Yoshida Toyo (1816-5 May 1862) was an official of the Tosa Domain under the Yamanouchi clan. He allied himself with the Tosa Loyalist Party during the Bakumatsu era, but he was assassinated by his pupil Takechi Hanpeita due to his moderate course of action regarding the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Biography[]
Yoshida Toyo was born in 1816 in Kochi, Tosa Domain, Japan. In November 1842 he became a magistrate of the domain under Yamauchi Toyoshige, and in 1853 daimyo Toyoshige appointed Yoshida to modernize his domain. Yoshida privately resented Tosa's rigid class hierarchy, and he cultivated anti-bakufu sentiments among his adoptive sons Sakamoto Ryoma and Takechi Hanpeita, whose Tosa Loyalist Party he supported. In 1862, he planned to help the Loyalists confront the elders of the domain at Kochi Castle and bring about the abolition of Tosa's caste system, but Takechi grew alienated from his adoptive father after he protested at Sakamoto's appointment as party representative. Takechi had Inoue Genzaburo assassinate Toyo at the castle while dressed as a shinobi, and Toyo's death led to Yamauchi cracking down on the Loyalists in 1865.
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