansei (ironically, “peaceful government”), this purge involved the imprisoning, execution, or censure of those who spoke against the Shogunate. It was a policy of Ii Naosuke and came to an end abruptly with his assassination, thereby setting a rather troubling precedent of dealing with contraversal politicians. Victims of the purge also included Saigo Takamori and oddly enough, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, who would go on to be the last Shogun.