Re: Nakaota Shintaro

I was looking up info. about Ryoma Sakamoto and came across another perosn that is mentioned with him (maybe only because the two were assassinated together). A Nakaoka Shintaro, but I can't seem to find any information about Shintaro. Can anyone tell me anything about this man?

-Gladys
a.k.a, Bunneh


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Hi,

I don't have much info on him yet because I have yet to finish reading that
Sakamoto Ryoma book. I can tell you a little bit about him up until about
autumn of 1863... (Please note that the book does make mistakes, so some of this
could possibly be wrong.)

-Called "Shinta" by his friends.
-1st son of a powerful village headman in the mountainous district of Aki. His
family had been rewarded with the right to wear two swords and have a
surname years before.
-He was one of the leading disciples of Takechi Hanpeita. (commonly referred
to as Zuizan). This is how he orginally knew Ryoma, who had started out as
Takechi's right-hand man in his Tosa Loyalists Party.
-Began his formal education early in childhood under a Buddhist priest.
-Later studied under a doctor of Chinese medicine and taught at this man's
academy at age 14.
-Then moved to Kochi and entered Takechi's dojo. At age 20 he was studying
literature, philosophy, and fencing under "Master Zuizan".
-By the end of August, 1863 he realized that it was no longer safe for
Loyalists in Tosa. He urged Takechi to get their men out of the han, but the other
refused to believe that Lord Yamanouchi Yodo was not on their side. Nakaoka
then made up an excuse that he wanted to see what the situation in Choshu was and
left the han. (Choshu had just that month been driven out of the Imperial
court by the Satsuma-Aizu alliance.)

I am not sure how he hooked back up with Ryoma later on. Again, I have yet to
read that far. It was fairly well known though that Ryoma was working at the
Kobe Naval Academy under Katsu Kaishu however. I do know that they worked very
closely together on several schemes later on and he was indeed assassinated
with Ryoma. He lingered for two days and was able to give some account of what
happened that night, but did not know the identity of the men who had attacked
them.

Of course the Shinsengumi were blamed for the murders and Kondo was later
executed for this crime.


A word about who Takechi was - He ran a dojo in Kochi, taught Japanese and
Chinese history and philosphy with an emphasis on Confucianism, and was the
leader of the Tosa Loyalist Party. He was also a good friend of Ryoma's. In fact
he was the one who introduced him to Katsura and Takasugi of Choshu clan. But
Ryoma had a very unique way of thinking for a man of his era and this caused
him to eventually abandon Tosa han. He and Takechi never really saw eye to eye
after that.

Takechi went on to have han regent Yoshida Toyo murdered. At this time the
proper lord, Yamanouchi Yodo, was still under housearrest from the Ansei Purge
of Ii Naosuke, so this was the official running things in Tosa. Through
manipulating the replacement officials he became almost the defacto leader of the
han. Later when the clan was in Kyoto he ordered a great many of the
assassinations (often carried out by the infamous hitokiri Okada Izo) that had the Bakufu
so terrified that they eventually called up a group of ronin from Edo to deal
with the problem...

Unfortunately for Takechi, Yamanouchi eventually took back control of his han
in April, 1863 and ordered everyone back to Tosa. Once the Bakufu was in
charge at the Imperial Court again he began hunting down those he felt was
responsible for the death of Regent Yoshida. Despite numerous warnings Takechi
refused to believe that Yamanouchi was not a Loyalist at heart and remained in the
han, confident that the murder could not be traced back to him or his men. He
was arrested in September of 1863. Again, I have yet to read that far into the
book, but I believe he was executed not too long after this.

Hope this helps some.

-MissB


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Thank you so very beyond much Miss B. This is indeed a ton more then I've been able to find on the internet. Now I have to get my lil paws on that book to see what else I can get out of it...

Ya, anyways, as far as the Mimawarigumi, I don't believe that there has been any discription of a unifrom (if any at all). The best thing you could probably do is make them wear a the same color hakama and/or gii. The gii would probably have a distinctive pattern on it (common, but distinctive). Mmm... thats the best thing you can do ^^;;;;

-Gladys
(Bunneh)


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