Hijikata Toshizō

On the fifth day of the fifth month of Tenpō 6, a boy was born into the Hijikata family of Ishida village, in the Tama district of Musashi Province. His childhood name was Toshizō—written differently from the Toshizō he would later sign. Ages in this account follow the reckoning of the day: a child counts as one year old at birth and gains a year at each New Year.

The Hijikata were among the wealthiest farming families in the village, and he is said to have been the youngest of ten children. His father died of illness before he was born, and his mother when he was about six. The youngest was raised, we are told, by his second brother Kiroku, who had taken over the house, and Kiroku's wife.

On the twenty-third day of the second month of Bunkyū 3, the Rōshigumi reached Kyoto and were assigned lodgings in Mibu, a village on the city's western edge. It had been some two weeks on the road from Edo. Toshizō was one of the rank and file, holding no post of any kind.

Soon after they arrived, Kiyokawa Hachirō, the man who had proposed the Rōshigumi, made an announcement to them all. The corps, he said, was not the shogun's: it was a force of the imperial court. And it would be going back to Edo. Most of those who had been gathered would follow him east.

Genji 1. The Shinsengumi were still quartered at Mibu. Their numbers grew a little at a time, and the men came from every kind of background—masterless samurai, and sons of farmers too. Hijikata Toshizō turned thirty that year, by the old count.

To hold men of such different birth and upbringing together as one unit, there had to be rules. The Shinsengumi had prohibitions every member was bound by. According to what Nagakura Shinpachi said many years later, there were four. To go against the way of the samurai. To leave the corps. To raise money on one's own account. To take up lawsuits on one's own account.

In the second month of Genji 2, Yamanami Keisuke, the Shinsengumi's general manager, left the quarters. He was heading for Edo, it is said. Under the corps' rules, leaving the corps was forbidden. Yamanami was brought back.

Yamanami had been one of them since the days of the Shieikan. When the Mibu Rōshigumi was formed, the two men named as vice-commanders, it is said, were Yamanami and Hijikata. Now the rules were applied to Yamanami exactly as written. On the twenty-third day of the second month, Yamanami Keisuke committed seppuku.

In the third month of Keiō 3, Itō Kashitarō, the Shinsengumi's staff officer, left the corps. He did not go alone. Tōdō Heisuke, Shinohara Tainoshin, Kanō Washio, Hattori Takeo, Mōnai Arinosuke and others went with him, and they took the name Goryō Eji—Guards of the Imperial Tomb. They were also known as the Kōdaiji faction.

Tōdō Heisuke had been one of the Shieikan men who came up from Edo to Kyoto together in the spring of Bunkyū 3. Someone who had slept under the same roof for four years now moved over to a side that went by another name.

On the third day of the first month of Keiō 4, fighting broke out at Toba and Fushimi between the old shogunate's forces and the new government's army. The Shinsengumi held the Fushimi magistrate's office. With Kondō wounded in the shoulder, it was Hijikata who commanded them.

The fighting went on until the sixth, and the old shogunate's side was beaten. On the fifth, Inoue Genzaburō was killed at Senryōmatsu near Yodo. He came from Hino, the same post town, and had gone up to Kyoto with them in Bunkyū 3. Yamazaki Susumu, it is said, also died around this time.

In the fourth month of Keiō 4, after Kondō Isami gave himself up at Nagareyama, Hijikata Toshizō turned north. On the twelfth he joined the former shogunate's army under Ōtori Keisuke at Kōnodai in Shimōsa. In its forward column, it is said, he served in something like the role of chief of staff. He was thirty-four by the old count.

On the nineteenth the army fell on Utsunomiya Castle and took it before the day was out. The man who had kept a corps in line in Kyoto was now the one pushing ranks of infantry forward. He still wore his sword, but what decided the fighting was a line of men with rifles.

On the fifteenth day of the twelfth month of Meiji 1, a ceremony of celebration was held in Hakodate. The consuls of the foreign powers were invited, and the former shogunate's side showed that it had set up a way of governing Ezo.

Offices were decided by a ballot among those of officer rank and above. Enomoto Takeaki became president; Ōtori Keisuke became army magistrate. Hijikata became deputy army magistrate, and with it he also took charge of keeping order in the town of Hakodate and headed the army and navy court.