There are three ultimate questions in philosophy: "Who am I?" "Where did I come from?" "Where am I going?" Everyone is a speck of dust in the universe, and in order to figure out the meaning of existence, in 1839, choshu domain in Japan, an interesting soul was born, and in his not very long life, he has been practicing his philosophy of life - making the boring world interesting.
Takasugi's family is still well-off, his father is a local samurai, he can have 200 stone years a year without doing anything, in that era of class solidification, the descendants of samurai are still samurai, can not further enhance their status, but at the same time is not ordinary people can afford to provoke.
As the only son in the family, the clumsy children will not be, but Xiao Takasugi is also a young master in his youth, he is a low-level aristocrat who abounds in the long feudal era, if there is no accident, he will go through his monotonous and carefree life, and then continue to pass on the family's samurai status to the next generation, but unfortunately, the torrent of the times rolls in, and the process of history is not something that individuals can resist.
The year of the weak crown, confused and determined
The most depressed nobles were also nobles, and how could they mix with those "lowly" commoners, so Takasugi, who had high hopes for his father, first went to the clan school "Ming lun hall", but somehow, he later became acquainted with Katsura Kogoro, one of the "Three Masters of the Meiji Restoration", and then by his recommendation, he worshiped Yoshida Shoin as a teacher, and mixed with all kinds of "radical" elements of "Matsushita Private School" all day long.
Yoshida Shoin himself strongly advocated the idea of "honoring the king", especially after the "Black Ship" incident, Takasugi, like other classmates, was convinced of this idea of his teacher, and in 1859 Yoshida Shoin died in the "Ansei Prison", which made the young Takasugi completely disappointed in the decaying shogunate.
The "curtain down" is not a dinner party, it is a revolution, it is a riot, it is a violent action of one class to overthrow another class, and where there is action, there must be a program and a guiding ideology.
In the past few years of study, Takasugi has a lot of thinking about the future of the country, of which the most thought is how to enrich the country and strengthen the army, the specific operation is to open source and reduce expenditure, unify people's hearts, learn Western science and technology, and many of his ideas have also been praised by His mentor Songyin.
Ancient and modern Chinese and foreign dynasties to the end of the period of some of the problems at this time of the shogunate basically have, for example, for the United States to open the "black ship" fart do not dare to put one, said to open the country to open the country.
But for the simple patriotic feelings of the Yi zhishi is a heavy blow, like Yoshida this kind of leadership is naturally to kill a hundred, others can also be caught, Takasugi brain is still relatively flexible, stay in the green mountains, not afraid of no firewood, first run and then say, anyway, there is still some spare money at home, the waves around can also increase insight.
In 1862, choshu domain, as a more enlightened region in Japan, organized a group to prepare for a trip abroad, and Takasugi Shinsaku, who had long wanted to go out to see, was also one of the members of the expedition.
However, the wonderful thing is that it is reasonable to open the eyes to see that the world should go to Europe, after all, their industrial revolution has greatly liberated and developed the productive forces, but the delegation went to Shanghai, China, after thinking carefully, after all, it has been in awe for more than a thousand years, first look at the past that "Datang" seems to have said.
As a local government, the Choshu Domain sent an inspection delegation to Shanghai, and the Qing Empire, which claimed to be a state of ceremonies, should also send corresponding officials to receive it, but there were no official personnel to contact it, on the one hand, because the Tokugawa shogunate had broken off diplomatic relations with the Qing Dynasty after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and on the other hand, the southeastern region of the Qing Empire had fallen, and the Taiping Army was almost about to fight.
Shanghai in 1862 was not yet a "magic capital", just an opening forcibly opened by the Western powers, in the Shanghai concession, high-rise buildings, do not know that they thought they had crossed, but out of the concession, but found that this is the territory of the foreigners.
The people of the Qing Dynasty could not enter, those powerful people of the imperial court were scrambling to be dogs for the great powers, as for the general public, it was naturally life and death, it didn't matter if they died on the street, don't stand in the way of the foreigners.
After staying in Shanghai for more than two months, others were disappointed, because it took so much effort to come and investigate the results of the inspection, this will be China is not as good as Japan, did not expect that this so-called heavenly kingdom is also so unbearable, but Takasugi felt that the harvest was a lot, because he realized that if the Japanese country did not reform, I am afraid that the end would not be as good as China.
He was very glad that he had seen such a scene of heaven and hell as soon as possible, and at the same time, he was sad that the Great Qing Dynasty's Yangyang great power was actually bullied to this point, and Qi Jiguang, who was farther away, pressed Wu Kou to the ground and rubbed it, and Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, who were closer, were also people who opened their eyes to see the world, and as a result, half of the country was almost gone, the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society was not joking, Takasugi woke up and his mentality was a bit broken, and finally returned to Japan by boat, and really embarked on the road of survival.
The division of yi is a master of skills to control the yi, and reform is imminent
After returning to China, Takasugi kept flipping through Wei Yuan's "Atlas of the Sea Country", he had heard this book when he was in Japan, and he had wondered how the country that wrote this book could have fallen to this point, but when he arrived in Shanghai, he found that no one cared about this book at all, and he still found many people to get this book from a friend.
When Takasugi returned, he realized that the individual was actually very small in front of the state apparatus, and even though the shogunate was now terminally ill, the skinny camel was bigger than the horse, and it was a fantasy to have no army of its own! At the same time, Takasugi, who was familiar with the ancient art of war, understood the truth that "no matter how high the kung fu is, he is afraid of kitchen knives", and no matter how many flesh and mortal fetuses are useless in front of the cannons of the great powers, it is necessary to introduce advanced Western technology.
So he began to cooperate with the local clan, on the one hand, secretly importing a large number of Western-style advanced equipment from foreigners, on the other hand, he began to form his own team, and at the same time, from time to time, he assassinated a few foreigners, blew up the embassy, and so on.
However, no matter how low-key, these things are too high-profile, it is difficult not to attract the attention of the shogunate, in 1864, the shogunate rarely rose to the top, the army divided into three ways to attack the "fallen curtain" of the most prosperous Choshu Domain.
As a result, the lords of the Choshu Domain were confused, and they estimated that they only wanted to use foreign forces to overthrow the current shogunate, so that they could bring greater benefits to themselves, and perhaps the next shogunate would be themselves.
As a result, I did not expect that the shogunate was forced to be anxious and there were really two brushes, the Choshu domain was beaten and retreated, and the team of Takasugi and others was not ready, and as a result, the Choshu clan had to execute some of the radical volunteers in exchange for the shogunate's truce, and another failure made Takasugi have to live in seclusion in the mountains, this time it was really secluded, what did not exist, the drama was done enough, he even cut his hair as a monk, showing that he saw through the red dust.
The shogunate is also real, saying that the truce is a truce, there is no sense of crisis at all, which also gives Takasugi more opportunities to prepare, he began to consider the selection of new types of troops, after all, even the most powerful weapons also need people to operate, in order to better recruit soldiers, he began to choose soldiers among the low-level people such as farmers and craftsmen.
After entering the team, they not only taught them how to use the new guns, but also changed them into a new Western-style military uniform, the way of training, and the formation method was almost in accordance with the West, so the famous "Strange Soldier Team" appeared on the stage of history.
Regrettably, he died young and had no chance to witness the New Deal
Takasugi made his third comeback, and this time he encountered little resistance, first seizing the military and political power within the Choshu Domain, then negotiating with the great powers, agreeing to open ports and trade with them while basically maintaining the status of the state, and finally through Sakamoto Ryoma, Katsura Kogoro and others, he successfully formed a "fallen curtain" alliance with Satsuma, Tosa, and Hizen San Francisco, concentrating all his efforts on the shogunate.
In 1865, the shogunate planned to fight a nationwide war against Choshu, and the shogunate was still the same shogunate, but Takasugi was already in a position of victory, and he led the odd troops to continuously defeat the shogunate army in the early small battles.
As the commander of the whole domain, Takasugi also served as the governor of the navy, and he personally commanded the warship "Tokushin maru" to repel the shogunate fleet and won a complete victory, and soon after the shogun to lead the army, Tokugawa Ieshige, died again, and the shogunate had to take advantage of the situation, and after this battle, the shogunate was seriously injured, and soon after the last shogun Tokugawa Keiki had no choice but to implement the "great government and return" and return the power of the state to the emperor.
Unfortunately, Takasugi laid the foundation for all this but did not have the opportunity to see the new Japan after the Meiji Restoration, perhaps he hung his breath to see the fall of the shogunate, perhaps it was really the task given to him by the heavens had been completed, in short, on the eve of the "Great Political Return", Takasugi Shinsaku contracted the terminal illness of the time - tuberculosis, and soon after died under the kneeling of all the Members of the Strange Soldiers, leaving an intriguing sentence before dying, "Let this boring world be interesting."
The modern history of Japan is also singable and weeping, with the benevolent men led by Takasugi Shinsaku going forward for the future of the country, and although Takasugi's life was short, although there were some regrets, his ideas had a far-reaching impact.
In particular, the establishment of the Ghost Army opened the precedent of Japan's modern army, and its follower Itō Hirobumi created a modern political system in Japan, and after his death, Katsura Kogoro and others asked Takasugi to enter the Yasukuni Shrine to receive commendations and worship by posterity.
But from another point of view, it is also a kind of luck for Takasugi not to see that Japan later embarked on a more crazy path, I don't know how he has a spirit in the sky, and seeing more and more "war maniacs" are also sent to the Yasukuni Shrine and enjoying the worship of future generations with him.