I wanted to resurrect this post because M did some research and found
a nice "artifact" for us.
This goes waaay back to a post from last year...
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SHQ/message/2780 (MAY 2006)
by Hirotada Tokugawa
"Yamakawa Kenjiro wrote a letter to Nagakura's son, "The Issue
Concerning
Those Responsible for Sakamoto Ryoma's Murder"-- and says that he
doesn't
believe that it was Harada. (pp. 238-241)"
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Additional translation (AUGUST 2007)
"However, Harada Sanosuke (Shinsengumi personnel) was not the man who
murdered [Ryoma]"
"I [Yamakawa] was still young at the time, but I've asked older
people, and they all say it was the work of former Aizu retainer
Sasaki Tadasaburo, who worked for the shogunate and was the leader of
Mimawarigumi."
Source:
Nagakura Shinpachi, Shinsengumi Tenmatsu-ki. Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu
Oraisha,
2003.
Basically Yamakawa (Yamagawa) Kenjiro, Aizu retainer and good friend
of Fujita Goro (Saitou Hajime) was also in contact with Nagakura's
son as well. So aside from being deeply involved in post 1868 Aizu
affairs, Yamakawa obviously concerned himself with Shinsengumi issues.
Yamakawa is the most famous Aizu samurai in the Meiji era (although
his sister was also very well known too)...his influence extends well
beyond academia because he was also an advisor to RIKEN Labs and was
even involved the negotiation between the Brits and Japanese Naval
agreement in the 20th century.
I wrote an article about his other interests here:
http://www.shinsengumihq.com/unmaskmeijipsychology.html
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M found some correspondences between Yamakawa and an American at the
New York Public Library and scanned his sig for us
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UBZ297WI
The New York Public Library does not allow for reproduction of their
material, therefore we had to put it on Megaupload so the link/image
expires in 7 days.
We have alot of info on people like Yamakawa and soon
http://www.shinsengumihq.com will be back up functioning at full
capacity
You may preview the new site complete with search features and
sitemap at the site.