Takasugi Shinsaku (27 September 1839 – 17 May 1867) was a general of the Choshu Domain who fought in the Boshin War. A leader of the Sonno joi movement and the Choshu Domain's chief military tactician, he oversaw the modernization of the Choshu Domain's military in the aftermath of the Bombardment of Shimonoseki and pursued a conciliatory policy towards the Western powers in order to win their support against the Tokugawa Shogunate. He helped to defeat a Shogunate expedition to the Choshu Domain in 1866, and he died of tuberculosis in 1867, a year before the outbreak of the Boshin War.
Biography[]
Takasugi Shinsaku was born in Hagi, Choshu Domain, Japan on 27 September 1839, and he was tutored by Yoshida Shoin and devoted himself to the modernization of Choshu's military. His teacher was arrested and executed during the 1859 Ansei Purge, and Takasugi went on to become a prominent figure in his domain, supporting Japan's isolationism and expelling the foreigners from Japan. In 1862, he visited China amid the Taiping Rebellion to investigate the strength of the Western powers, and he concluded that Japan must strengthen itself in order to fight off Western imperialism. He oversaw the creation of the shotai irregular militia and an elite militia unit known as the Kiheitai, but he was arrested by the pro-Shogunate authorities in 1863. After the Western powers bombarded Shimonoseki that same year, however, the Choshu Domain recalled Takasugi and made him Director of Military Affairs and the chief negotiator with Britain, France, the Netherlands, and America. Shinsaku decided that direct confrontation with the Westerners was impossible, and that Japan had to learn modern military tactics, techniques, and technologies from the West. His shift in rhetoric led to Sonno joi evolving into an anti-Shogunate movement which was no longer averse to cooperating with the West, and his newly-modernized army crushed a pro-Shogunate uprising in March 1865 and defeated the Bakufu's second Choshu expedition in 1866. These victories led to Choshu's traditional rivals, the Satsuma Domain and the Tosa Domain, ultimately agreeing to ally with the Choshu Domain against the Shogunate faction in the Boshin War of 1868-1869. Takasuki died of tuberculosis in Shimonoseki in 1867 at the age of 27, and his protege Yamagata Aritomo would succeed him as the Choshu Domain's chief general.