Hijikata family birthyears & ages and the Battle of Matsumae

Funny how just a little new info can make things you didn't
understand before so much clearer. Thanks to Momoiro-usagi, I was
FINALLY able to understand the birthdate sheet on www.toshizo.com :

Father - Yoshiatsu (Hayato)* - 1792-1835 - 44* (age at time of death)
Mother - Etsu - 1792-1840 - 49

Brother - Tamejirou - 1812-1883 - 72
Brother - no name - died prematurely (Oct 11, 1813)
Brother - no name - died prematurely (June 12, 1815)
Brother - Kiroku - 1819-1860 - 42
Sister - no name - died prematurely (Aug 4, 1821)
Sister - no name - died prematurely (May 5, 1822)
Sister - Shuu - 1823-1838 - 16
Brother - Daisaku (later Kasuya Ryojyun) - 1828-1877 - 50
Sister - Nobu - 1831-1877 - 47
Hijikata - 1835-1869 - 34

*Hayato - Was this his father's "hidden" name? I just realized that
this was the name Hijikata went by for a short time.

*I have also seen his age given as 42 I thought?


Battle of Matsumae Castle (Hakodate War) -

Basically what I have been able to figure out from a very poor
machine translation of www.tamahito.com is that Enomoto and company
pretty much considered the feudal clan to be under their power. There
was a letter sent which may have indicated as much and did request
that they have a peaceful and cooperative existence for the good of
the Ezo Republic. The clan did not even bother to answer the letter
which made Enomoto angry and he sent Hijikata's army to deal with
them on October 27, 1868. (Recall that this would have been November
or December by the modern calender. There was already much snow on
the ground so it would not have been an easy march for them.)

At some point the clan realized that Hijikata was on his way and
according to the translation, attempted to "assassinate" him before
his troop could reach the castle. Of course it failed. The article
did not elaborate on what they tried to do, but I did find reference
on www.toshizo.com to a surprise attack by night on Hijikata's camp
shortly before they reached Matsumae Castle.

On November 5 he reached the castle, which has one of its sides
facing the sea. At dawn the two sides began to shell one another.
After Hijikata's men had wounded around 30 of their own, the feudal
clan was forced to surrender.

There are two conflicting stories about how Hijikata won the battle.
The first one claims that he saw they opened the castle gate to fire
and would then shut it again. He figured out the timing of it and
sent men to sneak up on both sides of the gate. When the gate was
opened again, they were able to fire into the fort at close range and
cause they to have to surrender.

The other story is said to come from Shimada Kai's diary and is
probably more reliable. He said that Hijikata used a ladder to sneak
people into the castle and attack the from within and this is how
they took the castle.

After the battle many members of the Matsumae clan escaped, setting
fire "to the private house and the village". (Not sure if the bit
about "the private house" means they set their house on fire or if it
simply means they set the whole village on fire.) This action was
later condemned. Enomoto had learned international law and that it
said citizens should not be harmed who were not directly involved in
a war. It seems that he expected his own troops to go by this law
from what this is saying. It further comments that this was a new
idea for Japan and not the old feudal idea.

One final sad note. Apparently the Matsumae clan went to the Tsugaru
clan (?) for help. They had to take a ferry to reach them and the
weather, as I have mentioned, was bad. They had a princess of the
family with them who had TB and ended up dying as a result of the
conditions at the time. She was 25 at the time.

I recall seeing a reference to that trick with the gate in connection
with Utsunomiya Castle as well. I wonder if that could have been
where it really took place and some survivor of both battles got the
two fights mixed up? Also, I would tend to think Shimada would have
known for certain since he was Hijikata's bodyguard at the time
apparently.

I also was reading a bit about the two people who got a letter about
Hijikata's death to his family. The man who wrote it was named
Yasutomi Saisuke and he had taught horsemanship to the Shinsengumi
when they were still in Kyoto. By the time of the Battle of Hakodate
he was Hijikata's aide and was supposed to have been with him during
his last moments. He entrusted a letter with the details of this to a
man named Tachikawa Chikara.

Tachikawa seems to have been a later member, but I cannot tell for
sure. He also appears to have been trying to help Yasutomi to escape
just before the Ezo Republic finally collapsed and was captured. He
was sent to the Akita feudal clan to "behave". The letter was finally
delivered to the Sato house in Hino in 1872. Tachikawa was 68 when he
died in 1903.

As for Yasutomi, he was released in Edo in 1870. However it is said
that he was murdered soon after by another original member of the
Shinsengumi. I could only make out "Abe" for sure. This is probably
Abe Juurou of Ito's group, who would certainly have a motive to kill
anyone closely connected to Hijikata. Yasutomi was 31 when he died.

-MissBehavin